ON CA THOLICISM, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. CotigtHeTetJ m tjjetr jjuntiamenta! principles. By JOHN DONOSO CORTES, MARQUIS OF VALDEGAMAS. TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY REV. WILLIAM M'DONALD, A.B., S.Th.L. RECTOR OF THE IRISH COLLEGE, SALAMANCA. BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. DUBLIN M. H. GILL AND SON O’CONJSTELL STREET l888 M. H. GILL AND SON, PRINTKRS, DULLIN V\xs 3b TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. W HEN I first found Donoso Cortes’ Essays on Catholicism , Liberalism , and Socialism in my hands, and opening its pages, began to read, I was so enchanted with it—so amazed at the profoundness of the views expressed in it, and the angelic sublimity of the ideas it contained—that I determined, if time and occupations should ever permit, to undertake its tran- slation into English. This occurred several years ago; but my circumstances were such that the fulfilment of the intention then formed was delayed till the present time. And now that my task is at last accomplished, I venture to give it to the press, not without misgivings about the success of my efforts. However, if the reader find many defects and shortcomings in this English version of a great work, he will be kind enough to re¬ member that the difficulties I had to contend with were not insignificant or few. Any one acquainted with the diversity of form in which the same idea may be, and frequently is, expressed in two modern languages, knows t well that the translator’s task is often one of consider¬ able anxiety and pain. But in the present case there 16787 IV TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. existed a new and special difficulty, which was, to cull and employ language which might bear some proportion to the majestic grandeur of the ideas to be expressed. I know I fall far short of what I aimed at—I feel it is beyond my skill to shoot so high, and I shall be quite content if I have got to within a respectable distance of the mark. If I have drawn an approximately true por¬ trait of the inimitable original, I will regard my work as well done; and my readers, I am certain, will rise from the perusal of these pages filled with wonder at the depth and breadth and sublimity of the author’s con¬ ceptions. With regard to the plan and analysis of the work, I asked my distinguished friend Canon Torre Velez, so well known for his critical acumen and profound philo¬ sophical acquirements, to deal with that matter in a concise Introduction ; which he has very kindly done, in a style becoming a man of his brilliant parts. And he has done it willingly, on unreasonably short notice, as became a warm and generous friend. His words are few, but pregnant; and what he says may be taken as the just appreciation of one gifted mind, by another endowed with all the qualifications requisite to form a correct judgment. THE TRANSLATOR. Saj.amanca, October 12, 1874. CONTENTS. Introduction, BOOK /. ON CATHOLICISM. CHAPTER T. How a Great Question of Theology is always involved in every great political question, ...... CHAPTER IT. * Of Society under the empire of Catholic Theology, . CHAPTER III. Of Society under the empire of the Catholic Church, CHAPTER IV. Catholicity is love, ...... CHAPTER V. Our Lord Jesus Christ has not triumphed over the World by the sanctity of His doctrine, nor by prophecies and miracles, but in spite of all these things, ..... Vlll CONTENTS . CHAPTER VI. Our Lord Jesus Christ has triumphed over the World by exclusively supernatural means, ...... CHAPTER VII. The Catholic Church has triumphed over Society in spite of the same obstacles, and through the same supernatural means, which gave the Gc.tory over the World to our Lord Jesus Chi 1 st, ........ BOOK II. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS RELATIVE TO ORDER IN GENERAL . CHAPTER I. On the free will of man, ... . . , . CHAPTER II. Answers to some questions relative to this dogma, ... 0 CHAPTER III. Manicheeism of Proudhon, ...... CHAPTER IV. How the dogmas of Providence and Liberty are saved by Catho¬ licity, without falling into the theory of rivalry between God and Man, ....... CHAPTER V. Secret analogies between the Moral and Physical perturbations, ail derived from the liberty of man, . . . . PAGR 64 79 93 100 n 3 123 134 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. The Angelic and the Human prevarications—Greatness and enor¬ mity of sin, ....... CHAPTER VIE How God draws good from the Angelic and the Human prevari¬ cation, . . - . . . CHAPTER VIII. Solutions of the Liberal School relative to these Problems, CHAPTER IX. Socialistic Solutions, ....,, CHAPTER X. Continuation of the same subject—Conclusion of this Book, BOOK III. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS RELATIVE TO ORDER IN HUMANITY. £jHC Hi, f % CHAPTER I. Transmission of Sin, dogma of Imputatior, . „ <* « CHAPTER II. How God draws good from Sin and Penalty, and from the purifying action of pain, freely accepted, ..... CHAPTER III. ix PAGE 144 15^ 167 179 *95 217 22S Dogma of Solidarity—Contradictions of the Liberal School, 240 x CONTENTS. \ CHAPTER IV. Continuation of the same subject—Socialistic Contradictions, . CHAPTER V. Continuation of the same subject, . CHAPTER VI. Dogmas Correlative of that of Solidarity—Bloody Sacrifices — Theories of the Rationalistic Schools about Capital Punish¬ ment, ........ CHAPTER VII. Recapitulation—Inefficacv of all the proposed Solutions —Neces¬ sity of a more profound Solution, . . . . CHAPTER VIII. The Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Redemption of the Human Race, ....... CHAPTER IX. PAGB 257 2 79 290 305 3 1 5 Continuation of the same subject—Conclusion of this Book, • 325 INTRODUCTION. Donoso Cortes is one of the most profound thinkers of the nineteenth century. If the many and varied pro¬ ductions which have flowed from his learned pen had not raised him to the rank of eminent publicists, the work now offered to English readers, translated from the rich and harmonious tongue of Cervantes and Fray Louis de Granada, would be sufficient to immortalise him. It bears the modest title of Essays ; but this insignificant title gives no index to the richness and sumptuousness of the splendid edifice he has built up under that name. True merit characteristically presents itself on the scene of the world without pretensions, and real virtue is known to every one but itself. St Augustine, to refute the calumnies of the pagans, who laid all the evils which befell the Roman Empire at the door of the Christians, writes the “City of God; ” and after attaining his object, he does what perhaps he had not intended— he creates a science unknown to the pagans, which was A 2 INTRODUCTION. the science of the intervention of Providence in history, St Thomas aims at writing a systematic text-book for students of theology in the thirteenth century, and his “Sum ” raised theology to the category of a science, and became a book of consultation for the learned of all ages. Dante intends to write a poem after the manner of Virgil, and the “ Divine Comedy ” becomes the reflex of a civilisation, or rather is Christian civilisation sung in numbers by a bard. Cervantes aims at suppressing the books of knight-errantry by ridiculing their extrava¬ gances, and he becomes famous with posterity, not for his transitory victory, but for the deep and witty pic¬ ture he gives of humanity, and the profound knowledge of the human heart he displays. Finally, Bossuet does not venture to call his history anything but a Discourse , and yet posterity has acknowledged Bossuet to be the father of what is known as the Philosophy of History. Well, what those giants of Christian thought were in their respective ages and in their own spheres, the present work of the Marquis of Valdegamas, under the modest title of “ Essays,” is at the present day. He proposes to compare Catholicism with Liberalism and Socialism ; and his work is not, as might appear at first sight, a simple comparison of the truth with the great errors of the present time; it is more—it is much more,—it is incomparably more, than what he proposes. It is history, like the “ City of God ; ” it is theology, like the “ Sum ” of St Thomas ; it is the portrait of Catholic civilisation, like the “ Divine Comedy; ” it is a pro¬ found knowledge of the miseries of the heart, of the INTRODUCTION. 3 errors of the intellect, and of the defects of human institu¬ tions, like the work of Cervantes Saavedra; and it is a philosophy of history much more profound than that of Bossuet and all other historians ; for without the philosophy of these Essays, history is an enigma im¬ possible to decipher. Spain may well be proud of pro¬ ducing the illustrious author of these “ Essays,” a work which, without a controversial character, is the most glorious and sublime apology of religion, and the victorious refutation of Liberalism, Rationalism, and Socialism. And let it not be imagined that the varied and encyclopedic character of the work throws the matters of which it treats into confusion, or clogs the develop¬ ment of the authors plan in its majestic march. No ; the author knows well what he has to do, and scans all with the eye of genius, which walks not on beaten paths, but opens fresh ones for itself. If he paints, it is as a creative artist, who rises superior to all calculation, and discovers new aspects of truth and beauty by some method of his own; Our author is like the eagle, who discovers from the firmament he brushes with his wings immense horizons unseen by other birds. He is like the daguerreotype, which condenses into small space, without confusion, a group of innumerable objects. The merit of the work is not in the matters it treats of, nor in the facts it states, nor in the problems it deals with, nor in the employment of this or that argument, nor in the amount of erudition it displays, nor in the clear method it follows, nor in the critical skill it mani- 4 INTRODUCTION. fests ; for, everything in the “Essays ” has been treated of and discussed a thousand times before. The merit of Donoso Cortes, as far as the “ Essays ” are original and great, consists in raising the question to a height to which no other book carries it; in extracting, like the bee, from the flowers spread over the field of human intelligence the wax and honey with which the hive of the “ Essays ” is stored ; and in the new aspect with which every question is invested from the first to the last page. But I should scarcely have used the word question , for there is no such thing here, as it is not a work of con¬ troversy. From the point of view he occupies, Donoso does not argue nor hold discussions with error, to which he denies all rights. Donoso only teaches, and shows error its profound ignorance and contradictions, or points out its deformity to the world ; and in teach¬ ing one and the other with the authority of truth, whose eloquent organ he is, he needs not to enter on a contest with error in order to conquer it. Whilst other apologists go down into the arena, and contend with dubious victory, Donoso Cortes, like a giant, demolishes error by one stroke of his arm : witness his victory over Proudhon and Guizot, whose fairy edifices crumble to earth under his analytical touch. In the contest with others, the monster, Proteus-like, assumes a thousand forms, and when pressed on one side escapes on the other, but Donoso strips it of its false appearances, and presents it to the eyes of thinking men in all its foul nakedness, and holds it up to the contempt of the world INTRODUCTION. 5 •—enough assuredly to fill it with confusion, and make it hide its dishonoured head. The reader may now see how this book, without boast of erudition, without scientific pretensions, or ostenta¬ tion of great acquirements, possesses an encyclopedic character. There is no dogma of faith, nor hierarchy in the Church, nor institution in society, nor important question in philosophy, nor epoch in history, nor human aberration in the speculative sphere of the schools, or in the practical life of nations; which does not occupy its proper place in the vast plan of this work. As we have said, Donoso Cortes is theologian, philosopher, historian, politician, apologist; but not as a scientific man who limits himself to one sole branch, but like a genius, who takes in at one glance all the orders of science and of life. The mystery of faith, defended by dogmatic theologians in the limited circle of the schools, Donoso, without profaning it, presents on the scene of real life, and makes it the touchstone of science, and the founda¬ tion of society. In the Theological Places, the organisa¬ tion of the Church is dealt with from the data supplied by scripture and tradition. According to Donoso Cortes the Church is the mistress, the foundress, the life of society. He does not require, like the apologists, to demonstrate the existence of the miracles and the prophecies. In his historical studies Donoso has discov¬ ered a sublime miracle in the Christianising of pagan society, and in the indefectibility of the Church, a pro¬ found prophecy in process of fulfilment for nineteen centuries. The autonomy of reason cannot be admitted 6 INTRODUCTION, by him who reveres the infallibility of the teaching of the Church; nor the noisiness of parliaments admired by him who stands astonished before the majesty of the Councils; nor the regulations of the police lauded by him who bends in reverence before the grand law of charity. Without the dogma of the fall, and the dogma of the rehabilitation, as they are explained in the “ Essays,” history is without explanation. The miracle of the Christianising of society lies patent before the eyes of men. Or, to use our author’s own words—As God had no witnesses in the grand act of the creation of the heavens and the earth, He desires that man should witness a more sublime creation—the creation of Christian civilisation. The foregoing is a slight sketch of the work now offered to the English-speaking public. We have made no extracts from it, for we would be afraid to profane and injure them by placing them in juxtaposition with our meagre observations. The work of Donoso Cortes forms a perfect whole. One must read it through ; and on concluding, every man of bona fides must exclaim, “ I never before had noticed the sublime harmonies of Catholicism, and the foul repugnance of error. Catholi¬ cism is the law of life, the life of the intelligence, the solution of all problems. Catholicism is the truth, and everything that departs from it one iota, is disorder, de¬ ception, and error.” Alejandro de la Torre Velez, D.D., Canon and Dignitary of the Cathedral of Salamancaand Professor of Sacred Seribture, &c., &c. ■ , NOTE. This work was examined in its dogmatic aspect by one of the most famous theologians of Paris, belonging to the glorious school of the Benedictines of Solesmes , and the author has finally adopted all his observations. - wf , * . * . ,1 ON CATHOLICISM. — ♦■■■■■ CHAPTER I. How a great question of theology is always involved in every great political question. In his “ Confessions of a Revolutionist,” M. Proudhon has written these remarkable words —“ It is wonderful how we ever stumble on theology in all our political questions.” There is nothing here to cause surprise, but the surprise of M. Proudhon. Theology, inasmuch as it is the science of God, is the ocean which contains and embraces all sciences, as God is the ocean which contains and embraces all things. They were all before, and they are all after, their creation, in the divine understanding; for if God made them from nothing, He adjusted them to a mould which is eternally in Him. They are all there in that sublime manner in which effects are in their causes, consequences, in their principles, reflections, in light, forms, in their eternal exemplars. In Him are the expanse of the sea, 10 ESS A YS ON CA TH0L1C1SM, the beauty of the plains, the harmony of globes, the pomp of worlds, the splendour of the stars, the magni¬ ficence of the heavens. There, are the measure, the weight, and the number of all things, and all things came thence with number, weight, and measure. There, are the inviolable and sublime laws of all beings, and each is under the empire of its own. Everything that lives finds there the laws of life ; everything that vegetates, the laws of vegetation ; everything that moves, the laws of motion ; everything that has feeling, the laws of sensations ; everything that has intelligence, the laws of understandings; everything that has liberty, the laws pf wills. In this way, it might be said, without falling into Pantheism, that all things are in God, and God is in all things. This explains why, in proportion to the diminution of faith, truths diminish in the world ; and why the society which turns its back on God, beholds all its horizons suddenly obscured by terrifying darkness. For this reason, religion has been considered by all men, and in all times, as the indestructible foundation of human society. “ Omnis humanae societatis funda- menturn convellit qui religionem convellit,” says Plato in the ioth Book of his Laws. According to Zenophon (on Socrates), “ The most pious cities and nations have ever been the wisest and most lasting.” Plutarch says (against Colotes), “ That it is easier to build a city in the air than to constitute a society without belief in the gods.” Rousseau, in his “ Social Contract,” lib. 4, chap. 8, observes, “That there never was a state formed LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. It without religion serving as the foundation.” Voltaire says in the “Treatise on Intolerance,” chap. 20, “That wherever there is a society, religion is absolutely necessary.” All the legislations of ancient peoples rest on the fear of the gods. Polybius declares that this holy fear is more necessary in free states than in others. Numa, that Rome might be eternal, made her the Holy City. The Roman, among the peoples of antiquity, was the greatest, precisely because it was the most religious. When Csesar one day uttered in full senate certain expressions against the existence of the gods, Cato and Cicero at once rose to their feet to accuse the irreverent youth of pronouncing words dangerous to the state. It is told of Fabricius, a Roman captain, that when he heard the philosopher Cineas mock the Divinity in pre¬ sence of Pyrrus, he uttered these memorable words— “Would to the gods our enemies may follow this doc¬ trine when at war with the Republic ! ” The diminution of faith, which produces the diminu¬ tion of truth, does not necessarily carry with it the diminution, but rather, the extravagance, of the human intellect. At once merciful and just, God denies the truth to culpable intelligences, but He does not deny them life ; He condemns them to error, but not to death. Hence we have all seen pass before our eyes those ages of prodigious incredulity and high culture, which have left a track behind, less luminous than inflamed, in the prolongation of time, and have shone with phosphoric light in history. Fix your eyes on them, however—look at them again and again, and you 12 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM, shall see that their splendours are conflagrations, and they illumine, only because they are lightning. One would say their illumination proceeds from the sudden explosion of materials in themselves obscure but in¬ flammable, rather than from the pure regions where is engendered that gentle light softly diffused over the arches of heaven, by the inimitable pencil of the Sove¬ reign Painter. And what we have here said of ages, can be said of men. Denying or granting them the faith, God denies or grants them the truth. He does not grant nor deny them intelligence. The infidel’s may be sublime, the believer’s moderate. But the former is only great like an abyss, whilst the. latter is holy like a tabernacle: in the first dwells error ; in the second, truth. In the abyss, with error, is death ; in the tabernacle, with truth, is life. For this reason there is no hope whatever for those societies which abandon the austere worship of truth for the idolatry of genius. On the heels of sophisms come revolutions ; on the heels of the sophists, execu¬ tioners. He who knows the laws to which governments are subject, possesses political truth ; he who knows the laws to which human societies are subject, possesses social truth; he who knows God, knows these laws; he knows God who hears what He affirms of Himself, and believes what he hears. Theology is the science which has these affirmations for its object. Whence it follows, that every affirmation relative to society or to govern¬ ment, supposes an affirmation relative to God ; or, what LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 13 amounts to the same, that every political and social, is necessarily converted into a theological, truth. If all is explained in God and by God, and theology is the science of God, in whom, and by whom, all is explained, theology is the science of all. If it be, there is nothing beyond that science, which has no plural, because all, which is its subject, has none. Political and social science do not exist, except as arbitrary classifications of the human understanding. Man in his weakness distinguishes what is united in God in the simplest unity. In this way he distinguishes political affirmations from social and from religious affirmations; whilst in God there is but one indivisible and sovereign affirmation. He who, when he speaks explicitly of any¬ thing, knows not he speaks implicitly of God, or when he speaks explicitly of any science, is unaware he speaks implicitly of theology, may rest assured he has received from God only the intelligence absolutely necessary to constitute him a man. Theology, then, considered in its most general acceptation, is the per¬ petual subject of all sciences, as God is the perpetual subject of all human speculations. Every word which comes from the mouth of man, is an affirmation of the Divinity, even that by which he blasphemes or denies Him.' He who, turning against God, frantically ex¬ claims, “I abhor Thee; Thou dost not exist,” lays down a complete system of theology, as well as he who raises his contrite heart to Him, and says, “ Lord, strike Thy servant who adores Thee ! ” The first hurls a blasphemy in His face; the second lays a prayer at 14 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, His feet: but both affirm Him, each in his own way, for both pronounce His incommunicable name. In the manner of pronouncing that name, lies the solution of fearful enigmas—the vocation of races, the providential mission of peoples, the great vicissitudes of history, the rise and fall of famous empires, conquests, and wars, the different temperaments of nations, their physiognomy, and even their various fortunes. Away there where God is infinite substance, man, abandoned to silent contemplation, inflicts death on his senses, and passes through life like a dream, fanned by sweet-scented and enervating breezes. The adorer of the infinite substance is condemned to a perpetual slavery and an infinite indolence : the desert will be for him something more sublime than the city, because it is more silent, more solitary and grand ; and yet he will not adore it as his god, because the desert is not infinite. The ocean would be his only divinity, because it em¬ braces all, only for its wild turbulence and strange noise. The sun, which illumines all, would be worthy of his worship, if only he could not take in its resplendent disc with his eye. The heavens would be his lord if it had no stars, and the night, if it had no rumours. His god is all these things together—immensity, obscurity, im¬ mobility, silence. There, shall suddenly rise, by the secret virtue of a powerful vegetation, colossal and barbarous empires, which shall fall one day, with rude noise, crushed by the immense weight of others more gigantic and colossal, without leaving a trace in the memory of men either of their fall or of their foundation. