The cause assigned for alarm is the ruinous condition of society--that word being used in its political, not its domestic sense. The very bases of society were shaken by evil principles, which had spread on all sides and raised a "horrible tempest." Before proceeding to the errors to be now condemned, the Pontiff is careful to connect with them those other "principal errors of our sad times" which he had already condemned in previous encyclicals, allocutions, and letters apostolic. He thus lays the logical foundation for the collection of them in the Syllabus. He first reminds the bishops how he had stirred them up to war against these errors, and how he had also commanded the children of the Church to abhor and shun them. Secondly, he enumerates certain additional errors, condemns them in turn, and commands his sons to shun them likewise. Condemnations pronounced in this formal manner are judicial and sovereign. The Pontiff does not speak as a mere teacher, but as the supreme tribunal of the Church. The judgments pronounced are not for the guidance of individuals merely, but are a rule for every officer of the Church. Every such sentence fixes the state of the law. After many generalities, the first token of ruin in modern society particularized is the design manifested to check and set aside the salutary _force_[6] which ought always to be exercised by the Church, not only over individuals, but also over nations, both "peoples" and sovereigns. The second token of ruin is the prevalence of the error that the State may treat various religions on a footing of equality--the error that liberty of worship is in fact a personal right of every man, and that the citizen is entitled to make a free profession of his belief, orally or by the press, without fear of either civil or ecclesiastical power. This is condemned as being the "liberty of damnation." The next token of ruin is hostility to the religious orders, which were established by their founders only by the inspiration of God. Another token of ruin is the belief that all the rights of parents over their children arise out of civil law, especially the claim to control their education. The Pope would seem to think that this notion is the ground for denying the right of priests to take the control of education out of the hand of parents, or the ground for claiming the protection of civil law for the natural and Scriptural right of the parent against the alleged right of the priest. Such denial of the right of the priest is dilated upon as a further token of ruin. The existence of laws of mortmain is an additional token. After these civil and ecclesiastical matters, one theological point is adduced, with formal yet fervent language, as if it were some new plague, broken out in our own times--the denial of the divinity of our blessed Lord. This seems to be the only question in theology proper directly raised in the document. The errors now signalized are all