eral sentiment which
presses itself upon every conscientious reader of religious history.

The argument that the voice of the Church is to be sought in general
councils is absurd. To maintain that a council has any other function
than to assure and certify the Pope, when he chooses to strengthen his
judgment or to satisfy his doubts, is to destroy visible unity. Suppose
there to be an equal division of votes, as happened in the famous case
of Fenelon, and might as well happen in a general council, the doubt
would after all be solved by the final vote of the Pope. And 'what is
doubtful for twenty selected men is doubtful for the whole human race.
Those who suppose that by multiplying the deliberating voices doubt is
lessened, must have very little knowledge of men, and can never have sat
in a deliberative body.' Again, supposing there to present itself one of
those questions of divine metaphysics that it is absolutely necessary to
refer to the decision of the supreme tribunal. Then our interest is not
that it should be decided in such or such a manner, but that it should
be decided without delay and without appeal. Besides, the world is now
grown too vast for general councils, which seem to be made only for the
youth of Christianity. In fine, why pursue futile or mischievous
discussions as to whether the Pope is above the Council or the Council
above the Pope? In ordinary questions in which a king is conscious of
sufficient light, he decides them himself, while the others in which he
is not conscious of this light, he transfers to the States-General
presided over by himself, but he is equally sovereign in either case. So
with the Pope and the Council. Let us be content to know, in the words
of Thomassin,[19] that 'the Pope in the midst of his Council is above
himself, and that the Council decapitated of its chief is below him.'

The point so constantly dwelt upon by Bossuet, the obligation of the
canons upon the Pope, was of very little worth in De Maistre's judgment,
and he almost speaks with disrespect of the great Catholic defender for
being so prolix and pertinacious in elaborating it. Here again he finds
in Thomassin the most concise statement of what he held to be the true
view, just as he does in the controversy as to the relative superiority
of the Pope or the Council. 'There is only an apparent contradiction,'
says Thomassin, 'between saying that the Pope is above the canons, and
that he is bound by them; that h