As to the origin of corporeal and spiritual things, the Dogmatic Constitution adds a solemn emphasis to its declarations, by anathematizing all those who bold the doctrine of emanation, or who believe that visible Nature is only a manifestation of the Divine Essence.  In this its authors had a task of no ordinary difficulty before them.  They must encounter those formidable ideas, whether old or new, which in our times are so strongly forcing themselves on thoughtful men.  The doctrine of the conservation and correlation of Force yields as its logical issue the time-worn Oriental emanation theory; the doctrines of Evolution and Development strike at that of successive creative acts.  The former rests on the fundamental principle that the quantity of force in the universe is invariable.  Though that quantity can neither be increased nor diminished, the forms under which Force expresses itself may be transmuted into each other.  As yet this doctrine has not received complete scientific demonstration, but so numerous and so cogent are the arguments adduced in its behalf, that it stands in an imposing, almost in an authoritative attitude.  Now, the Asiatic theory of emanation and absorption is seen to be in harmony with this grand idea.  It does not hold that, at the conception of a human being, a soul is created by God out of nothing and given to it, but that a portion of the already existing, the divine, the universal intelligence, is imparted, and, when life is over, this returns to and is absorbed in the general source from which it originally came.  The authors of the Constitution forbid these ideas to be held, under pain of eternal punishment.

In like manner they dispose of the doctrines of Evolution and Development, bluntly insisting that the Church believes in distinct creative acts.  The doctrine that every living form is derived from some preceding form is scientifically in a much more advanced position than that concerning Force, and probably may he considered as established, whatever may become of the additions with which it has recently been overlaid.

In her condemnation of the Reformation, the Church carries into effect her ideas of the subordination of reason to faith.  In her eyes the Reformation is an impious heresy, leading to the abyss of pantheism, materialism, and atheism, and tending to overthrow the very foundations of human society.  She therefore would restrain those “restless spirits” who, following Luther, have upheld the “right of every man to interpret the Scriptures for himself.”  She asserts that it is a wicked error to admit Protestants to equal political privileges with Catholics, and that to coerce them and suppress them is a sacred duty; that it is abominable to permit them to establish educational institutions.  Gregory XVI. denounced freedom of conscience as an insane folly, and the freedom of the press a pestilent error, which cannot be sufficiently detested.