io2 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES, 



according to the needs of the time and the circum- 

 stances of the Christian world.* If, then, these decrees 

 against the Copernican theory of astronomy have 

 been practically repealed by a decision no less formal 

 than that which called them originally into existence, 

 it is certain that Borne, who knows her own mind as 

 well after the lapse of two hundred years as after that 

 of seventeen years, considered them as appertaining 

 to the province of discipline and not to that of 

 dogma. 



Moreover, Pius IX., when addressing the Arch- 

 bishop of Munich, must have been well aware of the 

 above-named facts, and when he enunciated the 

 simple rule that good Catholics ought to submit in 

 conscience to the doctrinal decrees of the Roman 

 Congregations indeed, how can any one imagine the 

 rule to be anything else ? he must in common 

 sense be understood to be speaking of decrees wholly 

 different in scope and character from those relating 

 to the case of Galileo and the system of Copernicus. 



It must, nevertheless, be observed that an argu- 

 ment has been adduced by Mr. Roberts, and repeated 

 even by so eminent a writer as Mr. Mivart, as if 

 it were something that threw a new and important 

 light on the subject. It is that Pope Alexander 



* I must not be understood as implying that even doctrinal 

 decisions promulgated by the Eoman Congregations in their own 

 name are considered by theologians to be infallible; such character 

 belonging only to decisions addressed by the Pope himself to the 

 Church. 



