Is there any excuse to be found for this indecision on one hand, presumption on the other? We do not think so; but they do, we must confess, admit of a plausible explanation. And here, let it be observed, we come to the very marrow of the difficulty. The Syllabus was drawn out in an unusual form. It resembles no pontifical documents hitherto published. When, in other times, the sovereign pontiffs wished to stigmatize erroneous propositions, they did not content themselves with reproducing the terms of them, in order to mark them out for the reprobation of the people. They were always careful to explain the motives of the judgment they delivered, and above all to formulate with clearness and precision the judgment itself. Invariably, the texts they singled out for condemnation were preceded by grave and weighty words, wherein were explained the reasons for and the nature of the condemnation. In the Syllabus, there is nothing of the kind. The propositions, stated without commentary, are classified and distributed under general titles; at the end of each of them we read the indication of the Encyclical Letter, or pontifical Allocution, in which it had been previously rebuked. For the rest, there is no preamble, no conclusion, no discourse revealing the mind or intention of the pontiff, unless it be the following words, inscribed at the head of the document, and which we here give both in the Latin and in English: _Syllabus complectens præcipuos nostræ ætatis errores, qui notantur in Allocutionibus consistorialibus, in Encyclicis, aliisque Apostolicis Litteris sanctissimi Domini Papæ Pii IX._--Table, or synopsis, containing the principal errors of our epoch, noted in the consistorial Allocutions, the Encyclicals, and other Apostolic Letters of our most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX. We may add, that nowhere does the Pope formally express an intention of connecting the Syllabus with the bull _Quanta cura_, although he issued them both on the same day, at the same hour, under the same circumstances, and upon the same subjects. He left it to the public common sense and to the faith of Christians to decide whether these two acts are to be taken together, or whether they are to be considered as isolated acts having no common tie between them. Such are the facts. Minds, either troubled or prejudiced, or, may be, too astute, have drawn from them consequences which, if we lay aside accessory details of not much importance here, we may reduce to two principal ones.