If the conflicting doctrine should be an _infallible_ one, the decision of the believing scientist is soon reached. He knows now what to think of his hypothesis, that it is not true progress but aberration, and consistency with his own conviction moves him to desist. Thus the philosophical errors of modern times are opposed almost throughout to infallible dogmas, for the most part fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. This is also the legal right under which revelation and the Church approach the scientist with the demand not to permit his views to go contrary to faith, because there can never be a contradiction between faith and reason. “There can never be a contradiction between faith and reason,” the Vatican Council teaches; “the apparent conflict is due either to the doctrine not being understood and interpreted in the sense of the Church, or to erroneous opinions that are mistaken for conclusions of reason” (Conc. Vat. sess. III, cp. 4). If the Catholic finds his position opposed to _non-infallible_ decisions, then he will re-examine his views in unselfish impartiality before God. If he must calmly tell himself that his arguments are not so weighty as to be able to stand up before so high an authority, guided by the Holy Ghost, then he will forego the gratification of holding fast to his own opinions, and will remind himself that true wisdom knows the fallibility of the human mind, and is ever ready to take advice from a divinely guided authority. Perhaps he will recall the words of the great _St. Augustine_: “Better bow before an incomprehensible but saving symbol than entangle one’s neck in the meshes of error” (De doctr. Christ. III, 13). This Christian self-denial surpasses in beauty even science itself, and sheds upon it a greater splendour. The great _Fénelon_, proceeding to his pulpit in the cathedral of Cambrai, on Annunciation day in 1699, was handed by his brother the Roman brief condemning twenty-three propositions of _Fénelon’s_ “Maximes des Saints.” The Bishop took the writing, calmly ascended the pulpit and announced it forthwith, and preached a sermon on the submission due to ecclesiastical superiors, at which the whole congregation was greatly moved. A few days later he announced in an episcopal letter to his diocese his submission, “simple, absolute, and without a shadow of reservation.” By this deed, an heroic act of obedience, _Fénelon_ is placed higher in history than by his brilliant works, than by the honour of having been the illustrious tutor of the Dauphin of France.