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 15 The armies there shall be without discipline, as the individuals, without intelligence. The army will be principally and above all, a multitude. It shall be less the object of war to determine which nation is the most heroic, than to discover which empire is the most populous. Victory itself shall be only a title of legiti¬ macy, inasmuch as it is the symbol of the Divinity, because it is the proof of strength. So we see that Indian theology and history are one and the same thing. Turning our eyes to the West, we see, stretched at its portals, a region which begins a new world in the moral, political, and theological, orders. The immense Oriental divinity is here analysed, and stripped of its austere and formidable character—here it is multitude. The divinity was there stationary ; here the multitude seethes without rest. All was there silence; here it is murmurs, cadence, and harmonies. The Oriental divinity extended through all time and over all space. The grand divine family has here its genealogical tree, and finds room on the small space of a mountain top. There is the repose of eternal peace in the god of the East; here, in the divine dwelling, all is war, confusion, and tumult. The political, suffers the same vicissitudes as the religious, unity : here, every city is an empire, whilst there, all the multitudes formed one empire. To a god corresponds a king; to a republic of gods, one of cities. In this multitude of cities and of gods all will be disorder and confusion. Men will have in them something heroic and divine, and the gods, something terrestrial and human. The gods i6 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, will give to men the comprehension and instinct of the great and the beautiful, and men will give to the gods their discords and their vices. There will be men of lofty fame and virtue, and incestuous and adulterous gods. Impressionable and nervous in temperament, that people will be great in its poets and famous in its artists, and will make itself the wonder of the world. Life will not be beautiful in its eyes, unless surrounded by the splendour and the reflections of glory ; nor will death be fearful, only because it is followed by oblivion. Sen¬ sual to the marrow of its bones, it will look for nothing but pleasure in life ; and will consider death happy if it occurs among flowers. The familiarity and relation¬ ship with its gods will make that people vain, capri¬ cious, loquacious, and petulant. Wanting in respect for the divinity, it will be wanting in gravity in its designs, firmness, and consistency in its resolutions. The Oriental world will appear to it as a region full of shadows, or as a world peopled by statues. The East in its turn, regarding the other’s life so ephemeral, its death so premature, its glory so short-lived, will call it a nation of children. In the eyes of the one, greatness is in duration; in those of the other, in movement. In this way Grecian theology, Grecian history, and the Grecian character are one and the same thing. This phenomenon is visible above all in the history of the Roman people. Its principal gods, of Etrurian origin, as far as they were gods, were Grecian ; as far as Etrurian, Oriental. Inasmuch as they were Grecian they 'were many; inasmuch as they were Oriental, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 1 7 austere and sombre. In politics as in religion, Rome is at once the East and the West. It is a city like that of Theseus, and an empire like that of Cyrus. Rome is like Janus : on its head there are two faces, and on its faces two countenances; the one is symbolic of Oriental duration, and the other of Grecian movement. So great is her capacity of movement, that she reaches the con¬ fines of the world ; and so gigantic her duration, that the world calls her eternal. Created in the designs of God to prepare the way for Him who was to come, her providential mission was to assimilate all theologies, and to domineer over all nations. Obeying a mysteri¬ ous call, all the gods mount the Roman Capitol, and the nations, seized with a sudden terror, bow their heads to the earth. All cities, one after another, see themselves deserted by their gods : the gods, one after another, see themselves despoiled of their temples and of their cities. Her gigantic empire regards as peculi¬ arly its own, the legitimacy of the East, the multitude, power, and legitimacy of the West, intelligence and discipline. Hence it subjugates all, and nothing with¬ stands it; it grinds all, and no one complains. As her theology has at once something different from, and something in common with, all theologies, Rome has something peculiar and something in common with all the cities conquered by her arms or eclipsed by her glory. From Sparta she has severity; from Athens, culture ; from Memphis, pomp; and grandeur from Babylon and Nineveh. In a word, the East is the thesis, the West its antithesis, Rome the synthesis ; and ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , 18 the Roman empire signifies nothing else but the Oriental thesis and the Grecian antithesis, which have become lost and confounded in the Roman synthesis. Analyse now the constitutive elements of that powerful synthesis, and you shall find that it is synthesis in the political and social orders, only because it is so in the religious order. In the Oriental peoples as in the Grecian republics, and in the Roman empire as in the Grecian republics and in the Oriental peoples, the theo¬ logical, serve to explain the political, systems. Theology is the light of history. The Roman greatness could not descend from the Capitol except by the same means which had served it in ascending. No one could put his foot in Rome without the permission of her gods; no one could scale the Capitol without first hurling down Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The ancients, who had a confused notion of the vital force which exists in every religious system, believed that no city could be conquered unless first abandoned by the national gods. Hence we find in all wars of city with city, of people with people, and race with race, a spiritual and religious contest, which followed the fortunes of the material and political. The besieged, whilst they resisted with the sword, turned their eyes to their gods that they might not abandon them in their misery. The besiegers, in their turn, con- jured them with mysterious imprecations to abandon the city. Woe to the city in which was heard that terrible voice which said, “Thy gods are going ; thy gods are abandoning thee ! ” The people of Israel could LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 19 not be overcome whilst Moses kept his hands raised to the Lord; and could not conquer when they fell. Moses is the figure of the human race, proclaiming in all ages, in different formulas and ways, the omni¬ potence of God and the dependence of man, the power of religion and the virtue of prayer. Rome succumbed because her gods succumbed ; her empire came to an end because her theology ended. In this way does history place in relief, the grand prin¬ ciple which is hidden in the depths of the human con¬ science. Rome had given to the world her -Caesars and her gods. Jupiter and Caesar Augustus had divided between them the grand empire of things human and divine. The sun, which had seen gigantic empires rise and fall, had never, since the day of its creation, beheld one of such august majesty and such extraordinary grandeur. Ail nations had received its yoke ; even the rudest and wildest had bent their necks : the world laid down its arms; the earth hushed its breath. At that time there was born, in an humble stable, of humble parents, a Child, prodigious in the land of pro¬ digies. It was said of Him that at the time of His appearance among men a new star shone out in heaven ; that He was scarcely born when He was adored by shepherds and kings; that angelic spirits had swept through the air and spoken to men ; that His incom¬ municable and mysterious name had been pronounced in the beginning of the world ; that the patriarchs had watched for His coming ; that the prophets had an- 20 ESSA YS ON CATHOLICISM , nounced His kingdom ; and that even the sibyls had ^ung His victories. These strange rumours had reached the ears of the servants of Caesar, and awakened a vague terror and dread in their breasts. That dread and that vague terror soon passed away, when they saw the days and nights prosecute as before, their per¬ petual rotation, and the sun continue rising on the Roman horizon. And the imperial governors said to themselves, “ Caesar is immortal, and the rumours we heard were the rumours of nervous and idle people.” And so passed thirty years. Against the prejudices of the vulgar there is an efficacious remedy—contempt and oblivion. But at the end of thirty years the discontented and idle begin to find, in new and more extraordinary rumours, new food for their idle talk. The Child had become man, according to people’s report. On receiving on His head the waters of the Jordan, a spirit like a dove had descended on Him ; the heavens had opened, and a voice was heard on high saying, “ This is my beloved Son.” In the meantime, he who baptized Him, an austere and sombre man, a dweller in the desert and an abhonrer of the human race, cried out without ceasing to the people, “Do penance;” and pointing to the Child made man, gave this testimony of Him, “This is the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” That all this was a miserable farce enacted by wretched clowns, was a thing beyond all manner of doubt in the eyes of the “strong minds ” of that age. The Jewish people was always given to LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 21 witchcraft and superstition. In past times, when it turned its eyes, obscured with weeping, to its abandoned temple and its ruined country, in the Babylonic slavery, a great conqueror, announced by its prophets, had redeemed it from slavery, and restored it at once to its temple and its country. It was no way wonderful, then, but quite natural, that it should await a new redemption and a new redeemer, who should strike from its neck the heavy chain of Rome. If there had been no more than this, the unprejudiced and ejilightened people of that age would probably have allowed these rumours to pass, as they had the others, till time, the great minister of human reason, had dis¬ sipated them; but some evil spirit arranged things otherwise ; for it happened that Jesus, (this was the name of the Person of whom those great wonders were told), commenced to teach a new doctrine, and work extraordinary things. His audacity, or His madness, went so far as to call the hypocrites and the proud, proud and hypocrites, and whitewashed sepulchres those who were whitewashed sepulchres. The hardness of His heart was so great, that He advised the poor to be patient, arid then mocking them, proclaimed their happiness. To be revenged on the rich, who always despised Him, He said to them, “Be merciful.” He condemned fornication and adultery, and He ate the bread of fornicators and adulterers. He despised—so great was His envy—the doctors and the sages, and con¬ versed—so low were His instincts—with the gross and rude. He was so filled with pride, that He called 22 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , Himself lord of the earth, the sea, and the heavens ; and He was such an adept in the arts of hypocrisy, that He washed the feet of a few miserable fishermen. In spite of His studied austerity, He said His doctrine was love; He condemned labour in Martha, and sanctified idleness in Mary ; He had a secret compact with the infernal spirits, and received the gift of miracles in price for His soul. Crowds followed Him, and the multitude adored Him. It is evident, in spite of their good intentions, the guardians of the holy things and of the imperial pre¬ rogatives, responsible as they were, in virtue of their offices, for the majesty of religion and the peace of the empire, could no longer remain impassible. What prin¬ cipally urged them to take active measures was the report they had on one hand that a great multitude had been on the point of proclaiming Him King of the Jews, and on the other, that He had called himself Son of God, and had tried to prevent people from paying tribute. He who had said and done such things must die for the people . It only remained to prove the charges and clearly establish the fact. As to the tribute, when He was once questioned on the point, He gave that cele¬ brated answer, which disconcerted the curious—“ Give to God what belongs to God, and to Caesar what belongs to Caesar ; ” which was the same as—“ I leave you your Caesar, and I rob you of your Jupiter.” When questioned by Pilate and by the high priest, He ratified what He had said, and proclaimed that He was the Son LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 23 of God ; but that His kingdom was not of this world. Then Caiphas said, “ This man is guilty, and should die;” and Pilate, on the contrary, “Set Him free, for He is innocent.” Caiphas, the high priest, regarded the question in the religious point of view. Pilate, a lay man, regarded it in the political point of view. Pilate could not comprehend what the state had to do with religion, Caesar with Jupiter, politics with theology. Caiphas, on the contrary, thought that every new religion must disturb the state, every new god dethrone Caesar, and that the political was involved in the theological question. The mob instinc¬ tively thought with Caiphas, and in its hoarse murmurs called Pilate the enemy of Tiberius. In this state the question remained for the moment. Pilate, immortal type of corrupt judges, sacrificed the Just One to fear, and delivered up Jesus to the popular fury, and tried to purify his conscience by washing his hands. The Son of God mounted the cross amid mockery and insults; there were raised against Him the hands and tongues of the rich and the poor, the hypocrites and the proud, the priests and the sages, of women of bad life and of men of evil conscience, of the adulterers and fornicators. The Son expired on the cross, praying for His executioners, and commending His spirit to His Father. Everything was at rest for a moment; but then were seen things never before seen by the eyes of men. The abomination of desolation in the temple; the matrons of Sion cursing their fecundity ; the sepulchres yawning 24 ESS A YS ON CA TH0LIC1SM, open ; Jerusalem without inhabitants ; her walls levelled with the ground; her people dispersed through the world, and the world in arms. The eagles of Rome were heard screaming wildly. Rome was seen without Caesars and without gods; the cities depopulated and the deserts peopled ; as the governors of nations, men who did not know how to read, and were clad in skins ; the multitudes obeying the voice of him who said at the Jordan, “ Do penance,” and of the other who said, “ He who wishes to be perfect, let him leave all things, take up his cross, and follow me ; ” and kings adoring the Cross, and the Cross raised on high in all places. What is the cause of these great changes and trans¬ formations ? What is the cause of this great desolation and universal cataclysm ? What has occurred ? No¬ thing ; only some new theologians are going about through the world announcing a new theology. CHAPTER II. Of society under the empire of Catholic theology. That new theology is called Catholicity. Catholicity is a complete system of civilisation, so complete, that in its immensity it embraces everything—the science of God, the science of the angel, the science of the universe, and the science of man. The infidel falls into ecstasy at sight of its inconceivable extravagance, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 25 and the believer at sight of its wonderful grandeur. If there be any one who, on beholding it, passes by with a smile, people, more astounded at such an amount of stupid indifference than at that colossal grandeur and that inconceivable extravagance, raise their voice, and say, “ Let the fool pass.” All humanity has studied for the space of eighteen cen¬ turies in the school of its theologians and its doctors ; and at the end of so much application, and the end of so much study, up to to-day the abyss of its science has not been sounded. There, it learns how and when all things and times are to end, and when and how they had their beginning: there, are discovered secrets which were ever hidden from the speculations of the philosophers of the Gentiles, and the understanding of their sages : there, are revealed the final causes of all things, the concerted movement of everything human, the nature of bodies and the essence of spirits, the ways by which men walk, the term to which they go, the point from which they come, the mystery of their peregrination and the line of their journey, the enigma of their tears, and the secret of life and death. Chil¬ dren suckled at its prolific breasts, know to-day more than Aristotle and Plato, the luminaries of Athens. And yet the doctors who teach these things, and rise to such sublimity, are humble. It was given to the Catholic world alone to present a spectacle on earth reserved formerly to the angels in heaven—the spec¬ tacle of science bent in humility before the divine throne. 26 ESSA YS ON CA THOLICISM, This theology is called Catholic, because it is uni¬ versal ; and it is so in every sense, and under every aspect. It is universal because it embraces all truths ; because it embraces all that all truths contain; because its nature is destined to extend through all space and to be prolonged through all time. It is universal in its God, and in its dogmas. i God was unity in India, dualism in Persia, variety in Greece, multitude in Rome. The living God is one in substance, like the Indian god ; multiple in person, like the Persian ; like the Greek gods, He is various in His attributes, and in the multitude of spirits (gods) which serve Him. He is multitude, like the Roman gods ; He is universal cause, infinite and impalpable sub¬ stance, eternal repose, and author of all motion; He is supreme intelligence, sovereign will; He is the container, not the contained. It is He drew every¬ thing from nothing, and it is He maintains everything in its being, who regulates all things angelic, all things human, and all things infernal. He is merciful, just, loving, brave, powerful, simple, secret, beautiful, wise. The east knows His voice, the west obeys Him ; the south reverences Him, the north hangs on His nod. His word swells creation ; the stars veil their face ; the seraphim reflect His light on their inflamed wings ; the heavens serve Him for a throne, and the earth’s globe is poised in His hand. When the time came, the Catholic God showed His countenance ; this sufficed to cast to the earth all idols fabricated by men. And it could not be otherwise when we remember that LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM . 