Note 134 — Chapter I

The church of Rome has always seen this, and on that account has been, and still is, very pliant in regard to morals, and very inflexible in regard to dogmas; a striking proof of the great sagacity with which her affairs are administered. In Blanco White's Evidence against Catholicism, p. 48, and in Parr's Works, vol. vii. pp. 454, 455, there is an unfavourable and, indeed, an unjust notice of this peculiarity, which, though strongly marked in the Romish church, is by no means confined to it, but is found in every religious sect which is regularly organized. Locke, in his Letters on Toleration, observes, that the clergy are naturally more eager against error than against vice (Works, vol. v. pp. 6, 7, 241); and their preference of dogmas to moral truths is also mentioned by M. C. Comte, Traité de Législat. vol. i. p. 245; and is alluded to by Kant in his comparison of ‘ein moralischer Katechismus’ with a ‘Religionskatechismus.’ Die Metaphysik der Sitten (Ethische Methodenlehre), in Kant's Werke, vol. v. p. 321. Compare Temple's Observations upon the United Provinces, in Works of Sir W. Temple, vol. i. p. 154, with the strict adhesion to formularies noticed in Ward's Ideal Church, p. 358; and analogous cases in Mill's Hist. of India, vol. i. pp. 399, 400, and in Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 87; also Combe's Notes on the United States, vol. iii. pp. 256, 257.