THE EQUINOX
I am blind when I have eyes. ... Here, see what John
Huss says in his letter, the forty-third letter, towards the end:
“A doctor of theology said to me: “In everything I
should submit myself to the Council ; everything would then
be good and lawful for me.” He added: “If the Council
said that you had only one eye, although you have two, it
would be still necessary to admit that the Council was not
wrong.” “Were the whole world,” I replied, ‘to affirm such
a thing, so long as I had the use of my reason, I should not
be able to agree without wounding my conscience.”’ I will say
to you, like John Huss, ‘Before there were a Church and its
councils there were truth and reason.’”
“Pardon me if I interrupt, my dear sir; you were a
Catholic at one time, you are no longer so; consciences are
free. I shall merely submit to you that the institution of the
hierarchical infallibility in matters of dogma is reasonable in
quite another sense, and far more incontestably true than all
the miracles of the world. Besides, what sacrifices ought one
not to make in order to preserve peace! Believe me, John
Huss would have been a greater man if he had sacrificed one
of his eyes to universal concord, rather than deluge Europe
with blood! O sir! let the Church decide when she will
that I have but one eye; I only ask her one favour, it is to
tell me in which eye I am blind, in order that I may close it
and look with the other with an irreproachable orthodoxy !”
“T admit that I am not orthodox in your fashion.”
“T perceive that clearly. But let us come to the miracles!
You have then seen, touched, felt, tasted them; but, come,
putting exaltation on one side, please give me a thoroughly
detailed and circumstantial account of the affair, and, above
142