27 human theologies were nothing more than mutilated fragments of the Catholic theology ; and that the gods of the Gentiles were nothing more than the deification of some one of the essential properties of die true God the biblical God. Catholicity seized on man in his body, in his senses, and in his soul. Dogmatic theologians taught him what to believe; moral theologians, what he should do; and the mystics, rising above all, taught him to ascend on high on the wings of prayer, that ladder of Jacob composed of brilliant stones, by which God descends to earth and man rises to heaven, till eartli and heaven, God and man, burning together in the flame of an infinite love, are blended in one. Through Catholicity order entered into man, and through man into human societies. The moral world found on the day of redemption the laws it had lost on the day of prevarication and sin. The Catholic dogma was the criterion of sciences, Catholic morality the criterion of actions, and charity the criterion of affections. The human conscience, escaped from its hampered state, saw through the interior as well as through the exterior darkness, and at the light of those three divine criterions, recognised the happiness of the peace it had lost. Order passed from the religious to the moral world, and from the moral to the political world. The Catholic God, creator and sustainer of all things, subjected them to the government of His Providence* and governed them by His vicars. St Paul says in BOSTON COLLEGE LILUAP7 C/HUnX'TPXTTT'T' ittt T ■p ar 28 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, his Epistle to the Romans, chap. xiii.—“ Non est potestas nisi a Deo ; ” and Solomon in the Proverbs, chap. viii. ver. 15—“ Per me reges regnant et conditores legum justa decernunt.” The authority of His vicars was holy precisely inasmuch as it was foreign, that is, divine. The idea of authority is of Catholic origin. The ancient governors of the Gentiles built their sove¬ reignty on human foundations ; they governed for themselves, and they governed by force. Catholic governors, considering themselves as nothing, were no more than the ministers of God, and the servants of the people. When man became the child of God, he immediately ceased to be the slave of man. There is nothing at once more respectable, more august, and more solemn, than the words pronounced by the Church in the ears of Christian princes at the time of their consecration — “Take this wand as an emblem of your sacred power, that you may be able to support the weak, sustain the vacillating, correct the vicious, and lead the good along the path of salvation. Take this sceptre as the emblem of divine equity, which directs the good and chastises the wicked : learn from this to love justice and abhor iniquity.” These words were in perfect consonance with the idea of legitimate authority, revealed to the world by our Lord Jesus Christ—“You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them ; and their princes have power over them. But it is not so among you ; but whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister, and whosoever shall be first among you, shall be the ser- LIBERA LIS M, AND SOCIALISM. 29 vant of all. For the Son of man is not come to be * ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption for many” (Mark x. 42-45). All gained in this fortunate revolution—peoples and their governors ; the latter, because having domineered formerly over people’s bodies by the right of force, now they governed bodies and minds, sustained by the force of right ; the former, because they passed from the obedience of man to the obedience of God, and because they passed from forced obedience to voluntary obedience. Yet, if all gained, all did not gain equally; for princes, in the mere act of governing in the name of God, represented the impotence of humanity to constitute a legitimate authority by itself, and in its own name ; whilst peoples, from the mere fact of only obeying God in the prince, were the representatives of the highest and most glorious of human prerogatives, which consists in freedom from subjection to any yoke but that of divine authority. This explains, on the one hand, the singular modesty with which the fortunate princes whom men call great, and the Church, saints, shine in history; and on the other, the singular no¬ bility and distinction which are marked on the brow of all Catholic peoples. A voice of peace, of consolation, and of mercy, was raised in the world, and had sounded deeply in the human conscience; and that voice had taught nations that the weak and the poor are born to be served, because they are poor and weak, and that the great and the rich 30 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM\ are born to serve, because they are rich and great. Catholicity, by deifying authority, sanctified obedi- i ence; and by sanctifying the one and deifying the other, condemned pride in all its most tremendous manifestations, in the spirit of domination, and in the spirit of rebellion. There are two things totally impossible in a truly Catholic society—despotism and revolutions. Rousseau, who had sometimes sudden and grand illuminations, has written these remarkable words—“ Modern governments are undoubtedly in¬ debted to Christianity, on one side, for the firmness of their authority, and on the other, for the lengthened intervals between revolutions. Nor has her influence extended to this alone ; for, acting on themselves, she has made them more humane. To become con¬ vinced of this, we have only to compare them with ancient governments'’ (Emile 1 . 4). And Montesquieu has said—“There is no doubt Christianity has created among us the political right we recognise in peace, and the right of nations we respect in war, for the benefits of which the human race shall never be sufficiently grateful ” (Esprit de Lois, 1 . xxix., chap. 3). God himself, who is the author and governor of poli¬ tical, is the author and governor of domestic, society. In the most hidden, in the highest, in the most serene and luminous point, of the heavens, there exists a taber¬ nacle, inaccessible even to the choirs of the angels; in that inaccessible tabernacle is perpetually verified the prodigy of prodigies, the mystery of mysteries. There is the Catholic God, one and triple; one in LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 31 essence, triple in persons. The Father eternally begets the Son, and from the Father and the Son eternally proceeds the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost is God, the Son is God and the Father is God ; and God has no plural, because there is but one God, triple in persons and one in essence. The Holy Ghost is God like the Father, but is not the Father—is God \ like the Son, but is not the Son. The Son is God like the Holy Ghost, but is not the Holy Ghost—is God like the Father, but is not the Father. The Father is God like the Son, but is not the Son—is God like the Holy Ghost, but is not the Holy Ghost. The Father is omnipotence, the Son, wisdom, the Holy Ghost, love ; and the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are infinite love, supreme power, perfect wisdom. There, unity, dilating, eternally begets variety; and variety, condensing, is eternally resolved into unity. God is thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; and He is sovereign thesis, perfect antithesis, infinite synthesis. Because He is one, He is God ; because He is God, He is perfect; because He is perfect, He is prolific; because He is prolific, He is variety; because He is variety, He is family. In His essence are found, in an unutterable and incomprehensible manner, the laws of creation and the exemplars of all things. All has been made to His image, and hence creation is one and various. The word universe , signifies unity and variety in one. Man was made by God to the image of God ; and not only to His image, but also to His likeness : and hence man is one in essence, and triple in persons. Eve pro- 32 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , ceeds from Adam ; Abel is begotten by Adam and Eve ; and Abel and Eve and Adam are one and the same thing—they are man, they are human nature. Adam is man the father; Eve, man the mother; Abel, man the son. Eve is man like Adam, but is not the father ; she is man like Abel, but is not the son. Adam is man like Abel, but is not the son ; and like Eve, but is not the mother. Abel is man like Eve, but is not the mother; like Adam, but is not the father. All these names are divine, as are divine the functions sanctified by them. The idea of paternity, foundation of the family, could not have been conceived by the human mind. Between the father and the son, there is none of those fundamental differences, which afford a base sufficiently broad on which to build a right. Priority is a fact, and nothing more; force is a fact, and nothing more; but priority and force cannot constitute, of themselves, the right of paternity, although they can originate another fact, the fact of slavery. The proper name of the father, supposing this fact, is lord, and the name of the son is slave. And this truth, which reason teaches us, is confirmed by history. In the peoples forgetful of the great biblical traditions, paternity was never else but the proper name for domestic tyranny. If there had existed a people forgetful, on the one hand, of those great traditions, and not given, on the other, to the worship of material force, in that people father and son would have called themselves, and would really have been, brothers. Paternity comes from God, and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 33 can come from God alone, in its name, and in its essence. If God had permitted the complete oblivion of the traditions of Paradise, the human race, with the institution, would have forgotten its very name. The family, divine in its institution and in its essence, has everywhere followed the vicissitudes of Catholic civilisation : and this is so certain, that the purity or the corruption of the former is ever an infallible symptom of the purity or corruption of the latter, as the history of the various vicissitudes and transformations of the second, is the history of the transformations and the vicissitudes through which the first has passed. In Catholic ages, the tendency of the family is to perfection : from natural it becomes spiritual, and from the hearth it passes to the cloister. Whilst the children at the hearth prostrate themselves reverently at the feet of the father and the mother, the inhabitants of the cloister, children more humble and reverent, bathe with tears the feet of another father more exalted, and the sacred mantle of another mother more tender. When Catholic civilisation is conquered, and enters on its period of decadence, the family immediately decays, its constitu¬ tion is vitiated, its elements are decomposed, and all its bonds relaxed. The father and mother, between whom God placed no other intercourse but love, create between themselves the intercourse of severe ceremony; whilst a sacrilegious familiarity suppresses the distance God placed between children and parents, destroying the intercourse of reverence. The family, then, debased and profaned, is dispersed and lost in the clubs and casinos. C 34 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , The history of the family can be given in a few lines. The divine family, exemplar and model of the human family, is eternal in all its individuals. The human spiritual family, after the divine the most per¬ fect of all, exists in its individuals as long as time lasts ; the human natural family, between father and mother, lasts as long as life, and between father and children, many years. The human anti-Catholic family lasts be¬ tween father and mother some years; between father and children, some months. The artificial family of the clubs lasts a day, and of the casino, an instant. Dura¬ tion is* here, as in many other things, the measure of per¬ fection. Between the divine, and the human family of the cloister, there is the same proportion as between time and eternity: between the spiritual family of the cloister, the most perfect, and the sensual of the club, the most imperfect, of all human families, there is the same proportion as between the brevity of a moment and the immensity of time. CHAPTER III. Of society under the empire of the Catholic Church . CONSTITUTED, on one side, the criterion of sciences, the criterion of affections, and the criterion of actions; constituted, on the other, in society, political authority, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 35 in the family, domestic authority, it was necessary to constitute another authority above all human ones, the infallible organ of all dogmas, the august depositary of all criterions, that should be at once holy and sancti¬ fying, that should be the word of God incarnate in the world, the light of God dancing on all the horizons, the divine charity inflaming all souls ; which should treasure up in a sublime and hidden tabernacle, to shower them on the earth, the infinite treasures of the graces of heaven; which should be the refreshment of fatigued men, the refuge of sinful men, the fountain of living waters for those who are thirsty, the bread of eternal life for those who are hungry, wisdom for the ignorant, for the wanderers a way; which should be full of warnings and lessons for the powerful, and for the poor full of love and mercy; an authority placed so high that it could speak to all with power, and on a rock so firm, that it could not be shaken by the waves of this restless sea of the world ; an authority founded directly by God, and which should not be subject to the fluctua¬ tions of human things; that should be at once ever new and ever old, duration and progress, and which God should bless with His special assistance. That sublime, infallible authority, founded for eternity, and in which God feels eternally delighted, is the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, the mystic body of the Lord, the happy spouse of the Word, who teaches the world what she learns from the mouth of the Holy Ghost; which, placed as it were in mid-region between earth and heaven, exchanges prayers for gifts, and per- £SSA YS Oft CA TH0L1CISM , 36 petually offers the Father, for the sins of the world, the precious blood of the Son in perpetual sacrifice, and in perfect holocaust. As God makes all things perfect and finished, it would not become His infinite wisdom to give the truth to the world, and then, entering into His perfect repose, leave it exposed to the injuries of time, the vain subject of the disputes of men. For this reason He eternally conceived the idea of His Church, which shone on the world in the plenitude of time, beautiful and perfect, with that sublime perfection and sovereign beauty she ever had in the divine under¬ standing. Since then she is for us who navigate in this sea of the world, boiling in tempests, as a luminous beacon placed on a high .rock. She knows what saves and what ruins us ; our first origin and our last end ; in Hiat consists the salvation and in what the damnation of men, and she alone knows it; she rules souls, and she alone rules them; she straightens the will, and she alone straightens it; she purifies and inflames the affec¬ tions, and she alone inflames and purifies them ; she moves hearts, and she alone moves them with the grace of the Holy Ghost. In her finds no place, nor sin, nor error, nor weakness; her tunic is without stain; tribu¬ lations are for her triumphs ; the hurricanes and the gentle breezes carry her to port. Everything in her is spiritual, supernatural, and miraculous: it is spiritual, because her government is of intelligences, and because the arms with which she defends herself and slays, are spiritual; it is super¬ natural, because she ordains everything to a supernatural LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM 37 end, and because her duty is to be holy and to sanctify men supernaturally ; it is miraculous, because all the great mysteries are directed to her miraculous institu¬ tion, and because her existence, her duration, her con¬ quests, are a perpetual miracle. The Father sends the Son to earth, the Son sends the apostles to the world, and the Holy Ghost to the apostles ; in this way, in the plenitude as well as in the beginning of time, in the institution of the Church as in the universal creation, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost interfere. Twelve sinners pronounce the words which sound mysteriously in their ears, and the earth is immediately disturbed : an unusual fire burns in the veins of the world ; a whirlwind knocks nations out of their equi¬ librium, hurries away peoples, disturbs empires, con¬ founds races. The human race sweats blood under the divine pressure, and from all that blood, and from all that confusion of nations, and races, and peoples, and from those impetuous whirlwinds, and from that fire which circulates through all the veins of the earth, the world comes out radiant and renovated, lying at the feet of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. That mystic city of God has gates looking in all directions, to signify the universal calling. “ Unam omnium Rempublicam agnoscimus mundum,” says Tertullian. For her there are neither Jews nor Gentiles, barbarians nor Greeks. In her find place the Scythian and the Roman, the Persian and the Macedonian, those who come from the east and from the west, from the northern zone and from the regions of the south. Hers 38 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , is the holy ministry of instruction and of doctrine, hers, the universal empire and the universal priesthood ; her citizens are kings and emperors, her heroes the martyrs and the saints. Her invincible militia is composed of those brave warriors who conquered in themselves all the appetites of the flesh and its mad concupiscences. God Himself invisibly presides in her austere senate and in her holy councils. When her pontiffs speak to the world, their infallible word has been already recorded in heaven by God himself. That Church placed in the world without human foundation, after drawing it from an abyss of corruption, withdrew it from the night of barbarism. She has always fought the battles of the Lord, and though hard pressed in all, came out from all victorious. Heretics deny her doctrine, and she triumphs over heretics ; all human passions rebel against her authority, and she triumphs over all human passions. Paganism fights its last battle with her, and she brings paganism to her feet. Emperors and kings persecute her, and the ferocity of their executioners is conquered by the constancy of her martyrs. She only fights for her holy liberty, and the world gives her empire. Under her prolific empire, the sciences have flourished, morals have been purified, laws perfected, and all great institutions, domestic, political, and social, have flourished with rich and spontaneous vegetation. She has had anathemas only for impious men, for rebellious peoples and tyrannous kings. She has defended liberty against those who aspired to convert authority into tyranny, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 39 and authority against peoples who aspired to an absolute emancipation ; and against all, the rights of God and the inviolability of His commandments. There is no truth the Church has not proclaimed, nor error she has not anathematised. Liberty, in truth, has been in her eyes holy, and in error, as error itself, abominable. In her eyes, error is born and lives without rights, and for that reason she has sought it out, and persecuted it, and extirpated it from the most hidden folds of the human intellect. And that perpetual illegitimacy, and that perpetual nakedness of error, as it has been a religious dogma, so also has it been a political dogma, proclaimed in all time by all the powers of the world. All have placed beyond discus¬ sion the principle on which they rest; all have called the principle which served as its contrast, error, and have despoiled it of all legitimacy and of all rights. All have declared themselves infallible in that supreme qualification; and if they have not condemned all political errors, it is not because the conscience of the human race recognises the legitimacy of any error, but because it has never recognised in human authorities the privilege of infallibility in the qualification of errors. From that radical impotence of human authorities to designate errors, has sprung the principle of liberty of discussion, foundation of modern constitutions. That principle does not suppose in society, as might at first sight appear, an incomprehensible and culpable impar¬ tiality between truth and error: it is founded on two other suppositions, one of which is true, and the other 40 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , false; it is founded, on one hand, on the fact that governments are not infallible, which is evident; it is founded, on the other, on the infallibility of discussion, which is false in every light we view it. Infallibility cannot result from discussion unless it be previously in those who discuss; it cannot be in those who discuss unless it be at the same time in those who govern. If infallibility is an attribute of human nature, it is in the former and in the latter: either all are fallible or all are infallible. The question, then, consists in ascertain¬ ing whether human nature is fallible or infallible, which is necessarily resolved into this other, viz., whether the nature of man is sound, or is fallen and infirm ? In the first case, infallibility, essential attribute of the sound understanding, is the first and greatest of all its attributes. From this principle the following conse¬ quences flow:—If the understanding of man is infallible because it is sound, it cannot err because it is infallible; if it cannot err because it is infallible, truth exists in all men, whether considered in general or individually; if the truth is in all men, isolated or in general, all their affirmations and all their negations must necessarily be identical; if all their affirmations and all their negations are identical, discussion is inconceivable and absurd. In the second case, fallibility, infirmity of the infirm intellect, is the first and greatest of human afflictions; and from this principle the following consequences flow: —If the understanding of man is fallible because it is infirm, it cannot be certain of the truth, because it is fallible ; if it cannot be certain of the truth because LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM . 