A skeptic will develop the principle into Infidelity, a believer into Superstition; but the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] The connection between the theory of Ecclesiastical Development and the infidel theory of Progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to the most fundamental articles of faith.

"Modern Spiritualists tell us that Christianity is a development, as the Papists also assert, and the New Testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as the development, it seems, may be things so different as Popery and Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be _always something future_."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves: "Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows _the development_ of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church organization, to which it gives expression and life." ...

"But are these teachers the _only_ destroyers of Faith and Morals?
Are not _they_ also chargeable with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of '_one_ living Infallible Judge' or 'Developing Power'?
Can we have _fixed_ articles of faith and morals in this system, any more than in the other?
No.

'_Unus utrisque error, sed variis ill[=u]det partibus._' There is the same evil in both, but it operates in different ways; in the former, every one develops for himself; in the latter, the Pope develops for every one.

You look with fear on the progress of Rationalism; and what hope can any man derive from that of Romanism ?"[101] * * * * * We have examined, each on its own peculiar merits, the various forms of the Theory of Development which have been propounded in modern times, and applied to account for the origin of planets and astral systems, of vegetable and animal races, and of the different successive systems of human opinion and belief.