Nevertheless the minority is composed of heterogeneous elements, and it may be safely calculated that they will not all hold out to the last. Some opponents of the definition are friends of the doctrine, and oppose it on grounds not of a purely abstract or theological nature. No one has calculated the numerical proportion of these in inopportunists to the real opponents of Infallibility. Any serious discussion of the question has long been avoided, and many think it ought to be avoided, because therein lies the dangerous weakness of the party. The ground of inopportuneness, which had already been adopted in the Letter to the Pope from Fulda, was taken up from the first, in the hope of paralysing the majority by an imposing number of dissentients. They hoped to be strong by their numbers, and to look strong by a certain kind of unity. The theory of inopportuneness seemed to provide a common ground for the decided opponents of the dogma and for the timid and vacillating or moderate adherents of the doctrine itself. That a really united Opposition has been formed on this basis is mainly due to the Bishop of Orleans. He attacked the opportuneness with such a powerful array of testimonies in his famous Pastoral, that every one saw clearly the doctrine itself was involved, though he never entered in so many words on the theological question. The position he provided has served its purpose for two months, without the party being brought to a declaration for or against the dogma. It has served to bring in adherents to the Opposition, who in the strictest sense of the word belong to the Roman Court party, and to provide waverers with a comparatively innocent method of resistance. It has prevented the victory of the _Curia_ in the days of their greatest ascendancy, but it is untenable for a permanence. The position of the inopportunists has the fatal disadvantage that it can be out-flanked. That would have happened, had the Bishops been separately requested to give their opinions "sub secreto," with a promise that no public declaration in the Council should be desired.
Then, again, it is a position that can easily be mastered by means of the majority. A minority may be invincible on the ground of dogma, but not of expediency. Everything can be ventured to combat a false doctrine, but not to hinder an imprudence or a premature definition. In questions of faith one dare not give in; not so in questions of discretion only. And then the Council must have been sooner or later driven from the ground of inopportuneness, if it was not shipwrecked on the order of business; for it was a point of view the decision could not finally hinge upon, in presence of a preponderating majority.