unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which
the Anglican could not exhibit, that modern Rome was in truth ancient
Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve
has its own law and expression.

5. And thus again I was led on to examine more attentively what I doubt
not was in my thoughts long before, viz. the concatenation of argument
by which the mind ascends from its first to its final religious idea;
and I came to the conclusion that there was no medium, in true
philosophy, between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly
consistent mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself here
below, must embrace either the one or the other. And I hold this still:
I am a Catholic by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am asked
why I believe in a God, I answer that it is because I believe in myself,
for I feel it impossible to believe in my own existence (and of that
fact I am quite sure) without believing also in the existence of Him,
who lives as a Personal, All-seeing, All-judging Being in my conscience.
Now, I dare say, I have not expressed myself with philosophical
correctness, because I have not given myself to the study of what
metaphysicians have said on the subject; but I think I have a strong
true meaning in what I say which will stand examination.

6. Moreover, I found a corroboration of the fact of the logical
connexion of Theism with Catholicism in a consideration parallel to that
which I had adopted on the subject of development of doctrine. The fact
of the operation from first to last of that principle of development in
the truths of Revelation, is an argument in favour of the identity of
Roman and Primitive Christianity; but as there is a law which acts upon
the subject-matter of dogmatic theology, so is there a law in the matter
of religious faith. In the first chapter of this Narrative I spoke of
certitude as the consequence, divinely intended and enjoined upon us, of
the accumulative force of certain given reasons which, taken one by one,
were only probabilities. Let it be recollected that I am historically
relating my state of mind, at the period of my life which I am
surveying. I am not speaking theologically, nor have I any intention of
going into controversy, or of defending myself; but speaking
historically of what I held in 1843-4, I say, that I believed in a God
on a ground of probability, that I believed in Christianity on a
probability, an