text:  The most eminent thinker of the present catholic school the illustrious _De Maistre_ himself affords a proof as convincing as involuntary of this inevitable contradiction in his philosophy when renouncing all theologic weapons he labours in his principal work to re-establish the Papal supremacy on purely historical and political reasonings instead of limiting himself to command it by right divine--the only mode in true harmony with such a doctrine and which a mind at another epoch would not certainly have hesitated to adopt