You may take the whole list, from Cerinthus, who was a contemporary of the Apostles, down to Brigham Young and his Mormons, or to the latest Modernist, and you find in every case without exception the test working true. The heresiarch (as we Catholics call him) or the reformer, or prophet, or whatever other flattering term you may like to use in contra-distinction to heresiarch, appears as an innovator to the generation whom he disturbs, or to which he appeals. His doctrine comes as a _new_ doctrine, with all the shock and also all the appeal of novelty. There is not any one case in the long story of the Church where we can trace a steady protest against _any_ one of her fundamental doctrines, a protest appearing at the origins and increasing as the doctrine is more and more clearly defined. Nor is there any one case of a definition of orthodox doctrine appearing suddenly and with all the effect of an innovation. No doubt each reformer makes the claim that he has rediscovered the old original truth, long overlaid, but my point is that, when he and his doctrine appear, it is _they_--not the things they oppose--which invariably appear as sharp and, to most men, offensive novelties. I have called that phenomenon in the story of the Catholic Church remarkable; it is even startling. I know of no other society to which this aspect of reform or re-action applies. If you will consider for a moment the psychology of the affair, judging it by your personal knowledge of the way in which your own mind works, and the minds of the men about you, you will, I think, perceive its unique character. After all, what happens in our minds with regard to any form of degradation? For instance, what happens to-day with regard to a misquotation in literature or a warping of function in politics? The first misquotation takes place, and is challenged. The bad habit grows, but it is still challenged here and there: the challenge is maintained. Each time it is challenged the error is admitted, but unfortunately spreads. Sometimes there comes at the end of the process a violent re-action; literary men swarm together (as it were) and insist upon the misquotation being driven out; and sometimes they succeed. Or again, as to the warping of a political institution. Representative institutions were founded to be representative. People soon find out that they are only imperfectly representative: that they tend to represent the avarice or vanity of the individual delegates much more than the mandate of those who sent them to the representative assembly. What happens? Immediate protest; repeated protest; attempts at reform. Sometimes the reform makes good, the fear of God is put into the politicians, and the representative institution is purged and brought up with a round turn, and compelled to do its duty.