160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



erudite and virtuous. Such concessions are marks of mental ob- 

 tuseness or moral weakness, and ought never to be made. 



Again, Cantu is censured for questioning the strictly historical 

 character of hagiological narrations, and for assuming that many 

 of the stories told of St. George, John of Neponuk, Hermenigilda, 

 and other canonized persons, are mere legends ; also for animad- 

 verting on some of the actions attributed to the saints as un- 

 worthy of holy men. 



Cantii maintains that the Spanish, unlike the Roman Inquisi- 

 tion, was an institution not of the Church but of the state, and 

 therefore feels himself more at liberty in describing and condemn- 

 ing its proceedings. Brunengo declares this view to be wholb 

 untenable, and proves conclusively that the Inquisition in Spa?" 

 was not a political but an ecclesiastical tribunal, created and con- 

 ducted by the apostolical authority of the Pope in the interests <_ 

 the Roman hierarchy. 



Having settled this point, he asserts, in opposition to Cantu, 

 that the Inquisition was an immense boon to Spain, and that 

 whatever material loss may have been incurred by the expulsion 

 of the Moors and other skillful and thrifty artisans was more 

 than made good to the nation by the great treasure of religious 

 unity which the Holy Office secured. 



So, too, the right of the Pope to depose sovereigns and to ab- 

 solve their subjects from allegiance rests upon the supreme and 

 universal dominion conferred by Christ upon his vicar, and can 

 not be changed by circumstances nor abrogated by human enact- 

 ments. The same holds true of the temporal sovereignty of thf. 

 Pope, which ungodly revolutions and sacrilegious usurpatioL 

 may put temporarily in abeyance, but can never annul and per- 

 manently abolish. 



Still more antagonistic to the enlightened spirit of the age is 

 Brunengo's defense of the reality of witchcraft and diabolical 

 possession as dogmas of the Catholic Church. He sharply re- 

 bukes Cantu for treating this belief as an " error," and adds : 

 " There are one hundred and three papal bulls which served in- 

 quisitors as a rule of procedure in prosecutions for witchcraft, 

 magic, and other sorceries. If the Popes, who published these 

 edicts, had doubted even for a moment the truth and reality of 

 the enormities ascribed to magic ; if they had believed with Cantu 

 or entertained the slightest suspicion that the belief in a direc-'" 

 intercourse of the devil with man is a mere fancy or illusion, the> 

 would have expressed themselves very differently in those bulls, 

 and endeavored to explain to the faithful the vanity and inanity 

 of all magic arts. But because they had no doubt of the reality 

 of these things they used an entirely different language. Now, 

 whom are we to believe — Cantu, who absolutely contests the actu- 



