That elementary truth is often denied to-day (though the minds which deny it can only use reason to arrive at this very conclusion!), but it is fundamental and I must postulate it as a necessary prelude to any discussion. For to argue with men who deny the basis of all argument is futile; it is like pleading in a court where the judge is a corpse and the jury a set of waxworks. A man says, “The river Ohio flows eastwards.” I show by the compass, the map, and the sun, or in any other rational way you like that it flows westward. If he then answer me, “Oh! that is formal logic--I have no use for it! Westward and eastward are but apparent contradictories. They can be resolved into a higher unity. And, after all, what is ‘flowing’? And here is a bend of the river which does flow eastward for a mile or two. And a statement may well be true in a higher sense than the geographical one. And anyhow, the modern mind is no longer bound by the mediaeval fetters of dialectic”--if he replies with this sort of rigmarole, I must leave him to it. I am writing not for modernists--that is, not for people who think that a proposition can be both true and untrue at the same time--but for men of sane tradition who admit logic as a court of final appeal in things of the mind. For we Catholics regard reason as supreme in its own sphere and will admit nothing contrary to reason. (3) Lastly, I must premise that we are discussing things as they are: the real Catholic Church; and are excluding from the discussion what is not germane to it. We are discussing the claim of the Catholic Church to authority, the claims of its accredited organs to express divine truth--not what some opponent may in ignorance regard as an accredited organ of the Catholic Church, when it is nothing of the kind, nor a supposed doctrine of the Church which the Church has never taught. Conversely, I do not admit as rebutting evidence such phrases as “all the best authorities” or “all the latest authorities”--they are worthless as evidence. I examine the grounds on which the affirmations are made, not the mere affirmation unsupported by anything but fashion. (Thus, if an opponent advance, “Marcus, a priest, said the earth was flat: it is proved round; therefore the Catholic Church was wrong,” it is replied that Marcus, a priest, is not the Catholic Church. Or if it be said, “The Catholic Church teaches that mankind is but six thousand years old,” it is answered, “Many heretical sects have taught this but the Catholic Church has never taught it.” Or if it be said, “The Catholic Church affirms the witness of the fourth Gospel but all reasoning men admit that it is spurious,” it is replied, “All reasoning men do not admit that it is spurious: that is but the affirmation of a fashionable school.”) III We must begin by establishing the main sections into which is divided the argument from History against the claims of the Catholic Church.