4 * it is fallible, that uncertainty is essentially in all men, whether considered in common or individually; if that uncertainty is essentially in all men isolated or united, all their affirmations and all their negations are a con¬ tradiction in terms, because they must necessarily be uncertain; if all their affirmations and negations are uncertain, discussion is absurd and inconceivable. Catholicity alone has given a satisfactory and legiti¬ mate solution, like all its solutions, to this fearful pro¬ blem. Catholicity teaches the following :—Man comes from God, sin from man, ignorance and error, like pain and death, from sin, fallibility from ignorance, from fallibility absurdity in discussion. But it adds :— Man was redeemed, which, if it does not signify that by the act of redemption, and without any effort on his part, he escaped from the slavery of sin, it signifies, at least, that by redemption he acquired the power of breaking those chains, and of converting ignorance, error, pain, and death into means of his sanctification by the good use of his liberty, ennobled and restored. For this end God instituted His immortal, impeccable, and infallible Church. The Church represents human nature without sin, such as it came from the hands of God, full of original justice and of sanctifying grace : hence it is infallible, and not subject to death. God has placed it on earth, that man, aided by grace, which is denied to no one, may become worthy of having applied to him the blood shed for him on Calvary, by voluntarily submitting to her divine inspirations. With his faith he will conquer ignorance, with his patience. 42 ESSA YS ON CA TH0L1CISM ,, pain, and with his resignation, death : death, pain, and ignorance only exist to be conquered by faith, resigna¬ tion, and patience. It follows from this that the Church alone has the right to affirm and deny, and that there is no right out¬ side her to affirm what she denies, or to deny what she affirms. The day when society, forgetting her doctrinal decisions, has asked the press and the tribune, news- writers and assemblies, what is truth and what is error, on that day error and truth are confounded in all intellects, society enters on the regions of shadows, and falls under the empire of fictions. Feeling in itself, on one hand, the imperious necessity of submitting to truth and withdrawing from error, and finding it impossible, on the other, to ascertain what error is and what truth is, it has formed a catalogue of conventional truths, and another of imaginary errors, and has said, “ I will adore the former and condemn the latter ; ” ignorant—so great is its blindness—that by adoring the one and condemning the other, it condemns or adores nothing; or if it condemns or adores anything, it adores and condemns itself. The doctrinal intolerance of the Church has saved the world from chaos. Her doctrinal intolerance has placed beyond question political, domestic, social, and religious, truths—primitive and holy truths, which are not subject to discussion, because they are the founda¬ tion of all discussions ; truths which cannot be called into doubt for a moment without the understanding on that moment oscillating, lost between truth and error, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 43 and the clear mirror of human reason becoming soiled and obscured. This serves to explain why the Church, and the Church alone, has had the holy privilege of fruitful and prolific discussions, whilst society, emanci¬ pated from her, has done nothing but lose time in ephemeral and barren disputes, which, having their start¬ ing-point in an absolute, could result in nothing but a complete, scepticism. The Cartesian theory, according to which truth comes from doubt, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, is contrary to that divine law which presides at the generation of bodies as well as ideas, and in virtue of which contraries perpetually exclude their contraries, and like ever begets like. In virtue of this law doubt perpetually comes from doubt, and scepticism from scepticism, as truth from faith, and science from truth. To the profound comprehension of this law of the intellectual generation of ideas, are due the marvels of Catholic civilisation. To that wonderful civilisation is due all that we admire and all that we see. Its theologians, even considered humanly, put to the blush modern and ancient philosophers ; her doctors excite wonder by the immensity of their science ; its historians by their generalising and comprehensive views, cast those of antiquity into the shade. St Augustine’s “ City of God ” is, even to-day, the most profound book of history which genius, illuminated by the rays of Catholicity, has presented to the astonished eyes of men. The acts of her Councils, leaving aside the divine inspiration, are the most finished monuments of human 44 ESS A YS ON CATHOLICISM , prudence. The Canonical, excel in wisdom the Roman, and the feudal, laws. Who is before St Thomas in science, St Augustine in genius, Bossuet in majesty, St Paul in power ? Who is greater as a poet than Dante ? Who is equal to Shakspeare ? Who surpasses Calderon ? Who, like Raffaelle, infused life and inspira¬ tion into the canvas ? Place people in sight of the pyramids of Egypt, and they will tell you, “ Here has passed a grand and barbarous civilisation.” Place them in sight of the Grecian statues and temples, and they will tell you, “ Here has passed a graceful, ephemeral, and brilliant civilisation.” Place them in sight of a Roman monument, and they will tell you, “ Here has passed a great people.” Place them in sight of a cathedral, and on beholding such majesty united to such beauty, such grandeur to such taste, such grace to such delicacy, such severe unity to such rich variety, such measure to such boldness, such heaviness in the stones, with such suavity in their outlines, and such wonderful harmony between silence and light, shade and colour, they will tell you, “ Here has passed the greatest people of history, and the most astounding of human civilisations: that people must have taken grandeur from the Egyptian, brilliancy from the Greek, strength from the Roman, and, beyond the strength, the brilliancy, and grandeur, something more valuable than grandeur, strength, and brilliancy,—immortality and perfection.” If we pass from sciences, letters, and arts, to the study of the institutions the Church has vivified with her breath, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM, 45 nourished with her substance, maintained with her spirit, and sustained with her science, this new spectacle will present no less astounding marvels and wonders. Catholicity, which ordains and refers all to God, and by referring and ordaining all to God, converts supreme liberty into a constitutive element of supreme order, and infinite variety into constitutive element of infinite unity, is, by its nature, the religion of vigorous associa¬ tions, united together by sympathetic affinities. In Catholicity man is never alone: to find a man relegated to solitary and sombre isolation—supreme personifica¬ tion of egotism and pride—we must leave Catholic boundaries. In the immense circle described by those immense boundaries, men live grouped together, and obey the impulse of their most noble sentiments of fraternity. The groups enter one into the other, and all into one more universal and comprehensive, in which they move with freedom, and obey the law of sovereign harmony. The child is born, and lives in the domestic association, that divine foundation of human associa¬ tions. Families group together conformably to the laws of their origin, and thus grouped, form higher groups called classes; the different classes dedicate themselves to different functions—some cultivate the arts of peace, others the arts of war; some seek glory, others administer justice, and others prosecute indus¬ trial pursuits. Within these natural groups, others are spontaneously formed, composed of those who seek glory by the same path, of those who dedicate them¬ selves to the same industrial pursuits, of those who 46 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , follow the same business ; and all these groups, dis¬ tributed in their classes, and all these classes, hier¬ archically distributed among themselves, constitute the State—wide association in which all others move with freedom. This in the social point of view. In the political, families are associated in different groups: each group of families constitutes a municipium ; each municipium is the participation in common by the families who form it of the right of worshipping their God, of administering their own affairs, of giving food to the living and sepulture to the dead. Hence each muni- cipium has a temple, symbol of its religious unity ; and a municipal house, symbol of its administrative unity; and a territory, symbol of its jurisdictional and civil unity; and a cemetery, symbol of its right of sepulture. All these different unities constitute the municipal unity, which has also its symbol, in the right of using its coat of arms and unfurling its banner. From the variety of the municipia is formed the national unity, which, in its turn, is symbolised in a throne, and per¬ sonified in a king. Above all these magnificent associations is that of all Catholic nations, with their Christian princes, fraternally grouped in the bosom of the Church. This perfect and supreme association is unity in its head, and variety in its members: it is variety in the faithful, scattered over the world, and unity in the holy Chair, which shines in Rome, sur¬ rounded by rays of divine light. That eminent Chair is the centre of humanity, represented, inasmuch as it is LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 47 various, by the General Councils, and inasmuch as it is one, by him who is on earth the common father of the faithful and vicar of Jesus Christ. That is supreme variety, sublimest unity, and most perfect society. All the elements which exist in dis¬ order in human societies move in this harmoniously. The pontiff is king both by divine and human right: the divine right shines principally in the institution; the human right is apparent principally in the designa¬ tion of the person. And the person designated pontiff by men, is instituted pontiff by God ; and as he unites the human and divine sanction, so also does he unite the advantages of elective and hereditary monarchies. From the one he has popularity, from the other, inviol¬ ability and prestige: like the former, the pontifical monarchy is limited on all sides; like the latter, the limitations come from within, not from without, from its own, not from another’s will. The foundation of its limitations is in its ardent charity, in its wonderful humility, and its infinite prudence. What monarchy is this, in which the king, though elected, is venerated, and which, though all have the capacity of becoming kings, exists eternally, despite the efforts of domestic war and civil discord to destroy it ? What monarchy is this in which the king elects the electors, who then elect the king, all being elected and electors ? Who does not see here a deep and hidden mystery—unity perpetually begetting variety, and variety perpetually constituting its unity ? Who does not see here represented the universal confluence of all things ? And who does not 48 ESSAVS ON CATHOLICISM , remark that this strange monarchy is the representation of Him who, being true God and true man, is divinity and humanity, unity and variety, united in one ? The occult law which presides at the generation of unity and variety must be the highest, most universal, most excellent and mysterious of all, as God has subjected to it all things, human and divine, created and uncreated, visible and invisible. Being one in its essence, it is infinite in its manifestations: everything that exists appears to exist only to manifest it; and each one of the things that exist, manifests it in a different way. It is one way in God, another in God made man, another in His Church, another in the family, another in the universe; but it is in all, and in each and every part. Here it is an invisible and incom¬ prehensible mystery, and there, without ceasing to be a mystery, it is a visible phenomenon and a palpable fact By the side of the king, whose duty it is to reign with independent sovereignty, and to govern with absolute power, there is a perpetual senate, composed of princes who have their princedom from God ; and this per¬ petual and divine senate is a governing one, and though a governing one, is so in such a way, that it neither impedes, nor diminishes, nor eclipses, the supreme power of the monarch. The Church is the only mon¬ archy which has preserved intact the plenitude of its right, though perpetually in contact with a most power¬ ful oligarchy, and is the only oligarchy which, placed in contact with an absolute monarch, has not broken out into rebellions and seditions. As the princes come LIBERALISM . AND SOCIALISM. 49 after the king, after the princes come the priests, charged with the holy ministry. In this wonderful society, everything is the reverse of what occurs in all human associations. In these, the distance between those who are at the foot, and those who are at the head, of the social hierarchy is so great, that the former are tempted by the spirit of rebellion, and the latter fall into the temptation of tyranny. In the Church things are regulated so, that neither tyranny nor rebellion is possible. Here, the dignity of the subject is so great, that the prelate’s is derived from what he has in common with the subject, rather than from what he has special and peculiar. The greatest dignity of the bishops is not in their being princes, nor of the pontiff in his being king; but in pontiffs and bishops being, like their subjects, priests. Their incommunicable and highest prerogative is not in governing; it is in the power of making the Son of God the slave of their voice, in offering the Son to the Father in unbloody sacrifice for the sins of the world, in being the channels through which grace is communi¬ cated, and in the supreme and incommunicable power of remitting and retaining sin. The highest dignity is in what all the dignitaries are, rather than in what only some of them are. It is not in the apostolate, nor in the pontificate, but in the priesthood. If we consider the pontifical dignity isolatedly, the Church appears an absolute monarchy. If we consider her apostolic constitution, she appears a powerful oligarchy. If we consider, on the one hand, the dignity So ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , common to prelates and priests, and, on the other, the deep abyss there is between the priesthood and the people, it appears an immense aristocracy. When we fix our eyes on the immense multitude of the faithful scattered over the world, and find that the priest¬ hood, and the apostolate, and the pontificate are employed in their service, that nothing is ordained in this wonderful society for the advantage of those who govern, but for the salvation of those who obey; when we consider the consoling dogma of the essential equa¬ lity of souls; when we remember that the Saviour of the human race suffered the affronts of the cross for each individual and for all men; when we find the principle proclaimed that the Good Shepherd should lay down His life for His flock; when we reflect that the term of the action of all the different ministries is in the con¬ gregation of the faithful,—the Church appears an immense democracy, in the glorious acceptation of this term, or at least, a society instituted for an end essen¬ tially popular and democratic. And the most singular of all is, that the Church is all she appears. In other societies, those various forms of government are incom¬ patible with one another, or, if they ever are united, they lose many of their essential properties. Monarchy cannot be united to oligarchy and aristocracy, without the first losing its naturally absolute character, and the second, their preponderance. Monarchy, oligarchy, and aristocracy cannot live with democracy, without the latter losing its absorbent and exclusive character, as aristocracy, its influence, oligarchy, its tendency to LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 5i invasion, and monarchy, its absolute character; so that their mutual union becomes their mutual anni¬ hilation. In the Church alone, which is a supernatural society, there is room for all these governments, har¬ monically combined, without losing anything of their original purity, or their primitive grandeur. This pacific combination of powers in themselves opposed, and of governments, whose only law, humanly speaking, is war, is the most beautiful spectacle in the annals of the world. If the government of the Church could be defined, it might be called an immense aristocracy, directed by an oligarchical power placed in the hands of an absolute king, whose duty it is to perpetually offer himself in holocaust for the salvation of the people. This definition would be the prodigy of definitions, as the thing defined is the greatest prodigy of history. Summing up in a few words all we have said, we may assert without fear of being belied by facts, that Catholicity has established order and concert in all things human. That order and that concert, relatively to man, signify that, through Catholicity, the body became subject to the will, the will to the understand¬ ing, the understanding to reason, reason to faith, and all to charity, which has the virtue of transforming man into God, purified with an infinite love. Relatively to the family, they signify that, through Catholicity, have been definitely constituted the three domestic persons, united in one with loving bond. Relatively to govern¬ ments, they signify that, through Catholicity, authority and obedience have been sanctified, and tyranny and 52 £SSA VS ON CA THOLICISM, revolution for ever condemned. Relatively to society, they signify that, through Catholicity, war of castes came to an end, and the concerted harmony of all the social groups began; that the spirit of fruitful associa¬ tions took the place of the spirit of egotism and isola¬ tion, and the empire of love of the rule of pride. Rela¬ tively to science, letters, and arts, they signify that, through Catholicity, man entered into the possession of the true and the beautiful, of the true God and of His divine splendours. Finally, it results from all we have said, that with Catholicity appeared in the world a society, supernatural, excellent, and perfect, founded by God, preserved by Him, and directed by Him, which perpetually holds in deposit His eternal Word, which supplies the world with the bread of life, which can neither deceive nor be deceived, which teaches men the lessons it learns from its divine Master, and is the perfect transcript of the divine perfections, the sublime exemplar and finished model of human societies. i In the following chapters we shall demonstrate that neither Christianity nor the Catholic Church, which is its absolute expression, has been able to produce its great works, its sublime prodigies, and marvellous changes, without a supernatural and constant action on the part of God, who supernaturally governs society with His providence, and man with His grace. LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 53 CHAPTER IV. Catholicity is love. BETWEEN the Catholic Church and the other societies scattered over the world, there is the same distance as between the natural and the