“It comes to the question of _authority_; and, if all intelligent authority resides in _the person_ (and certainly each one must, from the nature of his constitution, be his own authority), then it follows that no authority whatever can reside in the state, the church, or in any mere institution or being _outside_ of the person, whether that church or institution assume divinity or not. “The authority is not in the _so-called fact_, but in _the person_ to whom the so-called fact is presented, and who is called upon to pass upon it. “The Baconian system is false, because it makes the so-called fact the authority for itself; when plainly the very existence or comprehension of the so-called fact depends wholly on the _person_ to whom it is presented.” The objection is, apparently, the objection we ourselves bring to the Protestant rule of faith, namely, the Bible interpreted by private judgment. The Bible may be the word of God and infallible, but my interpretation of it, or my private judgment in interpreting it, is fallible, and therefore I have in it and with it only a fallible rule of faith. So the church may be a divine institution, and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost infallible; but her teaching is addressed to my intelligence, and must be passed upon by my private judgment, which is finite and fallible, therefore incompetent to pass upon the infinite and absolute. Hence, the Catholic rule no more gives infallible faith than does the Protestant rule. The principle of the objection the lawyer urges is that authority is intrinsic, not extrinsic; comes not from without, but from within, from the mind, and can never be greater than the mind itself; and as that is fallible, there is and can be no infallible authority for faith or belief. The objection is simply that an infallible authority for the mind in matters of faith is impossible, because the mind is not itself infallible, and therefore incapable of an infallible act or assent. This, we believe, is the objection in all its force. The objection rests on two principles, neither of which is tenable: first, that the mind or intellect is universally fallible; and, second, that the authority in matters of faith is in the mind itself, not out of it, and, therefore, belief in anything on extrinsic authority is impossible.