Pontiff and appeal from them to a General Council, as to a higher judge of controversies, forasmuch as their error comes not from the intellect, but from perversity of will. There is a difference, also, between a definition of the infallibility of the Pope and that of any other Christian doctrine. In the latter case, the authority of the Church may be sufficient to overcome any doubt. In the former it is the authority itself, the principle of all certainty in faith, which is in question. Would it not, therefore, be more prudent to spare the weakness of those who are not yet able to bear this definition?
X. It may be feared also, lest, by a perversion of the true sense of such a decree, some may be induced to despise the authority given by our Lord to bishops, especially in the condemnation of rash and pernicious opinions in philosophy and theology.
XI. Again it may be feared lest bishops, whom for some years the Holy See has been calling into activity, by discouraging them from sending to Rome in the first instance all doubts about books and matters of which it is their office to judge, might by such a definition be rendered more slack and backward in exercising their episcopal office of judges of doctrine.
XII. It soon, probably, would follow from such a definition, by reason of the nature of man, that not only matter of doctrine on which the supreme decision of the Church is desired, but other kinds of business also, would be sent to Rome for decision, so that everything would crowd in upon the centre of unity. And great as are the experience, prudence, and authority of the Roman congregations, such a course would not be for the prosperity of the Universal Church; for the Church, as the Holy Ghost teaches, is a body, but the health of a body depends on the force and motion of all and each of the members. "If all were one member, where were the body?" (1 Cor. xii. 19). Nobody doubts that the chief member of the body is the head, and that in it, as in its centre and seat, the vital force and guidance reside; and yet no one will say that the soul resides in the head alone, which is rather diffused as its form throughout the members of the whole body.