supernatural; between human and divine conceptions. In the pagan world, society and the city were one and the same thing; in the Roman, society was Rome ; in the Athenian, Athens. Beyond Athens and Rome there was nothing but barbarous and uncultivated nations, rude and unsociable by nature. Christianity revealed to man human society, and, as if this were not enough, revealed to him another society, grander and more excellent, to the immensity of which it put neither limits nor bounds. Its citizens are the saints who triumph in heaven, the just who suffer in purga¬ tory, and the Christians who combat on earth. Read attentively, one by one, the pages of history, and after reading, and meditating on them, you shall see with astonishment that that gigantic conception is excep¬ tional, and comes without warning, without antecedents ; that it comes as a supernatural revelation, communi¬ cated to man supernaturally. The world received it unexpectedly, and did not see it come ; for when it saw it, it was already come. It saw it with one sole illumi¬ nation and one simple glance. Who but God, who is love, could have taught those who combat here that they are in communion with those who suffer in purga- 54 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM\ tory, and with those who triumph in heaven ? Who but God could unite with loving link the dead and'the living, the just, the saint, and the sinner ? Who but God could throw a bridge over those immense oceans ? The law of unity and variety, that law par excellence , which is at once human and divine, without which nothing can be explained, and with which everything becomes plain, is here displayed in one of its most astounding manifestations. There is variety in heaven, because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three persons ; and that variety becomes mingled, but not confused, in unity, because the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and God is one. There is variety in Paradise, because Adam and Eve are two different persons, and that variety is mingled, but not confused, in unity, because Adam and Eve are human nature, and human nature is one. Variety is in our Lord Jesus Christ, because in Him concur, on the one hand, the divine nature, and on the other, corporeal and spiritual, or human, nature; and the corporeal and spiritual and the divine natures are mingled without confusion in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is one only person. Finally, there is variety in the Church, which combats on earth, suffers in purgatory, and triumphs in heaven ; and that variety is mingled, but not confounded, in our Lord Jesus Christ, only Head of the universal Church, who, considered as the only Son of the Father, is, like the Father, the symbol of the variety of persons in the unity of essence ; as in the quality of God-man, He is the symbol of the LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 55 variety of essences in the unity of person ; and when considered at once as the God-man and the Son of God, the perfect symbol of all possible varieties and of infinite unity. And as supreme harmony consists in unity, from, and in which, all variety springs and is resolved, being always found identical in all its manifestations, from this it comes that the law, in virtue of which all that is various is rendered one, is ever the same. The variety of the divine Trinity is one by love: the human variety, composed of the father, the mother, and the child, is made one by love. The variety of the human and divine natures is made one in our Lord Jesus Christ by the incarnation of the Word in the womb of the Virgin—mystery of love. The variety of the Church in combat, in suffering, and in triumph, is made one in our Lord Jesus Christ by the prayers of the Christians who triumph, which fall, converted into beneficent dew, on the Christians who combat, and by the prayers of the Christians who combat, which fall in prolific showers on the Christians who suffer ; and perfect prayer is the ecstasy of love. “ God is charity; he who is in charity is in God, and God in him.” If God is charity, charity is infinite unity, because God is infinite unity ; if he who is in charity is in God, and God in him, God can come down to man by charity, and man can rise by charity to God ; and all this without confusion, in such a way that neither God made man loses His divine nature, nor man made God, his human nature; man being ever man, although God ; and God ever God 56 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, though man ; and all this by exclusively supernatural, that is, by exclusively divine, means. The Gentiles had some notion of this supreme dogma, as they had, more or less perfectly, of all the Catholic dogmas. In every zone, in all times, and among all the human races, there has been preserved an undying belief in a future transformation, so radical and sovereign, that it should join in one for ever, the Creator and the creature, the human and the divine natures. Long ago, in the age of Paradise, the enemy of the human race spoke to our first parents of becoming gods. After the prevarication and the fall, men carried this wonderful tradition to the ultimate ends of the world. There is no man of research who, no matter how little he dives into them, does not find it at the bottom of all theo- logies. The difference between the pure dogma pre¬ served in the Catholic theology, and the dogma vitiated by human traditions, consists in the mode of attaining that supreme transformation and sovereign end. The angel of darkness did not deceive our first parents when he told them that they should be like unto gods; the deceit consisted in hiding from them the supernatural path of love, and pointing out the natural road of dis¬ obedience. The error of pagan theologies does not con¬ sist in affirming that the divinity and humanity shall be united in one, but in the fact that the pagans regarded the divine and human natures as thoroughly identified, whilst Catholicity, considering them as essentially dis¬ tinct, reaches the union by the supernatural deification of man. That pagan superstition is manifest in the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 57 divine honours rendered the earth, in quality of im¬ mortal and prolific mother of the gods, and to various creatures whom they confounded with the gods them¬ selves. Finally, the difference between Pantheism and Catholicity is not in the one’s affirming and the other’s denying the deification of man, but in Pantheism’s holding that man is by his nature God, whilst Catho¬ licity says that he can become so supernaturally by grace. It is in Pantheism’s teaching that man, part of the aggregate which is God, is completely absorbed by the aggregate of which he forms part; whilst Catholicity teaches that man, even after deification, that is, after being penetrated by the divine substance, still preserves the inviolable individuality of his own substance. The respect God has for human individuality, or, what is the same, for the liberty of man, which is what constitutes his absolute and inviolable individuality, is such, accord¬ ing to the Catholic dogma, that He has divided with it the empire of all associations, which are governed at one and the same time, by the liberty of man and the counsel of the divinity. Love is in itself prolific; because it is prolific, it begets all things various, without destroying its own unity; and because it is love, it mingles in its unity, without confounding them, all things various. Love, then, is infinite variety and infinite unity. It is the sole law, the supreme precept, the only road, the ultimate end. Catholicity is love, because God is love. Only he who loves is a Catholic, and only the Catholic learns to love, foi it is only th? Catholic ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , 58 who receives his knowledge from supernatural and divine sources. CHAPTER V. 0 Our Lord Jesus Christ has not triumphed over the world by the sanctity of His doctrine , nor by prophecies and miracles , but in spite of all these things . The Father is love, and sent the Son through love; the Son is love, and sent the Holy Ghost through love ; the Holy Ghost is love, and perpetually infuses His love into the Church. The Church is love, and will burn the world in love. Those who are ignorant of this, or have forgotten it, will be perpetually ignorant of the super¬ natural and secret cause of visible and natural pheno¬ mena, of the invisible cause of all things visible, of the bond that subjects the temporal to the eternal, of the secret spring of the movements of the soul, of how the Holy Ghost works in man, providence, in society, God, in history. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not conquer the world with His marvellous doctrine. If He had been nothing but a man of marvellous doctrine, the world would have admired Him for a moment, and would then have for¬ gotten both the man and his doctrine. Marvellous and all as was His doctrine, it was only followed by a few of the lower orders, fell under the contempt of the most LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM, 59 select of the Jewish people, and during the life of the Master was unknown to the human race. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not conquer the world with His miracles. Of those who saw Him change, by an act of His will, the nature of things, walk on the waters, quiet the waves, calm the winds, command life and death, some called Him God, others a devil, others a wizard. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not conquer the world because the ancient prophecies had been fulfilled in Him. The synagogue, which was the depositary of them, was not converted, nor were the doctors who knew them by heart converted, nor were the multitudes who had learned them from the doctors, converted. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not conquer the world with the truth. The essential truth of Christianity was in the Old as well as in the New Testament, as it was ever one, eternal, unvarying. That truth, which was eternally in the bosom of God, was revealed to man, infused into his soul, and deposited in history, from the moment the first divine word resounded in the world. And yet the Old Testament, as well in its eternal and essential, as in its accessory, local, and contingent character, in its dogmas as in its rites, never passed the boundaries of the predestined people. That very people often broke out into great rebellions, persecuted its prophets, outraged its doctors, committed idolatry after the manner of the Gentiles, made nefarious compacts with the infernal spirits, gave itself up in body and 6o ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , soul to bloody and horrible superstitions ; and the day on which the Truth took flesh, it blasphemed, denied, and crucified it on Calvary; and whilst the Truth which was hidden in the ancient symbols, represented in the ancient figures, announced by the ancient prophets, testified to by fearful prodigies and by stupendous miracles, was placed on a cross, when it came of its own accord to explain by its presence, the cause of those stupendous miracles and those fearful prodigies, to verify all the prophetic words, and to teach the nations what was represented in the ancient symbols, and what was hidden in the ancient figures, error had extended freely through the world, wide as it is, and had covered all its horizons with misty shadows ; and all this with a prodigious rapidity, and without the aid of prophets, or symbols, or figures, or miracles. Terrible lesson ! memorable record! for those who believe in the hidden and expansive force of truth, and in the radical impotence of error to open a way for itself in the world ! If our Lord Jesus Christ conquered the world, He conquered it in spite of being the truth, in spite of being the announced by the ancient prophets, the represented in the ancient symbols, the contained in the ancient figures. He conquered it in spite of His prodigies, His miracles, and His marvellous doctrine. No other doctrine •> but the evangelical could have triumphed with that immense apparatus of clearest testimonies, irresistible proofs, and invincible arguments. If Mohammedanism spread like a deluge over the African continent, through Liberalism, And socialism. 6i Asia, and through Europe, this consisted in the fact that it travelled quickly, and carried on the point of its sword all its miracles, all its arguments, and all its testimonies. Prevaricating and fallen man was not made for the truth, nor was truth made for prevaricating and fallen man. Between the truth and human reason, after the prevarication of man, God established a lasting repug¬ nance and an invincible repulsion. Truth has in itself the titles of its sovereignty, and does not ask leave to impose its yoke ; whilst man, since he rebelled against God, does not tolerate any sovereignty but his own, unless it first ask his leave and assent. Hence, when the truth comes within sight, he immediately begins to deny it, and to deny it is to affirm himself in quality of independent sovereign. If he cannot deny it, he enters into combat with it, and by combating it, he combats for his own sovereignty. If he conquers, he crucifies it; if he is conquered, he flies : by flying, he thinks he flies from slavery, and by crucifying it, ha believes he crucifies his tyrant. On the contrary, between human reason and the absurd there is a secret affinity and a close relationship. Sin has united them with the bond of indissoluble matrimony. The absurd triumphs over man precisely because it is devoid of all rights anterior and superior to human reason. Man accepts it precisely because it comes naked ; because, being devoid of rights, it has no pretensions. His will accepts it because it is the off¬ spring of his understanding, and his understanding takes delight in it, because it is its own offspring, its own 6i £SSA YS ON CA THOLICISAf ,, verbum, because it is a living testimony of its creative power. In the act of its creation man is like unto God, and calls himself God. And if he be God, like unto God, in man’s estimation, all else is nothing. What matters it that the other be the God of truth, if he is the God of the absurd ? At least, he will be independent like God, he will be sovereign like God ; by adoring his own production, he will adore himself; by magnify¬ ing it, he will be the magnifier of himself. You who aspire to subjugate peoples, to domineer over nations, and exercise authority over human reason, do not declare yourselves the depositaries of clear and evident truths ; and above all, do not produce you~ proofs, if you have any, for the world will never recognise you as master, but will rebel against the brutal yoke of your evidence. Announce, on the contrary, that you have an argument which upsets a mathematical truth; that you are going to prove that two and two do not make four, but five; that God does not exist, or that man is God ; that the world up to this has been a slave to shameful superstitions; that the wisdom of ages is nothing but pure ignorance ; that revelation is • an imposture ; that all government is tyranny, and all obedience slavery ; that the beautiful is ugly, and the ugly, beautiful ; that good is evil, and evil good; that the devil is God, and God is the devil; that beyond this world there is neither hell nor paradise ; that the world we inhabit is a present hell, and a future para¬ dise ; that liberty, equality, and fraternity are dogmas incompatible with the Christian superstition ; that LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 6$ robbery is an imprescriptible right, and that property is robbery ; that there is no order except in anarchy, nor anarchy except in order;—and be sure that, on the bare announcement of all this, the world, astonished at your wisdom, and fascinated by your science, will lend an attentive and reverend ear to your words. If to the good sense of which you have given such ample proofs, by announcing the demonstration of all these things, you afterwards add the good sense of not demonstrating them at all; or if, as the only demonstration of your blasphemies and your affirmations, you give your blas¬ phemies and your affirmations themselves, then the human race will extol you to the stars; particularly if you take exquisite care to call the attention of people to your good faith, carried to the extreme of present¬ ing yourselves, naked as you are, without appealing to the deceptive tricks of stupid reasoning, foolish historic antecedents, and vain miracles, thus giving a public testimony of your faith in the triumph of truth, without extraneous aid ; and if, finally, looking round in all directions, you ask, where now are your enemies ?— then the world, excited and astonished, will proclaim with one voice, your magnanimity, your greatness, and your victory, and will call you pious, holy, and trium¬ phant. I know not if there be anything under the sun more vile and despicable than the human race outside the Catholic lines. And in the scale of its degradation and vileness, the multitudes deceived by sophists and oppressed by 64 JESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, tyrants, are the vilest and most degraded ; the sophists come next; and the tyrants, who hold the bloody lash over the one and the other, are, if we examine it well, the least vile, the least degraded, and the least despi¬ cable. The first scarcely come from the hand of God, when they fall into those of the Babylonic tyrants. Ancient paganism rolls from abyss to abyss, from sophist to sophist, and from tyrant to tyrant, till it falls into the hands of Caligula, that horrid and shameless monster in human form, with insensate passions and beastly appetites. The modern begins by adoring itselt in a prostitute, to fall at the feet of the cynical and bloody tyrant Marat, and of Robespierre, supreme incarnation of human vanity, with his inexorable and ferocious instincts. The last of all is about falling into an abyss more deep and obscure ; perhaps even novl there is wallowing in the filth of the social sinks, the man who has to adjust to its neck the yoke of his wild and ferocious instincts. CHAPTER VI. Our Lord Jesus Christ has triumphed over the world by exclusively supernatural means. When I shall be placed on high, that is, on the cross, I shall draw all things to me : that is, I shall assure my dominion and victory over the world. In these words LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 65 solemnly prophetic, the Lord showed His disciples at once, of how little avail for the conversion of the world were the prophecies which announced His coming, the miracles which proclaimed His omnipotence, the sanc¬ tity of His doctrine, which was the testimony of His glory, and how powerful for the production of this prodigy, was to be His immense love, revealed to the earth in His crucifixion and His death. “ I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him will you receive ” (John v. 43). In these words is announced the natural triumph of error over truth, of evil over good. In them is found the secret of the forgetfulness in which all nations held God, of the astonishing propagation of pagan errors, of the palpable darkness shadowing the world, as also the announce¬ ment of the future extension of human errors, of the future diminution of truth amongst men, the tribula¬ tions of the Church, the persecutions of the just, the victories of the sophists, and of the popularity of blas¬ phemers. In those words history is contained, with all its scandals, with all its heresies, and with all its revolu¬ tions. In them we are told why the Jewish people, placed between Barrabas and Jesus, condemns Jesus and selects Barrabas ; why the world, placed between the Catholic and Socialistic theologies, selects the Socialistic in preference to the Catholic ; and why human discussions tend to the negation of the evident and the proclamation of the absurd. In those words, truly marvellous, is the secret of all our forefathers saw* E 66 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , all that our children shall see, and all that we ourselves behold. No; no one can come to the Son, that is, to the truth, unless the Father calls him—profound words, which testify at once to the omnipotence of God, and the radical, invincible impotence of the human race. But the Father will call, and all nations will respond; the Son shall be placed on the cross, and shall draw all things to Himself: this is the saving promise of the supernatural triumph of truth over error, good over evil; a promise which shall be completely fulfilled at the end. of time. “ My Father worketh unto now; and I work. As the Father, so the Son giveth life to whom He will ” (John v. 17-21). “It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John xvi. 7). The tongues of all doctors, the pens of all sages, would not be capable of explaining all that is contained in those words. In them are declared the sovereign virtue of grace, and the supernatural, invisible, and permanent action of the Holy Ghost Here is the Catholic supernaturalism, with its infinite fecundity and its unutterable marvels; there is explained, above all, the triumph of the cross, which is the greatest and most inconceivable of all