Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches

The History of Freedom, and Other Essays

Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

Chapters

15. Chapter 15

Two other pieces are extant, which were printed at the Stamperia Camerale, and show what was believed at Rome. One is in the shape of a letter written at Lyons in the midst of s...

3. Chapter 3

What Acton feared and hated was the claim of absolutism to crush the individuality and destroy the conscience of men. It was indifferent to him whether this claim was exercised...

2. Chapter 2

To understand the ardour of his efforts it is necessary to bear in mind the world into which he was born, and the crises intellectual, religious, and political which he lived to...

14. Chapter 14

The Court had determined to enforce unity of faith in France. An edict of toleration was issued for the purpose of lulling the Huguenots; but it was well known that it was only...

46. Chapter 46

Everybody has felt that his power was out of proportion to his work, and that he knew too much to write. It was so much better to hear him than to read all his books, that the m...

44. Chapter 44

The war of 1859, portending danger to the temporal power, disclosed divided counsels. The episcopate supported the papal sovereignty, and a voluntary tribute, which in a few yea...

49. Chapter 49

This is the principle which has so much difficulty in obtaining recognition in an age when science is more or less irreligious, and when Catholics more or less neglect its study...

4. Chapter 4

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. The S...

53. Chapter 53

The resources of mediæval learning were too slender to preserve an authentic record of the growth and settlement of Catholic doctrine. Many writings of the Fathers were interpol...

52. Chapter 52

Fessler, the first bishop who gave the signal of the intended definition, was appointed Secretary. He was esteemed a learned man in Austria, and he was wisely chosen to dispel t...

54. Chapter 54

At the opening of the Council the known opposition consisted of four men. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had not published his opinion, but he made it known as soon as he came to Rome....

48. Chapter 48

Such is the substance of those principles which shut out _The Home and Foreign Review_ from the sympathies of a large portion of the body to which we belong. In common with no s...

42. Chapter 42

In politics, as in religion, he made the past a law for the present, and resisted doctrines which are ready-made, and are not derived from experience. Consequently, he undervalu...

11. Chapter 11

It was long before the democratic element in Presbyterianism began to tell. The Netherlands resisted Philip II. for fifteen years before they took courage to depose him, and the...

9. Chapter 9

I do not like to conclude without inviting attention to the impressive fact that so much of the hard fighting, the thinking, the enduring that has contributed to the deliverance...

30. Chapter 30

We cannot be surprised that Protestants do not know the Church better than we do ourselves, or that, while we allow no evil to be spoken of her human elements, those who deem he...

8. Chapter 8

Monarchy exerted a charm over the imagination, so unlike the unceremonious spirit of the Middle Ages, that, on learning the execution of Charles I., men died of the shock; and t...

39. Chapter 39

The burdens of the State increased far beyond its resources from the aid which the Popes gave to the Catholic Powers, especially in the Turkish wars. At the beginning of the sev...

51. Chapter 51

And already it seems to have arrived. All that is being done for ecclesiastical learning by the priesthood of the Continent bears testimony to the truths which are now called in...

5. Chapter 5

For a time the Senate, representing the ancient and threatened order of things, was strong enough to overcome every popular leader that arose, until Julius Cæsar, supported by a...

55. Chapter 55

Early in December the Archbishop of Mechlin brought out a reply to the letter of the Bishop of Orleans, who immediately prepared a rejoinder, but could not obtain permission to...

32. Chapter 32

Christianity rejoices at the mixture of races, as paganism identifies itself with their differences, because truth is universal, and errors various and particular. In the ancien...

31. Chapter 31

Roman Gaul had so thoroughly adopted the ideas of absolute authority and undistinguished equality during the five centuries between Cæsar and Clovis, that the people could never...

29. Chapter 29

There are, however, two things to be considered in explanation of the error into which our author and so many others have fallen. Law follows life, but not with an equal pace. T...

47. Chapter 47

How this innocent statement has come to be suspected of a hostile intent, and to be classed with the calumnies of _The Patrie_, is another question. The disposition with which t...

7. Chapter 7

The ablest writer of the Ghibelline party was Marsilius of Padua. "Laws," he said, "derive their authority from the nation, and are invalid without its assent. As the whole is g...

20. Chapter 20

The position of OEcolampadius in reference to these questions was altogether singular and exceptional. He dreaded the absorption of the ecclesiastical functions by the State, an...

6. Chapter 6

But in all that I have been able to cite from classical literature, three things are wanting,--representative government, the emancipation of the slaves, and liberty of conscien...

38. Chapter 38

Theology has become believing in Germany, but it is very far from being orthodox. No writer is true to the literal teaching of the symbolical books, and for a hundred years the...

40. Chapter 40

The tyrannical character of the Piedmontese Government, its contempt for the sanctity of public law, the principles on which it treats the clergy at home, and the manner in whic...

27. Chapter 27

The general result and moral of his book is excellent. He shows that the land-question has been from the beginning the great difficulty in Ireland; and he concludes with a conde...

45. Chapter 45

The question came forward in France in the wake of the temporal power. Liberal defenders of a government which made a principle of persecution had to decide whether they approve...

10. Chapter 10

The main point in the method of Socrates was essentially democratic. He urged men to bring all things to the test of incessant inquiry, and not to content themselves with the ve...

23. Chapter 23

The view we are discussing is one founded on timidity and a desire of peace. But peace is not a good great enough to be purchased by such sacrifices. We must be prepared to do b...

59. Chapter 59

No propositions are simpler or more comprehensive than the two, that an incorrigible misbeliever ought to burn, or that the man who burns him ought to hang. The world as expande...

