A particular body makes the awful claim to Divine Authority and Infallibility. That claim may be false, and even ridiculous: but “manifestly” it could not at the same time make the claim and make an absolutely contradictory claim. For the word “body” substitute the word “man”; let us suppose a particular man to come forward and say, “I have Divine Authority to teach. On matters essential to ultimate human happiness I can give replies which are infallibly true.” If such a man were asked, “What do you think the weather will be to-morrow?” or “What was the date of the Battle of Hastings?” and he were to answer, “The weather may be this or that,” or “I cannot tell you when the Battle of Hastings was fought, but I seem to remember that it was on such and such a date,” he is not, when making such replies, acting within the framework of his tremendous claim. If you say, “A man making such a claim ought never to speak at all upon any subject save as an infallible authority,” you are pre-supposing non-human conditions. There is no sort of reason why such a man should not admit his doubts or his ignorance in things not pertinent to his authority. There is not even any reason why he should not say with regard to a particular proposition, “You ask my definition in this matter: so far I have not defined it; but I warn you that when I do define it I shall claim my reply to be infallible.” If he so answer, then the hypotheses he may be examining in the interval may be numerous and even contradictory one to the other without their divergence affecting his claim. Tested by this very simple (and I think, conclusive) parallel, the historical argument drawn from historical error attributable to the Church fails. _If any man can give a particular instance in which a specific affirmation has been made by those organs of affirmation which the Church solemnly defines as hers, and can say what error, historically proved, has since attached to such an affirmation then he shall be met._ But no man has brought forward such a case.