propositions which had been denounced by the opponents of the Louvain divines as contained in the writings of these, and as also contained in certain other works classed as Jansenist. In 1690, was published by Alexander VIII a decree which had been framed under the instructions of Innocent XI, condemning as unorthodox thirty-one propositions which had been found in this group of writings. The propositions condemned had to do in part with what may be called the moralities and in part with the doctrine of Grace. The proposition bearing in this series the number twenty-nine, took the ground that the claim for the superiority of the pope over the general council of the Church, and for the infallibility of the pope in the decision of questions of dogma, was a claim for which there was no foundation (_Futilis et toties convulsa assertio_). Certain monographs written to criticise and oppose this decree were promptly prohibited. The action taken during these years gives evidence of the development of the policy of the Church in the matter of defining or of approving or condemning doctrinal assertions, or propositions having to do with theology or morality, apart from the condemnation by title of any works in which such propositions may have been contained. A condemnation of this kind freely interpreted constitutes, of course, a condemnation not only of all books which had been brought into print up to that time containing such propositions or doctrines, but (without the necessity of specific prohibition by title) a condemnation which may serve as a prohibition of all books coming into print at a later date containing similar doctrines. On the other hand, the fact that the propositions as specified were often found open to different interpretations (as in the case of the famous five propositions of Jansen), and the further fact that it was not always easy to determine whether the statements or expressions in certain works brought into question were actually identical with propositions, classed as heretical, had the result of bringing into print after every such condemnation of propositions, a group of writings undertaking either to analyse the propositions themselves or to confirm or to deny the application of the condemnation to works with which they had been connected. The necessity for analysing, and in large part for condemning, the writings of this class, involved probably in the end a larger amount of detailed labour for the Index authorities than would have been required if, in place of condemning general propositions, the original condemnation had been connected with specific writings. The thirty-one propositions condemned in the decree of Alexander VIII of 1690 were described as _temerariae_, _scandalosae_, _male sonantes_, _injuriosae_, _haeresi proximae_, ... _schismaticae et haereticae_, etc. Certain of the propositions were taken from the writings of Lupus, Huygens, Havermans, Gabrielis; _La Fréquente Communion_ of