wonders. In fact, Christianity, humanly speaking, must neces¬ sarily succumb : it must succumb, first, because it was the truth; secondly, because it had in its support mar¬ vellous miracles, eloquent testimonies, and irrefragable proofs. The human race had always risen and pro- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 67 tested against these things separately ; and it was not probable, nor credible, nor to be imagined, that it would not rise up and protest against them united ; and de facto it broke into blasphemies, protests, and rebellion. But the Just One mounted the cross through love, and shed His blood through love, and gave His life through love ; and that infinite love and that precious blood merited for the world the coming of the Holy Ghost. Then everything was changed, for reason was conquered by faith, and nature by grace. How admirable is God in His works, how marvellous in His designs, and how sublime in His ideas ! Man and truth were at war ; the indomitable pride of the former did not square well with the insolent and brutal evidence of the latter. God tempered the evidence of the latter by placing it in transparent clouds, and sent faith to the former, and in sending it to him made the following compact with him :—“ I will divide my empire with thee. I will tell thee what thou hast to believe, and give thee strength to believe it; but I will not oppress thy sovereign will with the yoke of evidence. I stretch out my hand to save thee, but I leave thee the power of damning thee. I will not take from thee what I gave thee ; and on the day I drew thee from nothingness, I gave thee freewill.” And this compact, through the grace of God, was freely accepted by man. In this way the dogmatic obscurity of Catholicity saved from certain shipwreck historical evidence. Faith, more adapted than evidence to the understanding of man, 68 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, saved from shipwreck human reason. Truth should be proposed by faith if it were to be accepted by man, naturally rebellious against the tyranny of evidence. And the same spirit that proposes what we have to believe, and gives us strength to believe it, tells us what we should do, and gives us the desire of doing it, and co-operates with us in accomplishing it. So great is the misery of man, so absolute his ignorance, and so radical his impotence, that he cannot of himself form a good resolution, nor conceive a great design, nor a desire of doing anything agreeable to God or advan¬ tageous to the salvation of his soul ; and, on the other hand, so elevated is his dignity, so noble his nature, so sublime his origin, and so glorious his end, that God Himself thinks with his thoughts, sees with his eyes, walks with his feet, and operates with his hands. It is He who supports him that he may walk, it is He who holds him that he may not stumble, and it is He who commands His angels to bear him in their hands that he may not fall; and if he happen to fall, He raises him Himself; and once raised, makes him desire to persevere, and helps him to do so. Hence St Augustine says, “ No one comes to salvation unless God calls him, and no one, after being called, does acts calculated to promote this salvation unless He assists him.” Hence God Himself says in the Gospel of St John (xv. 4, 5), “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine ; you the branches : he that abideth in me, and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 69 I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.” And the apostle in his second Epistle to the Corinthians (iii. 4, 5), says, “And such confidence we have through Christ towards God ; not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is from God.” This radical impotence of man in the affair of salvation was confessed by Job when he said (chap, xiv.), “ Who can make him clean that is conceived of unclean seed , but Thee , 0 Lord t” Moses says (Exod. xxxiv.), “ No man of himself is innocent before TheeT St Augustine, in that inimitable work, “ The Confessions,” turning to God says, “ Lord, give me grace to do what Thou com- mandest, and command what Thou pleasest.” So that as God tells me what I should believe, and gives me strength to believe it, in the same way He commands what I should do, and gives me grace to do what He commands. What understanding can comprehend, what tongue can tell, what pen describe, the manner in which God works these sovereign prodigies in man, and how He carries him along the way of salvation with a hand at once merciful and just, gentle and powerful? Who will mark out the boundaries of that spiritual empire between the divine will and the free will of man ? Who will say how they concur without becoming confounded or injured ? I only know one thing, O Lord, that, poor and humble as I am, and great and powerful as Thou art, Thou respectest me as much as Thou lovest me, and lovest me as much as Thou 70 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , respectest me. I know that Thou wilt not abandon me to myself, because of myself, I can do nothing but forget Thee and be lost; and I know that, when tendering me the hand which is to save me, Thou wilt tender it so softly, so lovingly, and so sweetly, that I shall not feel its touch. Thou art like the delicate breath of the zephyr in suavity, like the whirlwind in strength. I am borne by Thee as by the whirlwind, and I move to Thee freely, as if wafted by the breath of the zephyr. Thou carriest me as if Thou didst force me, but Thou dost not force but solicit me. It is I who move, and yet Thou movest in me. Thou comest to my door and callest softly; and if I do not answer, Thou waitest at my door and callest again. I know it is in my power not to answer Thee, and be lost: I know that I can answer Thee, and be saved ; but I know that I could not answer Thee if Thou didst not call; and when I answer, I answer what thou puttest in my mouth, Thine being the call, and Thine and mine the answer. I know that I cannot act without Thee, and that I act through Thee, and when I act I merit; but that I only merit, because Thou assistest me to merit, as Thou didst assist me to act. I know that when Thou rewardest me because I merit, and when I merit because I act, Thou givest me three graces—the grace of the premium with which Thou rewardest me; the grace of meriting which Thou gavest me, and which led to my reward; and the grace Thou gavest me of acting with Thy assistance. I know that Thou art like the mother, and I like the LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 7 i little child, into whom the mother infuses the desire of walking, and then gives him her hand that he may walk, and afterwards kisses him because he desired to walk, and did walk, with the aid of her hand. I know that I write only because Thou inflamest me with the desire of writing, and that I write only what Thou % teachest me or permittest me to write. I believe that he who thinks he moves a finger without Thee, neither knows Thee nor is a Christian. I ask my reader’s pardon for entering, though a lay¬ man, on the mysterious and thorny paths of grace. All will, however, acknowledge, on a little reflection, that it was an imperious necessity when treating of the serious subject dealt with in the last chapters, to advance at least some length on that slippery path. We were trying to discover the legitimate explanation of that prodigy, ever ancient, ever new, viz., the powerful action Christianity has exercised, and is exercising, on the world, and of that mystery, no less stupendous and prodigious, viz., the virtue of transformation she dis¬ played when brought into relation and contact with human societies. The prodigy of her propagation and of her triumph is not in her historical testimonies, nor in her prophetic announcements, nor in the sanctity of her doctrine—circumstances which, in the state to which man was reduced after his prevarication and his sin, have been more adapted to keep people from her, than to carry her triumphantly to the uttermost ends of the earth. Nor were miracles capable of working this prodigy, for though it is true that, considered in 72 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, themselves, they are supernatural, considered as an exterior proof, they are a natural one, subject to the same conditions as human testimony. The propagation and triumph of Christianity is a supernatural fact, as it has been propagated and has triumphed in spite of being possessed of what should impede its propagation and its victory. This supernatural fact could not be legitimately explained except by ascending to a cause which, supernatural by nature, should operate exteriorly in a manner conformable with its nature, that is, super- naturally. This cause, supernatural in itself, and super¬ natural in its action, is grace. Grace was merited for us by our Lord when He suffered an ignominious death on the cross, and the apostles received it when the Author of all sanctification and of all grace descended on them. The Holy Ghost infused into the apostles the grace, the death of the Son, through the mercy of the Father, merited for us ; so that in this way the Holy Trinity interferes in the ineffable work of our redemption, as it did in the creation of the universe. This serves to explain two things, which without this explanation would be totally inexplicable, viz., how it was that the apostles wrought greater miracles than their divine Master, and their miracles were more fruit¬ ful than His, as the Lord had foretold them on several occasions. This consisted in the fact that the universal ransom of the human race, in the whole prolongation of ages from the time of Adam to the last day, was to be the reward of the bloody tragedy of the cross ; and in the fact that, till this tragedy was consummated, the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 73 divine mansions were to be closed against the children of Adam with gates of adamant. When the time came, the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles like an impetuous wind in tongues of fire. Then it happened that all things were changed at once, without transition, by virtue of a supernatural and divine action. The first change was wrought in the apostles. They did not see, and now they had light; they did not understand, and now they had understanding ; they were ignorant, and now they be¬ came sages; they talked of vulgar things, and now they spoke of marvellous things. The malediction of Babel came to an end; since that time every people had spoken its own tongue, and now the apostles spoke them all without confusion. They were pusillanimous, and now they became daring; they were cowards, and now they became brave ; they were lazy, and now they became diligent; they had abandoned their Lord for the flesh and the world, and now they abandoned the world and the flesh for their Lord ; they had rejected the cross for life, and now they gave their life for the cross ; they died in their members to live in their spirit; to become transformed into God they cease to be men ; to live an angelic life they abandon the human. And as the Holy Ghost had transformed the apostles* the apostles transformed the world ; not they indeed, but the invincible Spirit that was in them. The world had seen God, and had not recognised Him; and now that it did not see, it knew Him. It' had not believed in His word, and now that He had ceased to speak, it 74 ESS A YS ON CA TH0L1CISM, believed in His word. It had seen His miracles in vain, and now that He who wrought them had gone to His Father, it believed in His miracles. It had crucified Jesus, and now it adored Him whom it had crucified; it had worshipped idols, and now it burned its idols. What it had regarded as vain arguments, it now looked on as victorious and inconceivable proofs: it changed its profound hatred into immense love. As he who has no idea of grace has none of Christi¬ anity, so he who has no notion of the providence of God is in the most complete ignorance of all things. Provi¬ dence, taken in its most general acceptation, is the care the Creator has of all things created. Things existed because God created them; but they only subsist because God watches over them with a continual care, which is an incessant creation. Things which, before they were, had not in themselves the reason of their being, have not in themselves the reason of their sub¬ sistence after they came to being. God alone is life and the reason of life, being and the reason of being, sub¬ sistence and the reason of subsistence. Nothing exists, nothing lives, nothing subsists, by its own virtue. Beyond God those supreme attributes do not exist in any place or thing. God is not like a painter, who, when he finishes a picture, abandons and forgets it; nor do the things God created subsist, like the painting, of themselves. God made things in a more sovereign way, and things depend on God in a more substantial and excellent manner. Things of the natural and supernatural order, and those which, escaping beyond LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. the common natural or supernatural order, are called miraculous, without ceasing to be different from one another, as they are governed and directed by different laws, have all something, and even a great deal, in com¬ mon, which consists in their absolute dependence on the divine will. When we say of the fountains that they flow because it is their nature to flow, we do not say all we should of them ; nor of the trees, when we say they are fruitful, because it is their nature to bear fruit. Their nature does not give to things a virtue independent of the will of their Creator, but a certain determined manner of being dependent, in all and every moment of their existence, on the will of the sovereign Maker and divine Architect. The fountains flow because God commands them to flow with an actual commandment; and He commands them to flow because to-day, as in the day of their creation, He sees it is good they should flow. The trees fructify because God commands them to fructify with an actual commandment; and He gives them this commandment because to-day, as in the day of their creation, He sees it is good that the trees should bear fruit. Hence we see how much in error are those who seek the explanation of events either in secondary causes, which all exist in general and imme¬ diate dependence on God, or in chance, which does not exist at all. God alone is the Creator of all that exists, the preserver of all that subsists, and the author of all that happens, according to the words of Ecclesias- ticus (xi. 14), “ Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from God.” Hence St Basil says 76 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, that in attributing all to God lies the sum of all Christian philosophy, according to the words of our Lord in St Matthew (x. 29, 30), “ Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” When we view things from this height, it is clear that the natural, the supernatural, and the miraculous, equally depend on God. The miraculous, the supernatural, and the natural are substantially identical phenomena in their origin, which is the will of God—a will which, being actual in all, is in all eternal. God willed eternally and actually the resurrection of Lazarus, as He wills eternally and actually that the trees should bear fruit ; and the trees have no reason more independent of the divine will for bearing fruit than Lazarus for coming forth from the sepulchre after he was buried. The difference between these phenomena is not in their essence, since one and the other depend on the divine will, but in the mode; because in both cases the divine will is executed and fulfilled in two different ways, and by virtue of two different laws. One of these ways is called, and is, natural, and the other is called, and is, miraculous. We call the daily prodigies natural, and the intermittent, miraculous. Whence we see how great is the madness of those who deny the power of working the intermittent to Him who works the daily. What else is this but to deny the power of doing the less to Him who does the more ? or, what is the same, to deny that that can LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 77 be done once which is done daily? You who deny the resurrection of Lazarus because it is a miraculous act, tell me, why do you not deny other greater prodigies ? Why do you not deny that sun, which rises in the east, and those heavens, so beautiful and brilliant, and their eternal luminaries ? Why do you not 'deny those beautiful, murmuring, or restless seas, and that light, soft sand kissed by their waves, and their concerted harmony or their magnificent turbulence ? Why do you not deny those plains, so full of freshness, and those woods, so full of silence, majesty, and obscurity, and those immense cataracts, with their glorious rush of waters, and even those clear and crystalline waters themselves ? And if you do not deny these things, how are you so mad, and so palpably inconsistent, as to think that the resurrection of a man is impossible, or even difficult ? For myself, I may say, that I only deny credit to him who, having opened his exterior eyes to see what surrounds him, or his interior to see what passes within himself, finds anything either within or without that is not a miracle. It follows hence, that the distinction, on the one hand, between natural and supernatural things, and, on the other, between ordinary phenomena, as well of the natural as the supernatural order, and the miraculous, involves no rivalry or occult antagonism between what exists by the will of God, and what exists by nature; as if God were not the author, and preserver, and sovereign governor of all that exists. All those distinctions, carried beyond their dogmatic 78 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISAf, limits, end, as we see, in the deification of matter, and the absolute and radical negation of providence and of grace. In conclusion, taking up the thread of this discourse, I will say that providence is a general grace, by virtue of which God-maintains in its being, and governs by His counsel, all that exists, as grace is a special providence by which God takes care of man. The dogma of provi¬ dence and the dogma of grace reveal to us the existence of a supernatural world, in which the reason and the causes of all that we see substantially reside. Without the light which comes thence, all is darkness; without the explanation that comes thence, all is inexplicable; without that explanation, and without that light, all is phenomenal, ephemeral, and contingent; all things are smoke which is dissipated, fleeting phantasms, unreal shadows, and passing dreams. The supernatural is above us, without us, and within us. The supernatural sur¬ rounds the natural, and penetrates through all its pores. The knowledge of the supernatural, then, is the foundation of all sciences, and particularly of the political and moral. In vain shall you try to explain man without grace, and society without providence. Without providence, and without grace, society and man are a perpetual secret to the human race. The importance of this demonstration and its sublime transcendence will be seen hereafter, when, on sketching the sad and lamentable picture of our wanderings and our errors, they shall be all found to spring from the negation of Catholic supernaturalism, as their LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 79 proper source. In the meantime, it suits my purpose to say here, that the supernatural action of God on society and on man, is the broad and firm foundation on which is built the edifice of Catholic doctrine, in such a manner that, if you take away that founda¬ tion, the whole magnificent structure on which human generations move with ease, comes toppling to the ground. CHAPTER VII. The Catholic Church has triumphed over society in spite of the same obstacles , and through the same supernatural means , which gave the victory over the world to our Lord Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church, considered as a religious institu¬ tion, has exercised the same influence on society, that Catholicity, considered as a doctrine, has on the world—the same that our Lord Jesus Christ has exer¬ cised on man. This consists in the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ, His doctrine, and His Church, are but three different manifestations of one and the same thing, that is, of the divine action operating superna- turally and substantially on man and all his powers, on society and all its institutions. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Catholicity, and the Catholic Church, are one and the 80 ESS A VS ON CA THOLJCISM, same v/ord—the word of God, perpetually resounding on high. That word has had to surmount the same obstacles, and has triumphed by the same means, in its different incarnations. The prophets of Israel had announced the coming of the Lord in the plenitude of time, had written His life, lamented with tremendous lamentations His tremendous woes, foretold His sorrows, described His labours, counted one by one the drops that composed the sea of His tears, had seen His torture and His insults, and had written the history of His passion and death. In spite of all this, the people of Israel knew Him not when He came, and fulfilled all the prophecies without thinking of the prophets and what they foretold. The life of the Lord was holy ; His mouth was the only human one which had dared to pronounce in the pre¬ sence of men, these words, either madly blasphemous or ineffably divine—“Who will accuse me of sin?’’ And in spite of those words, which no man had pronounced before, and which no man will pronounce again, the world did not know Him, and loaded Him with ignominies. His doctrine was marvellous and true; so much so, that it perfumed everything with its extreme sweetness, and bathed everything with its softened rays. Every word that sweetly fell from His sacred lips was a mar¬ vellous revelation, every revelation a sublime truth, every truth a hope or a consolation. And in spite of all this, the people of Israel turned its eyes from the light, and closed its heart against those marvellous consolations, and those sublime hopes. He wrought miracles never seen Dy LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 8 l men, nor heard of by the Gentiles ; and in spite of all this, men turn from Him with horror, as if He were infected with leprosy, or as if He bore on His forehead a male¬ diction stamped by divine wrath. Even one of His disciples whom He loved, was deaf to the decoying allurements of His love, and fell from the eminence of the apostolate into the abyss of treason. The Church of Jesus Christ was announced by great prophets, and represented in symbols and figures from the beginning of time. Her divine Founder, on opening her immortal foundations, and on modelling in marvel¬ lous mould her divine hierarchy, placed her future history before the eyes of the apostles. He there an¬ nounced her great tribulations and unexampled per¬ secutions ; He saw her confessors and her martyrs pass before Him, one by one, in bloody procession. He told them how the powers of the world and of hell would make nefarious compacts, and establish sacrilegious alliances against her; and how she would triumph, through His grace, over the powers of the world and of hell. He cast His sovereign eye over the prolongation of time, and foretold the end of all things, and the immortality of His Church, transformed into the celestial Jerusalem, clothed with light and with brilliant stones, full of glory, and bathed in perfumes of sweetest fra¬ grance. In spite of all this, the world, which ever saw her persecuted and ever triumphant, which might have counted her victories by her tribulations, perpetually gives her new victories in new tribulations, thus blindly fulfilling the great prophecy at the very time it turns F 82 ASSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , its back on the prophet and what he prophesied. The Church is perfect and holy, as her divine Founder was perfect and holy. She also, and she alone, pronounces in presence of the world that word never before heard, “ Who will accuse me of error ? Who will accuse me of sin ? ” And in spite of this extraordinary word, which she alone pronounces, the world neither believes her, nor follows her, except with its insults. Her doctrine is marvellous and true, because it is the doctrine taught by the great Master of all truth, and the great Worker of all wonders ; and yet the world studies in the halls of error, and lends an attentive ear to the vain eloquence of miserable sophists and obscure clowns. She received from her divine Founder the power of working mi¬ racles, and she works them, she herself being a per¬ petual miracle ; and yet the world calls her a vain and shameful superstition, and she is made a spectacle to men and nations. Her own children, beloved with such love, raise their sacrilegious hands against their tender mother, and abandon the holy hearth which pro¬ tected their infancy, and seek in a new family and at a new hearth gross delights and impure loves. And in this way does she pursue the path of her dolorous passion, unknown by the world and ignored by heresi- archs. And what is singular and marvellous in this is, that, imitating perfectly our Lord Jesus Christ, she does not suffer tribulations in spite of the prodigies she works, of the life she lives, of the truth she teaches, and of the in¬ vincible testimonies she produces of the divinity of her LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 83 office ; but, on the contrary, she suffers those tribulations on account of those invincible testimonies, of those truths she teaches, of that holy life she lives, and of those miracles she works. Suppress for a moment in imagi¬ nation that life, those truths, those prodigies, and in- . vincible testimonies, and you shall have at one stroke suppressed all her tribulations, all her tears, all her misfortunes, and all her woes. In the truths she proclaims lies the mystery of her tribulation ; in the supernatural strength she possesses lies the mystery of her victory ; and those two things together explain at once her victories and her tribula¬ tions. \ The supernatural power of grace is perpetually com¬ municated to the faithful by the ministry of the priests and through the channel of the sacraments ; and that supernatural power, thus communicated to the faithful, members at once of civil society and of the Church, is what has opened the profound abyss which exists between ancient and Catholic societies, even considered in the political and social point of view. Between them, all well considered, there is no difference but that which results from the one being composed of Catholics and the other of pagans ; from the one being composed of men moved by their natural instincts, and the other of men who, more or less completely dead to nature, obey more or less perfectly the supernatural and divine impulse of grace. This explains the distance there is between the political and social institutions of ancient, and those which have spontaneously sprung up in 84 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , modern, societies; as institutions are the social expres¬ sion of ideas in common ; ideas in common the col¬ lective result of individual ideas ; individual ideas the intellectual form of the manner of being and feeling of man ; and the pagan and Catholic man cease to be and to feel in the same manner, the one being the represen¬ tative of prevaricating and disinherited humanity, and the other the representative of humanity redeemed. Ancient and modern institutions are only the expres¬ sion of two different societies, because they are the expression of two different humanities. Hence, when Catholic societies prevaricate and fall, paganism imme¬ diately invades them, and ideas, customs, institutions, and the societies themselves, become pagan. If you abstract for a moment from that invisible and supernatural power, with which Catholicity has gone on gently and silently transforming everything visible and natural, by means of a mysterious and secret operation, everything becomes obscured, and the natural and supernatural, visible and invisible, are converted into darkness. All your explanations be¬ come false hypotheses, which explain nothing, and are besides inexplicable. There is no spectacle more sad than that presented by a man of great talents, when he enters on the impos¬ sible and absurd enterprise of explaining visible things by the visible, and natural things by the natural; which, as all things visible and natural, inasmuch as they are natural and visible, are one and the same thing, is quite as absurd as to explain a fact or a thing by itself. Into LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 85 this grave error has fallen an eminent man of great gifts, whose writings it is impossible to read without profound respect, whose discourses cannot be heard without admiration, and whose personal qualities are superior even to his writings, his discourses, and his talents. M. Guizot surpasses all contemporary writers in the art of taking a serene view of most intricate questions. His view, generally speaking, is impartial and well founded. In expression he is pure, in style sober, in the adornments of language, severely modest; his eloquence is subject to his reason; his eloquence is of a high order, but his reason of a higher. No matter how elevated a question may be, when M. Guizot enters on it, he always looks from the mountain to the valley, never from the valley to the mountain. When he describes the phenomena he sees, he does not appear to describe, but to create, them. If he enters on party questions, he displays with refined com¬ placency the erroneous and the true part which cor¬ responds to each one ; and he does not appear to give, it because it corresponds to him, but it appears to cor¬ respond because he gives it to him. In general, when he discusses, he discusses as if he were teaching, and he teaches as if he were naturally invested with an eminent right to teach. If he happen to speak of religion, his language is solemn, ceremonious, and austere. If it were possible for him, it is easily seen he would go to the limits of reverence. The part he assigns the Church in the work of social regeneration is great, as becomes the person who assigns, and the 86 ESSA YS ON CA THOLICISM, institution to which he assigns it. No one can say whether he considers her the queen and mistress of other institutions. What can be said is, that in any case she appears in his eyes like an amnestied queen, who, even in the day of her glory, preserves the signs of her past servitude. M. Guizot’s special talent lies in seeing well all that he sees, and in seeing everything visible, and in seeing everything in itself and abstractedly. The weak point of his intellect lies in not seeing how those visible and separate things form an hierarchical and harmonious whole, animated by an invisible power. Both this great defect and that special talent, are nowhere so evident as in the book he wrote to fully describe European civilisation. M. Guizot has seen all there is in that civilisation, as complex as prolific—all, except the civilisation itself. He who seeks the many and various elements which compose it will find them in his book, for they are there ; he who seeks the powerful unity which constitutes it, the principle of life which circulates freely through the healthy members of that sound and robust social body, let him seek all these things elsewhere, for they are not found in his book. M. Guizot has clearly seen all the visible elements of that civilisation, and all that is visible in them; and those which contain nothing that does not fall under the jurisdiction of the senses, have been thoroughly examined by him. But there was one at once visible and invisible. That element was the Church. The Church acted on society in a manner analogous to that , LIBERLISM , SOCIALISM. 87 of the other political and social elements, and, besides, in a manner peculiarly her own. Considered as an institution born in time and localised in space, her influence was visible and limited, like that of other institutions localised in space and offsprings of time. Considered as a divine institution, she had in her an immense supernatural power, which, uninfluenced by the laws of time and space, acted on all and in all directions at once, quietly, secretly, and supernaturally. So true is this, that, in the critical confusion of all social elements, the Church gave something exclusively her own to all the others, whilst she herself, alone impe¬ netrable to confusion, preserved her absolute identity intact. Roman society, on coming into contact with her, became, without ceasing to be Roman, something it had not been before—it became Catholic. The German peoples, without ceasing to be German, became something they had not been before—they became Catholic. Political and social institutions, without losing their proper nature, took one which was foreign to them—the Catholic nature. And Catholicity was not a vain form, for it gave no form whatever to any institution : it was, on the contrary, something intimate and essential, and hence gave them all something pro¬ found and intimate. Catholicity left the forms intact and changed the essences ; and at the same time that it left intact all the forms and changed all the essences, it preserved its own essence intact, and received from society all its forms. The Church was feudal, as feuda¬ lism was Catholic; but the Church did not receive 88 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICTSM,, an equivalent for what she gave, as she received some¬ thing that was purely external and accidental, whilst she gave something internal and intimate, which was to endure as an essence. It results from this that, in the common mass of European civilisation, which, like all other civilisations, and more than other civilisations, is unity and variety at one and the same time, all other elements combined and united constituted it various, whilst the Church alone made it one, and, by making it one, gave it its essential character—gave it that from which is taken what is most essential in an institution — its name. European civilisation was not called German, or Roman, or absolute, or feudal; it was and is called Catholic civilisation. Catholicity is not, then, solely, as M. Guizot supposes, one of the various elements which entered into the com¬ position of that admirable civilisation : it is more than that, much more than that; it is that very civilisation itself. Strange ! M. Guizot sees everything that occu¬ pies a moment in time, or a circumscribed spot in space, and does not see that which extends beyond all space and time ; he sees what is here, or there, or farther off, and he does not see that which is in all parts. In an organised and living body, he sees the members which compose it, but not the life which courses through those members. Abstract for a moment from the divine virtue and the supernatural power which are in the Church ; consider it as a human institution, which spreads and extends by LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 89 purely human and natural means, and M. Guizot is right. The influence of her doctrine cannot pass the natural limits he assigns it with his sovereign reason. But the difficulty still exists, because it is an evident fact that it has passed them. Between history which tells us it has passed, and reason which tells us it could not pass, them, there is an evident contradiction—a contradiction which must be reconciled by a superior formula and a supreme conciliation, which will har¬ monise facts with principles and reason with history. That formula must be sought outside history and reason, outside the natural and visible; and is found in the invisible, the supernatural, and the divine of the holy Catholic Church. That something supernatural, divine, and impalpable, is what has subjugated the world to her, surmounted the most invincible obstacles for her, brought into subjection to her, rebel intellects and proud hearts, elevated her above human vicissi¬ tudes and secured her empire over tribes and nations. No one who does not keep in view her sovereign and divine virtue will ever comprehend her influence, her victories, or her tribulations; as no one who does not comprehend them will ever comprehend what is inti¬ mate, essential, and profound in European civilisation. BOOK II. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS RELATIVE JO ORDER IN GENERAL . a . . .“V - • , ,f ■ ' '» • . ■ • — • - • , ' ■. /: ' < ■ PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS » RELATIVE TO ORDER IN GENERAL. CHAPTER I. On the free will of man . Beyond the action of God there is only the action of man ; beyond divine providence there is nothing but human liberty. The combination of this liberty with that providence, constitutes the rich and varied course of history. The free will of man is the masterpiece of creation, and the most wonderful, if I may say so, of the divine wonders. All things are invariably directed to it, in such a way that creation would be inexplicable without man, and man inexplicable if he were not free. His liberty is at once his own explanation, and the explana¬ tion of all things. But who will explain that sublime, inviolable, holy liberty, so holy, so sublime, and so in* violable, that He who gave it to him cannot deprive him of it, and with which he can resist and conquer Him 94 HSSAVS ON CATHOLICISM , who gave it to him, with an invincible resistance and a tremendous victory ? Who will explain how, in that victory of man over God, God becomes the conqueror, and man the conquered, though the victory of man is a true victory, and the defeat of God a true defeat ? What victory is that which is necessarily followed by the death of the victor ? And what defeat is that which ends in the glorification of the conquered ? How is paradise the reward of defeat, and hell the penalty of victory ? If my reward be in my defeat, why do I naturally reject what will save me ? And if my con¬ demnation be in my victory, why do I naturally seek what will damn me ? These are questions which occupied all intellects in the ages of the great doctors, and are regarded to-day with contempt by petulant sophists, who are incapable of lifting from the ground the formidable arms those holy doctors easily and humbly wielded. To-day it appears inexcusable madness to touch with humility, and aided by grace, on the deep designs of God in His profound mysteries ; as if man could know anything without understanding something of those profound mysteries and deep designs. All the great questions about God appear to-day sterile and superfluous ; as if it were possible to treat of God, who is intelligence and truth, without gaining in truth and intelligence. Coming to the tremendous question which is the subject of this chapter, and which I will endeavour to confine within the narrowest limits possible, I hold that the notion generally entertained of freewill is entirely LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM , 95 false. Freewill does not consist, as is generally be¬ lieved, in the faculty of choosing good or evil, which solicit it with two contrary solicitations. If freewill consisted in that faculty, the following consequences, one relative to man, the other to God, and both evidently absurd, must necessarily follow. The one relative to man consists in the fact that he would be less free the more perfect he became, as he cannot increase in per¬ fection without becoming subject to the sway of that which solicits him to good, nor become subject to the sway of good without proportionately escaping from the sway of evil, which, by more or less altering, according to the degree of his perfection, the equilibrium between those two contrary solicitations, must diminish his liberty, that is, his faculty of choosing, in the same degree in which the equilibrium is altered. As the highest per¬ fection consists in the annihilation of one of those two contrary solicitations, and as perfect liberty is supposed to be the faculty of choosing between them, it is clear, that between the perfection and the liberty of man there is an evident contradiction and an absolute incompati¬ bility. The absurdity of this consequence consists in tjie fact that man, being free, and bound to aspire to perfection, he cannot preserve his liberty without re¬ nouncing his perfection, nor become perfect without forfeiting his liberty. The consequence relative to God consists in the fact that, as He is subject to no contrary solicitations, He would be totally devoid of liberty, if it consisted in the faculty of choosing between contrary solicitations. For ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, 9b God to be free, it were necessary He should be capable of choosing between good and evil, sanctity and sin. Between the nature of God and liberty, thus defined, there is, then, a radical contradiction and an absolute incompatibility. And as it is absurd to suppose, on the one hand, that God cannot be free and remain God, nor be God and remain free, and, on the other, that man cannot attain his perfection without forfeiting his liberty, nor be free without renouncing his perfection, it follows that the notion of liberty generally enter¬ tained is totally false, contradictory, and absurd. The error I am refuting, consists in supposing that liberty is the faculty of choosing, when it is only the faculty of willing, which supposes the faculty of under¬ standing. Every being gifted with understanding and will is free, and its liberty is not something distinct from its will and its understanding, but its will and understanding taken together. When we say of one being that it has understanding and will, and of another that it is free, we say the' same thing of both, but expressed in two different ways. If liberty consist in the faculty of understanding and willing, perfect liberty will consist in understanding and willing perfectly ; and as God alone understands and wills with all perfection, it follows by necessary con¬ sequence, that God alone is perfectly free. If liberty consist in understanding and willing, man is free, because he is gifted with will and understanding ; but he is not perfectly free, because he is not gifted with an infinite and perfect understanding and will. