What, then, are we to say of the statesmen and their peoples who encouraged or permitted the adoption into law of this sweeping theory promulgated by the Church? Clearly the men of the thirteenth century saw no moral problem in the matter, but only the doing of a necessary task. No other assumption can account for the success with which the difficulties in the way of the new inquisitorial institution were gotten over. For instance, there was the exceedingly delicate question of the precise relation of inquisitors to the local bishops. Had there been the slightest desire on the part of the secular governments to hinder the Inquisition, it would have been easy to play off one against the other, for it was a poor mediæval ruler who could not get some of his bishops to support him on practically any proposition. We hear of nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the thorny point of Inquisitorial versus Episcopal authority is triumphantly solved, in practice, without any serious hitch whatsoever. It is the same with popular resistance. At long intervals we sometimes hear of little riots, or even of the murder of an inquisitor here and there. But such things are the rarest of exceptions to the rule. This is easier to understand when we realize that only in the few centres of heretical resistance were inquisitorial activities of a drastic nature. Thus in Roussillon, just over the border from Languedoc, the atmosphere changes altogether. Here the minute research of the indefatigable M. Brutails has brought to light only four sentences of the Inquisition.[36] All are directed against robber barons, of the pestilential tribe whose activities we have noted. What happened to two of these wretches is not clear. Those whose fate is known suffered only the penalty of having their dead bones dug up and solemnly burnt, forty years after death in one case. The severities of the Inquisition, enormous though they bulk on the voluminous pages of Lea, were infrequent and local throughout thirteenth century Christendom as a whole. Furthermore, these infrequent and local severities were normally exercised against the “Albigensian” heretics who were deservedly detested. Not until two hundred years later—in the fantastic and stagnant close of the Middle Ages—do we find anything like a reign of terror. Nevertheless, the underlying idea of the whole business is so alien from us that we can scarcely understand it. Even to approach understanding of such a thing, it is necessary to speak in parables. Let us, therefore, imagine a scene among the shades. The ghost of a thirteenth century scholastic is in converse with other ghosts, an ancient Roman, a sage of Hindustan, a mandarin from China, and an American citizen.