It seems to me that an impersonal observer, say some historical student from the extreme Orient, to whom the whole Catholic scheme was indifferent and who cared nothing whether the original institution of the Catholic Church had failed (because he had no affection for that institution and no belief in any of its doctrines nor any respect for Jesus Christ nor any attachment to the idea even of a personal God)--it seems to me, I say, that such a wholly neutral observer would, upon the general historical evidence, decide that the Catholic Church was founded with a certain directive nineteen hundred years ago, to be correct, about the year 29, and had remained throughout the successive centuries consonant with itself. I think he would say of it what we may say with regard to many an ancient state, “Its personality has survived, its soul is still the same, its essential unity has not been lost.” He would add the qualification “yet”; he would conclude, “The personality _yet_ survives; the continuous life has not _yet_ been lost.” We of the Faith of course affirm--but not upon historical evidence--that the word _yet_ does not apply; that it shall remain to the consummation of the ages. But for the purposes of the particular argument which I am here examining, that is neither here nor there. I say that a mere historical examination with no reference to the truth or falsehood of the Church’s claim will conclude that that claim has been continuous from the beginning, and that the Thing to-day is essentially what it was when the strict organisation, the unique phenomenon, appeared in Syria under the principate of Tiberius. There is nothing left contemporary with that still vigorous, still well-favoured, ancient Thing. It has seen the disappearance of everything in Europe save itself, and its spring still copiously flows. (b) _The Sceptical or Pagan objection from History._ I have said that much the most important form of historical attack upon the Catholic position, the most formidable, and to-day the most hardly pressed, the most lively and the most universal, is the Pagan or purely Sceptical, the definition of which I will here repeat. It is maintained that the claim of the Catholic Church to Divine Infallible Authority is baseless, because it is manifestly man-made. The process of reasoning is as follows: