'In the first place, heretics do more mischief than any pirate or brigand, because they slay souls; nay more, they subvert the foundations of all good and fill the commonwealth with the disturbances which necessarily follow religious differences. In the second place, capital punishment inflicted on them has a good effect on very many persons. Many whom impunity was making indifferent are roused by these executions to consider what is the nature of the heresy which attracts them, and to take care not to end their earthly lives in misery and lose their future happiness. Thirdly, it is a kindness to obstinate heretics to remove them from this life. For the longer they live, the more errors they devise, the more men they pervert, and the greater damnation they acquire for themselves.'[53] In all matters which are not essential for the safety of the autocracy, an absolutist Church will consult the average tastes of its subjects. If the populace are at heart pagan, and hanker after sensuous ritual, dramatic magic, and a rich mythology, these must be provided. The 'intellectuals,' being few and weak, may be safely rebuffed or disregarded until their discoveries are thoroughly popularised. The pronouncements of the Roman Inquisition in the case of Galileo are typical. 'The theory that the sun is in the centre of the world, and stationary, is absurd, false in philosophy, and formally heretical, because it is contrary to the express language of Holy Scripture. The theory that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor stationary, but that it moves with a daily motion, is also absurd and false in philosophy, and, theologically considered, it is, to say the least, erroneous in faith.' The exigencies of despotic government thus supply the key to the whole policy and history of the Papacy. 'The worst form of State' can only be bolstered up by the worst form of government. There should therefore be no difficulty in distinguishing between the official policy of the Roman See--which has been almost uniformly odious--and the history of the Christian religion in the Latin countries, which has added new lustre to human nature. The Catholic saints did not fly through the air, nor were their hearts pierced with supernatural darts, as the mendacious hagiology of their Church would have us believe; but they have a better title to be remembered by mankind, as the best examples of a beautiful and precious kind of human excellence.