The Cardinal appeals to the author of "Ecce Homo" for the purpose of showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages, among others, are quoted: "Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church." These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author of these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church is no harder to find and describe than that which unites men--than that which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their union--no harder to describe than the origin of civil society--because he says that one who can describe these can describe the other. Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are united by common interests, common purposes, common dangers--by race, climate and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and bees live in flocks and swarms. If we know anything, we know that language is natural--that it is a physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal, then we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man, is supernatural. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the standard? Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Irenæus or Darwin? If everything that we cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the supernatural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge stops. At that point he says that he does not know. Such a man is a philosopher. Then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty of the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the horizon of the human intellect. Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural causes? How would he account for these wonders? He would account for them precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church. Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest in the primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation. The Cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original Greek of St. Irenæus, _which is unfortunately lost_, contained either [--Greek--], or some inflection of [--Greek--], which signifies primacy." From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on some "inflection" of a Greek word--and that this supposed inflection was in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Irenæus, which has certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power has this, and only this, for its foundation? To this "inflection" has it come at last?