41. Chapter 41

Döllinger was more in earnest than others in regarding Christianity as history, and in pressing the affinity between catholic and historical thought. Systems were to him nearly...

18. Chapter 18

[Footnote 180: Le Cardinal Barberini, que je tiens pour Serviteur du Roy, a parlé franchement sur ceste affaire, et m'a dit qu'il croyoit presqu'impossible qu'il se trouve jamai...

26. Chapter 26

The national movement which united, first Italy and then Germany, opened a new era for Machiavelli. He had come down, laden with the distinctive reproach of abetting despotism;...

58. Chapter 58

Mr. Lea does not love to recognise the existence of much traditional toleration. Few lights are allowed to deepen his shadows. If a stream of tolerant thought descended from the...

50. Chapter 50

The errors of Dr. Frohschammer in these passages are not exclusively his own. He has only drawn certain conclusions from premisses which are very commonly received. Nothing is m...

33. Chapter 33

The _Symbolik_ of Möhler was suggested by the beginning of that movement of revival and resuscitation amongst the Protestants, of which Döllinger now surveys the fortunes and th...

12. Chapter 12

Since the Revolution of July and the Presidency of Jackson gave the impulse which has made democracy preponderate, the ablest political writers, Tocqueville, Calhoun, Mill, and...

34. Chapter 34

Concerning another part of this book I have a few words to say. I have given a survey of all the Churches and ecclesiastical communities now existing. The obligation of attempti...

16. Chapter 16

The applause which greeted their fate came not from the Catholics generally, nor from the Catholics alone. While the Protestants were ready to palliate or excuse it, the majorit...

43. Chapter 43

He was moved, not by the gleam of reform after the conclave of Pius IX., but by Pius VII. The impression made upon him by the character of that pope, and his resistance to Napol...

57. Chapter 57

The book begins with a survey of all that led to the growth of heresy, and to the creation, in the thirteenth century, of exceptional tribunals for its suppression. There can be...

25. Chapter 25

It was still unprinted when Pole had it pressed on his attention by Cromwell, and Brosch consequently suspects the story. Upon the death of Clement, Pole opened the attack; but...

1. Chapter 1

Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available...

19. Chapter 19

The chief object of the severity thus recommended was, of course, efficaciously to promote the end for which Government itself was held to be instituted. The clergy had authorit...

35. Chapter 35

In the twelfth century--not, as is commonly supposed, in the time of Photius and Cerularius, for religious communion continued to subsist between the Latins and the Greeks at Co...

60. Chapter 60

Mr. Bryce's work has received a hearty welcome in its proper hemisphere, and I know not that any critic has doubted whether the pious founder, with the dogma of unbroken continu...

13. Chapter 13

When Charles IX. began to be his own master he seemed resolved to follow his father and grandfather in their hostility to the Spanish Power. He wrote to a trusted servant that a...

22. Chapter 22

[Footnote 278: "Sur ce que je vous avais allégué, quo David nous instruict par son exemple de haïr les ennemis de Dieu, vous respondez que c'estoit pour ce temps-là duquel sous...

24. Chapter 24

As no form of government is in itself incompatible with tyranny, either of a person or a principle, nor necessarily inconsistent with liberty, there is no natural hostility or a...

28. Chapter 28

Pecuniary composition for blood belongs to an advanced period of defined and regular criminal jurisprudence. In the lowest form of civil society, when the State is not yet disti...

36. Chapter 36

The independence of the Church, through that of her Supreme Pontiff, is as nearly connected with political as with religious liberty, since the ecclesiastical system which rejec...

17. Chapter 17

[Footnote 103: The charge against the clergy of Bordeaux is brought by D'Aubigné (_Histoire Universelle_, ii. 27) and by De Thou. De Thou was very hostile to the Jesuits, and hi...

61. Chapter 61

The one writer whom Dr. Flint refuses to criticise, because he too nearly agrees with him, is Renouvier. Taking this avowal in conjunction with two or three indiscretions on oth...

63. Chapter 63

Ferralz, despatches of, on attitude of Roman Court to the St. Bartholomew, unused, 102 quarrels of, with the Cardinal of Lorraine, 129 true particulars of the Navarre marriage a...

64. Chapter 64

Lamennais and the Church, condemnation and fall, and cause of the latter, 398, 465, 466-73 conflict with Rome, 462-473 classed as Ultramontane, 451 endeavours of, to exalt Rome,...

65. Chapter 65

Orleans, Bishop of, attitude of, to papal infallibility, 228, 316, 515, 523, 524 at Council of Bishops, 1867., 500 patriotism of (1862), 445 permission refused to, for publicati...

62. Chapter 62

Catherine de' Medici, Queen-Mother of France, advisers urging, to destroy Coligny and his party, 108-9 & _notes_ challenge of, to Queen Elizabeth, 122 children of, trained on Ma...

21. Chapter 21

[Footnote 209: "Principes nostri non cogunt ad fidem et Evangelion, sed cohibent externas abominationes" (De Wette, iii. 50). "Wenn die weltliche Obrigkeit die Verbrechen wider...

37. Chapter 37

In America it is rare to find people who are openly irreligious. Except some of the Germans, all Protestants generally admit the truth of Christianity and the authority of Scrip...

66. Chapter 66

Santa Croce, Nuncio, information derived from, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 102; on the plans framed at Bayonne against Huguenots, 108 & _note_, 108-9 alleged report by,...

56. Chapter 56

[Footnote 382: Cum in professione fidei electi pontificis damnetur Honorius Papa, ideo quia pravis haereticorum assertionibus fomentum impendit, si verba delineata sint vere in...