ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has consequently God for its author. Therefore, all authority ultimately derives from God. Leo alienated both the monarchists and the followers of Lamennais in declining to specify what form government should take. "The right to rule is not necessarily bound up with any special mode of government. It may take this or that form, provided only that it be of a nature to ensure the general welfare. But whatever be the nature of the government, rulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world and must set Him before themselves as their exemplar and law in the administration of the State." "Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. ... So, too, is it a sin in the State not to have care for religion, as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit ... All who rule, therefore, should hold in honour the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measures that may compromise its safety." Leo made it quite clear that he opposed liberty of thought and liberty of the press: "So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils." Relation between both powers The Almighty, therefore, has appointed the charge of the human race between two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over Divine, and the other over human things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own native right. But in as much as each of these two powers has authority over