THE immediate object of this work is to investigate by the light of history those questions which, we are credibly iniormed, are to be decided at the Ecumenical Council already announced. And as we have endeavoured to fulfil this task by direct reference to original authorities, it is not perhaps too much to hope that our labours will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a contribution to Ecclesiastical History. But this work aims also at something more than the mere calm and aimless exhibition of historical events ; the reader will readily perceive that it has a far wider scope, and deals with ecclesiastical politics, in one word, that it is a pleading for very life, an appeal to the thinkers among believing Christians, a protest based on history against a menacing future, against the programme of a powerful coalition, at one time openly proclaimed, at another more darkly insinuated, and which thousands of busy hands are daily and hourly employed in carrying out. We have written under a deep sense of anxiety in presence of a serious danger, threatening primarily the internal condition of the Catholic Church, and then as is inevitable with what affects a corporation including 180 millions of men—destined to assume vaster dimensions, and take the shape of a great social problem, which cannot be without its influence on ecclesiastical communities and nations outside the Catholic Church.
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