faith destroying the certainty of the senses, to call in question
the faithful report of the senses would lead to the destruction of
faith. It is on this principle that St. Thomas explicitly states
that God has been pleased that the sensible accidents should subsist
in the eucharist, in order that the senses, which judge only of
these accidents, might not be deceived.

    We conclude, therefore, from this, that whatever the proposition
may be that is submitted to our examination, we must first determine
its nature, to ascertain to which of those three principles it ought
to be referred. If it relate to a supernatural truth, we must judge of
it neither by the senses nor by reason, but by Scripture and the
decisions of the Church. Should it concern an unrevealed truth and
something within the reach of natural reason, reason must be its
proper judge. And if it embrace a point of fact, we must yield to
the testimony of the senses, to which it naturally belongs to take
cognizance of such matters.

    So general is this rule that, according to St. Augustine and St.
Thomas, when we meet with a passage even in the Scripture, the literal
meaning of which, at first sight, appears contrary to what the
senses or reason are certainly persuaded of, we must not attempt to
reject their testimony in this case, and yield them up to the
authority of that apparent sense of the Scripture, but we must
interpret the Scripture, and seek out therein another sense
agreeable to that sensible truth; because, the Word of God being
infallible in the facts which it records, and the information of the
senses and of reason, acting in their sphere, being certain also, it
follows that there must be an agreement between these two sources of
knowledge. And as Scripture may be interpreted in different ways,
whereas the testimony of the senses is uniform, we must in these
matters adopt as the true interpretation of Scripture that view
which corresponds with the faithful report of the senses. "Two
things," says St. Thomas, "must be observed, according to the doctrine
of St. Augustine: first, That Scripture has always one true sense; and
secondly, That as it may receive various senses, when we have
discovered one which reason plainly teaches to be false, we must not
persist in maintaining that this is the natural sense, but search
out another with which reason will agree.

    St. Thomas explains his meaning by the example of a passage in
Genesis where it is written that "God created two great lights, the
sun and the moon, and also the stars," in which the Scriptures
appear to say that the moon is greater than all the stars; but as it
is evident, from unquestionable demonstration, that this is false,
it is not our duty, says that saint, obstinately to defend the literal
sense of that passage; another meaning must be sought, consistent with
the truth of the fact, such as the following, "That the phrase great
light, as applied to the moon, denotes the greatness of that
luminary merely as it appears in our eyes, and not the magnitude of
its body considered in itself."

    An opposite mode of treatment, so far from procuring respect to
the Scripture, would only expose it to the contempt of infidels;
because, as St. Augustine says, "when they found that we believed,
on the authority of Scripture, in things which they assuredly knew
to be false, they would laugh at our credulity with regard to its more
recondite truths, such as the resurrection of the dead and eternal
life." "And by this means," adds St. Thomas, "we should render our
religion contemptible in their eyes, and shut up its entrance into
their minds.

    And let me add, father, that it would in the same manner be the
likeliest means to shut up the entrance of Scripture into the minds of
heretics, and to render the pope's authority contemptible in their
eyes, to refuse all those the name of Catholics who would not
believe that certain words were in a certain book, where they are
not to be found, merely because a pope by mistake has declared that
they are. It is only by examining a book that we can ascertain what
words it contains. Matters of fact can only be proved by the senses.
If the position which you maintain be true, show it, or else ask no
man to believe it- that would be to no purpose. Not all the powers
on earth can, by the force of authority, persuade us of a point of
fact, any more than they can alter it; for nothing can make that to be
not which really is.

    It was to no purpose, for example, that the monks of Ratisbon
procured from Pope St. Leo IX a solemn decree, by which he declared
that the body of St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, who is
generally held to have been the Areopagite, had been transported out
of France and conveyed into the chapel of their monastery. It is not
the less true, for all this, that the body of that saint always lay,
and lies to this hour, in the celebrated abbey which bears his name,
and within the walls of which you would find it no easy matter to
obtain a cordial reception to this bull, although the pope has therein
assured us that he has examined the affair "with all possible
diligence (diligentissime), and with the advice of many bishops and
prelates; so that he strictly enjoins all the French (districte
praecipientes) to own and confess that these holy relics are no longer
in their country." The French, however, who knew that fact to be
untrue, by the evidence of their own eyes, and who, upon opening the
shrine, found all those relics entire, as the historians of that
period inform us, believed then, as they have always believed since,
the reverse of what that holy pope had enjoined them to believe,
well knowing that even saints and prophets are liable to be imposed
upon.

    It was to equally little purpose that you obtained against Galileo
a decree from Rome condemning his opinion respecting the motion of the
earth. It will never be proved by such an argument as this that the