22 JANUARY 1870, Page 2

The Tablet attributes (unofficially and without vouching for it) to

the Pope a saying about the Council to this effect :—"There must be a phase when prejudice and passion struggle to get the mastery over sense and reason ; and then a phase of reflection and reason ; and finally, the triumph of grace and the Holy Ghost." One sees from this that even the Pope is affected by the intellectual atmosphere of his time. Is not Lie formula, the Hegelian doctrine of the three " moments," the logical opposites, and, then, the higher unity, translated into the language of theology ?