How could the dogma of a Vicar of God upon earth, the dogma of an infallible pope, be sustained in presence of such scandals?
Herein lay the cause of that resolution of the ablest ecclesiastics of those times (which, alas for Europe! could not be carried into effect), that a general council should be made the permanent religious parliament of the whole continent, with the pope as its chief executive officer.

Had that intention been accomplished, there would have been at this day no conflict between science and religion; the convulsion of the Reformation would have been avoided; there would have been no jarring Protestant sects.

But the Councils of Constance and Basle failed to shake off the Italian yoke, failed to attain that noble result.
Catholicism was thus weakening; as its leaden pressure lifted, the intellect of man expanded.

The Saracens had invented the method of making paper from linen rags and from cotton.

The Venetians had brought from China to Europe the art of printing.