Taking  the  statical  conditions  first — we  can  not  b^  surprised  at
the  universal  political  ascendency  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization
in  the  Middle  Ages,  superior  as  it  was  to  all  that  surrounded  it,
and  to  all  that  had  preceded  it.  Directly  based  upon  intellectual
and  moral  desert,  at  once  flexible  and  stable,  connected  in  all  its
chief  parts,  without  repressing  the  proper  activity  of  any,  this  ad-
mirable hierarchy  could  not  but  inspire  in  the  humblest  of  its  wor-
thy members  a  sense  of  superiority,  just,  though  sometimes  too
haughty,  toward  the  ruder  organisms  with  which  it  was  at  first
connected,  and  which  rested  chiefly  on  birth,  modified  by  fortune  or
military  aJbility.  When  it  took  its  true  form,  the  Catholic  organ-
ization, on  the  one  hand,  extended  the  elective  principle  by  admit-
ting to  choice  of  ofiice  the  whole  of  society,  the  lowest  Eip^ave  princi-
ranks  of  which  have  supplied  cardinals,  and  even  popes ;  p'e-
and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  advanced  the  nature  of  this  political
principle  by  reversing  the  order  of  election,  by  causing  the  superi-
ors to  be  chosen  by  the  inferiors.  The  characteristic  method  of
election  to  the  supreme  spiritual  dignity  must  ever,  it  seems  to  me,
be  regarded  as  a  masterpiece  of  political  wisdom,  in  which  the
guarantees  of  stability  and  due  preparation  must  be  more  secure
than  they  could  be  by  the  empirical  expedient  of  hereditary  succes-
sion, while  the  soundness  of  the  choice  must  be  favored  both  by  the
superior  wisdom  of  the  well-adapted  electors,  and  by  the  careful
encouragement  given  to  the  capacity,  wherever  found,  for  ecclesi-
astical rule,  proved  by  an  active  noviciate ;  these  collective  precau-
tions being  in  full  accordance  with  the  extreme  importance  of  the
eminent  function  which  Catholic  philosophers  have  ever  justly
regarded  as  the  nucleus  of  their  ecclesiastical  system.
