To the sovereign pontiff it has been given to bind or loose at his pleasure.

It is unlawful to appeal from his judgments to an Oecumenical Council, as if to an earthly arbiter superior to him.
Powers such as these are consistent with arbitrary rule, but they are inconsistent with the government of the world by immutable law.

Hence the Dogmatic Constitution plants itself firmly in behalf of incessant providential interventions; it will not for a moment admit that in natural things there is an irresistible sequence of events, or in the affairs of men an unavoidable course of acts.
But has not the order of civilization in all parts of the world been the same?
Does not the growth of society resemble individual growth?
Do not both exhibit to us phases of youth, of maturity, of decrepitude?
To a person who has carefully considered the progressive civilization of groups of men in regions of the earth far apart, who has observed the identical forms under which that advancing civilization has manifested itself, is it not clear that the procedure is determined by law?
The religious ideas of the Incas of Peru and the emperors of Mexico, and the ceremonials of their court-life, were the same as those in Europe--the same as those in Asia.

The current of thought had been the same.

A swarm of bees carried to some distant land will build its combs and regulate its social institutions as other unknown swarms would do, and so with separated and disconnected swarms of men.