Certainly, no one will expect us, here, to give an analytical exposition of the eighty propositions condemned by Pius IX. Several numbers of the _Etudes_ would scarcely suffice for that. General questions dominate all others; it is to the careful solution of these that we shall devote ourselves. They have always appeared to us to need clear and decisive explanation. Often they are incorrectly proposed, oftener still they are ill-defined. The object of our efforts will be to point out with precision the limits within which they must be restrained, the sense in which they must be accepted, and their necessary import; then, to give them, as clearly as we are able, a solution the most sure and the most conformable to first principles. If it should be objected that in this we are entering on a wide theological field, we shall not deny it. Proudhon, who desired anarchy in things, in principles--everywhere, in fact, except in reasoning--averred that rigorous syllogism lands us inevitably at theology. How, then, would it be possible not to find it in the Syllabus? They, on the other hand, who are unceasing in their violent attacks on this pontifical act, are they not the first to provoke theological discussions? We are compelled to take their ground. As Mgr. Dupanloup judiciously observed, in his pamphlet on the Encyclical of the 8th December: “It is needful to recur to first principles in a time when thousands of men, and of women even, in France talk theology from morning to night without knowing much about it.”