The policy hitherto pursued by the Jesuits and the _Curia_ was, first to extend to the utmost the comprehensive office of the Church, as legislator for the nations and guardian of faith and morals; and then, by making the Pope absolute master and dictator of the Church, to assign to him all that had been claimed for the Church, so that he—acting of course in the interests of religion and morality, but simply according to his own good pleasure—should have every office, person and institution subject to him, and that the final appeal in every cause should lie to his tribunal. Since all this can only be secured and guaranteed by the infallibilist dogma, the inferences on the relations of Church and State drawn by the opposing Bishops form precisely the chief recommendation of that dogma in the eyes of the Legates, the Italian Cardinals, the Spanish and Italian Bishops and those of the French who are ultramontanes. They all say among themselves, if not aloud before the world, “That is just what we want; our very object is to get the doctrine on the relations of Church and State changed, the independence of civil society and the civil power abolished, and the complete temporal supremacy of the Church—_i.e._, the Pope—at least gradually established.” It is not indeed advisable to say this as yet in such explicit and unreserved terms, but the reason why the infallibilist dogma is so opportune and indispensable is exactly because it implies jurisdiction over the temporal sphere, which the Pope can according to circumstances either leave unused and say nothing about it, or suddenly draw forth for use like a weapon concealed under a mantle. He has dealt thus with the Austrian Constitution; while he let alone other countries, whose constitutional systems must have been partly at least a scandal on Roman principles, he pronounced the Austrian Constitution abominable (_nefanda_). And any one, who wishes to examine the practical significance of this infallible judgment, need only go to the Tyrol and observe how it has been already explained there to the inhabitants by their enthusiastic clergy.