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 97 The imperfection of his understanding consists, on the one hand, in its not understanding all that is to be understood, and, on the other, in its being subject to error. The imperfection of his will consists, on the one hand, in its not willing, all that should be willed, and, on the other, in its being liable to be solicited and conquered by evil. Whence it follows that the imper¬ fection of his liberty consists in the faculty he possesses of pursuing evil and embracing error ; which means, that the imperfection of human liberty consists precisely in that faculty of choosing, which, according to the general opinion, constitutes its absolute perfection. When man came from the hands of God, he under¬ stood the good ; and because he understood, he willed, it; and because he willed, he executed, it; and by executing the good his will desired and his intellect understood, he was free. That this is the Christian signification of liberty is clear from the following words of the Gospel:—“ You shall know the truth , and the truth shall make you free ” (John viii. 32). Between his liberty and that of God there was, then, no difference but that which there is between one thing which can be diminished and lost, and another which can suffer neither loss nor diminution—between one thing that is naturally limited, and another that is by nature infinite. When the woman lent an attentive and curious ear to the voice of the fallen angel, her understanding became immediately obscured, and her will weakened ; separated from God ? who was her support, she fell into G 9 3 ESS A VS ON CA TH0LIC1SM, a moral swoon. On that instant her liberty, which was not distinct from her will and understanding, became impaired. When she passed from the culpable con¬ templation to the culpable act, her understanding suffered a great obscurity—her will, a profound weak¬ ness ; the woman dragged the man with her, and human liberty became miserably enfeebled. Confounding the notion of liberty with that of sovereign independence, some ask why it is said that man was a slave when he fell under the jurisdiction of the devil, whilst at the same time it is held that he was free when placed absolutely in the hands of God ? To which we answer, that it cannot be said of man that he is a slave solely because he does not belong to himself, in which case he would never cease to be a slave, because he never belongs to himself in an independent and sovereign manner. He is a slave only when he falls into the hands of a usurper, and free only when he obeys his legitimate master. There is no other slavery but subjection to a tyrant, no other tyrant but him who exercises usurped power, nor other liberty but that which consists in voluntary obedience to legitimate authority. Others do not comprehend how the grace by which we were placed in liberty, and redeemed, is reconciled with that liberty and redemption, thinking that, in that mysterious operation, God alone is active and man passive; in which they are totally in error, because in this great mystery God and man concur, the former acting and the latter co-operating. And for this very reason God is accustomed to give, generally LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 99 speaking, only the grace sufficient to move the will with gentleness. Fearing to oppress, He contents Himself with calling it to Him with alluring accents. Man, on his part, when he obeys the gentle call of grace, obeys with incomparable suavity and complacency; and when the gentle will of man, which delights in the call, is joined with the gentle will of God, who takes delight in calling him, and calls him because He takes delight in it, then that grace which was only sufficient, becomes efficacious, through the concourse of these two gentle wills. As to those who conceive liberty only in the absence of all solicitation which can move the will of man, I will only say that they inadvertently, fall into one of these two great absurdities—into that, which supposes that a rational being can be moved without some species of motive, or into that, which consists in supposing that a being which is not rational, can be free. If what we have said be true, the faculty of choosing given to man, far from being the necessary condition, is the danger of liberty, since the possibility of wandering from the good and falling into error lies in it, as also of renouncing the obedience due to God, and of falling into the hands of a tyrant. All the efforts of man should be directed, with the aid of grace, to rendering that faculty inoperative, till it is entirely destroyed, or, if that be impossible, till it falls into perpetual disuse. Only he who loses it understands, wills, and executes, the good; and only he who does this is perfectly free ; and only he who is free is perfect; and only he who is IOO ESSA YS ON CA THOLICISM , perfect is blessed. Hence none of the, blessed have it, nor God, nor His saints, nor the choirs of His angels. CHAPTER II. A nswers to some questions relative to this dogma. If the faculty of choosing does not constitute the per¬ fection, but rather the danger, of the free will of man ; if his prevarication and the origin of his fall, took their rise in that faculty, and if the secret of sin, damnation, and death, lies in it, how can that fearful gift, so pregnant with misfortunes and catastrophes, square with the infi¬ nite goodness of an infinite God? How shall I designate the hand that gives it to me—a hand of mercy or of anger? If it be a hand of anger, why did it give me life ? If it be merciful, why did it accompany life with such a heavy burden ? Shall I call it a just, or only a strong, hand? If it is just, what had I done before coming into being to become the object of such rigour? And if it be only strong, why does it not crush and annihilate me ? If I sinned through use of the gift I received, who is the author of my sin ? If in the end I be damned through sin, to which I am inclined through the inclination that was given me, who is the author of my damnation and my hell ? Mysterious and tremen¬ dous Being, whom I know not whether to bless or to curse, shall I fall prostrate at Thy feet, like Thy servant UBERALISM , AND SOCTALtSM. IOI Job, and address .to Thee my burning supplications intensified by my sobs, till I move Thee; or shall I pile mountain on mountain, Pelion on Ossa, and renew against Thee the war of the Titans? Mysterious Sphinx ! I know not whether to appease Thee or try to conquer Thee ; I know not whether to rush into the camp of Thy enemies, or to follow the footsteps of Thy servants. I do not even know Thy name. If, as they say, Thou art omniscient, tell me at least in which of Thy sealed books Thy name is written, that I may know how to address Thee ; for Thy names are as contradictory as Thyself. Those who are saved call Thee God, those who are damned, a tyrant. Thus speaks the genius of pride and blasphemy, with its flaming eyes turned on God. Through an incon¬ ceivable madness or an inexplicable aberration, man, the work of the Creator, cites to his tribunal the very God who gave him the tribunal in which he sits, the reason with which he judges, and the very voice with which he cites Him. And blasphemies call to other blasphemies, as abyss to abyss ; the blasphemy which cites ends in the blasphemy which condemns, or the blasphemy which absolves, Him. Whether he absolve, or condemn Him, the man who, instead of adoring, judges Him, is a blasphemer. Woe to the proud who cite Him! Blessed are the humble who adore Him, for He shall come to the one and the other. To the one He shall come as cited on the day of the summons ; to the other as adored on the day of adoration. He never forgets to answer him who calls Him ; the one, however, I 102 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , He will answer with His wrath, the other with His mercy. And let it not be said that this doctrine leads to absurdity, as if it led to the negation of all competency on the part of human reason to take cognisance of the things of God, and hence to the implicit condemnation of theologians and the holy doctors, and even of the Church herself, who treated of them at large in past ages. What this doctrine condemns is the competency of human reason, unillumined by faith, to deal with things which are matter of revelation and faith, because super¬ natural. When reason interferes in those things with¬ out the aid indicated, it treats of, and with, God, in its quality of judge, who does not admit of postponement nor appeal against his decisive judgments. In this supposition, its decision, whether it condemns or ab¬ solves, is a blasphemy ; and it is so, not so much on account of what it affirms or denies of God, as what human reason implicitly affirms of itself in it, as both in the condemnation and in the absolution, it ever affirms the same thing of itself—its own independence and sovereignty. When the holy Church affirms or denies anything of God, she does nothing but affirm or deny of Him what she has heard from God Himself. When eminent theologians and the holy doctors penetrate with their reason into the obscure abyss of the divine excel¬ lences, they ever enter it with a secret terror, and with the lamp of faith illumining their way. They do not ex¬ pect to surprise in God secrets and marvels unknown tc faith, but add to its light the rays of the lamp of reason, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 103 to examine a different side of the same marvels and secrets; they do not expect to see new things in God, but only to see in Him the same things in two different ways ; and these two different ways of knowing, are two different ways of adoring, Him. For it should be known, that there is no mystery amongst those which faith teaches and the Church pro¬ poses to us, which does not unite in itself, by an admir¬ able disposition of God, two qualities which ordinarily exclude each other—obscurity and evidence. Catholic mysteries are like bodies at once luminous and opaque, in such a way that their shadows can never be brightened by their light, nor their light obscured by their shadows, remaining perpetually obscure and perpetually lumin¬ ous. At the very time they shed their light over crea¬ tion, they keep their shadows for themselves ; they make everything clear, and can themselves be made clear by nothing. They penetrate everything, and are them¬ selves impenetrable. It appears absurd to admit them, and it is more absurd to deny them. To him who admits them, there is no obscurity but their own ; to him who denies them, day becomes night, and his eyes, deprived of light, find nothing but obscurity in all directions. And yet men in their great blindness prefer denying, to admitting, them; light appears to them intolerable if it happen to come from a sombre region ; and their gigan¬ tic pride condemns their eyes to eternal obscurity, regarding the shades found in one sole mystery as a greater difficulty than those that extend in all direc¬ tions. 104 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , Without leaving - the deep mysteries which form the subject of this chapter, it will be easy to demonstrate all we have said. Are you ignorant of the reason why that tremendous gift of choosing between good and evil, sanctity and sin, life and death, was given to man ? Well, deny it for a moment, and on that moment you render totally impossible the angelic and human crea¬ tions. If in that faculty of choosing lies the imperfection of liberty, only remove that faculty, and the liberty is perfect; and perfect liberty is the result of the simul¬ taneous perfection of the will and the intellect. That simultaneous perfection is in God. If you suppose it in the creature, God and the creature are one and the same: in this way you rush into Pantheism or Atheism, which are the same thing expressed in two different ways. Imperfection is so natural to the creature, and perfection to God, that you cannot deny one or the other without an implication in terms, a substantial com tradiction and an evident absurdity. To say of God that He is imperfect, is to say’ He does not exist; to say of the creature that it is perfect, is to say the creature does not exist: whence it results, that if the mystery is superior, its negation is contrary, to human reason ; by abandoning the one for the other, you have abandoned the obscure for the impossible. As all is false, contradictory, and absurd in the rationalistic negation, all is simple, natural, and logical in the Catholic affirmation. Catholicity says of God that He is absolutely perfect; and of created beings that they are perfect with a relative perfection, and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 105 imperfect with an absolute imperfection 5 and are perfect and imperfect in so excellent a way, that their absolute imperfection, by which they are infinitely separated from God, constitutes their relative perfec¬ tion, with which they perfectly fulfil their respective missions, and form all together the perfect harmony of the universe. The absolute perfection of God, in our point of view, consists in His being sovereignly free, that is, in perfectly understanding the good and desiring it with a perfect will. The absolute imper- fection of all other intelligent and free beings, consists in not understanding and in not desiring the good in such way that they cannot understand or desire the evil. Their relative perfection consists in that same absolute imperfection, to which it is due, on the one hand, that they are different from God by nature, and, on the other, that they can be united to God, who is their end, by an effort of the will aided by grace. As intelligent and free beings are distributed in hierarchies, they are hierarchically imperfect. They are like each other in this, that they are all imperfect; they are unlike in their being imperfect in different degrees, if not in a different manner. The angel only differs from man in the fact that the imperfection common to both is greater in man than in the angel, as became the different places they occupied in the immense scale of beings. One and the other came from the hands of God with the faculty of under¬ standing and desiring evil, and of executing the evil they understood: in this lies their similarity. But 106 ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM , in the angelic nature, this imperfection lasted but a moment, whilst in man, it lasts for ever: in this lies their difference. For the angel there was a fear¬ fully solemn moment, in which it was given him to choose between good and evil. In that tremendous instant the angelic phalanxes were divided; some bowed before the divine throne, others rose in tumult and became rebels. This supreme and instantaneous resolution w r as followed by an instantaneous and supreme judgment: the rebel angels were hurled into damnation, and the loyal, confirmed in grace. Man, w T eaker in intellect and will than the angel, because he was not, like him, a pure spirit, received a weaker and more imperfect liberty, and his imper¬ fection was to last as long as his life. It is here the unutterable beauty of the designs of God shines forth with infinite splendour. God saw from the beginning how beautiful and convenient were hierarchies, and He established hierarchies among intelligent and free beings. He saw from all eternity, on the other hand, how convenient and beautiful it was to have a certain sort of equality between the Creator and all His crea¬ tures ; and such was His sovereign skill, that He united in one the beauty of equality and the beauty of hierarchy. To establish hierarchy He made their gifts unequal ; and that the law of equality might be observed, He demanded more from him to whom He gave more, and less from him to whom He gave less; so that the most favoured in gifts would be the most pressed in accounts, and the least pressed in accounts, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. io? the least favoured in gifts. Because the native exceb lence of the angel was superior, his fall was without hope or remedy, his chastisement instantaneous, and his condemnation eternal. Because the native excel¬ lence of man was inferior, he only fell to be lifted, he only sinned to be redeemed. The judgment pro¬ nounced on him shall not be without appeal, nor his condemnation without remedy, except in that moment known to God alone, when the angelic and human prevarications weigh equally in the divine scales, the one becoming by repetition what the other is in magnitude. So man cannot say to God, Why did you make me a man, and not an angel ? nor the angel, Why did you not make me a man ? Lord, who is not affrighted at sight of Thy justice ? What grandeur can be compared to that of Thy mercy ? What scales so faithfully balanced as those Thou holdest in Thy hand ? What measure so precise as that with which Thou measurest ? What mathe¬ matician is acquainted with numbers and their mys¬ terious harmony, like Thee? How well wrought are all the prodigies Thou hast worked ! How well estab¬ lished the things Thou didst establish, and how har¬ monically beautiful when established ! Open, O Lord, my intellect, that I may understand something of Thy purposes in Thy eternal designs, something of what Thou eternally conceivest and eternally executest ; for what does he know who knows not Thee ? and what is he ignorant of who knows Thee ? If man cannot say to God, Why did you not make io8 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM, me an angel ? why did you not make me perfect ? can he not at least say, Lord, were it not better I had not been born ? Why didst Thou make me what I am ? If Thou hadst consulted me, I had not received life with the faculty of losing it: hell scares me more than nonentity. Of himself man knows only how to blaspheme : when he asks a question, he blasphemes, if God Himself, who gives the answer, does not put the question in his mouth ; when he begs anything, he blasphemes, if God Himself, who has to attend to his petition, does not tell him what he has to ask, and how he has to ask it. Man did not know what to ask nor how to ask it, till God Himself, coming to the world and becoming man, taught him the “ Our Father ,” that he might learn it by heart like a child. What does man mean when he says, Were it not better I had not been born ? Did he exist before he existed ? And what meaning is there in his ques¬ tion, if before existing he did not exist ? Man can form some idea of what exceeds his reason; hence he can form some idea of mysteries: it is only of what does not exist he can form no idea whatever; and hence he can form none of nonentity. The suicide does not desire to cease to exist; he desires to cease to suffer, by changing his manner of being. Man, then, expresses no idea whatever when he says, Why do I exist? He can only express an idea by asking, Why do I exist as I am ? This question is resolved into this other, Why do I exist with the faculty of LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 109 ruining myself? which is absurd, no matter how we view it. In fact, if every creature, because it is a creature, is imperfect, and if the faculty of ruining themselves constitutes the special imperfection of men, he who asks that question asks why man is a creature, » or, what is the same, why the creature is not the Crea¬ tor; why man is not the God who created man ? Quod absurdum. And if this is not what is meant, if the question only means, Why dost Thou not save me in spite of my capability of being damned ? the absurdity is still clearer ; because, what is the meaning of that faculty if the person to whom it is given is never to be damned ? If man should be saved in all cir¬ cumstances, what would be the final object of life in this world ? Why does it not commence and become perpetuated in paradise ? Reason cannot conceive salvation as at once necessary and future, as futurity supposes contingency, and what by its nature is necessary is by its very nature present. If man should pass without transition from nonentity to eternity, and live from the first moment of existence the life of glory,—time, space, and the entire creation made for man, its lord, must be suppressed. If his kingdom were not to be of this world, what would be the object of the world ? or of time, if he were not to be temporal ? or of space, if he were not to be local ? And without time and space, what would be the object of things created in space and time ? Whence we see that, in this supposition, the absurdity which consists in no ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , the contradiction there is between the necessity of being saved and the faculty of being lost, ends in the absurdity which consists in suppressing at one stroke time and space, which entails another, that consists in the logical suppression of all things created for, and on account of, man. Man cannot substitute a human for a divine idea without, on the moment, the entire edifice of creation falling to the ground and burying him in its immense ruins. When we view this side of the question, we may say that man, in asking for the absolute right of being saved whilst retaining the faculty of being lost, asks, if pos¬ sible, for a greater absurdity than when he summoned God to his tribunal for giving him the faculty of being lost ; because in the latter he struggled to become God, whilst in the former he wants to have the privileges of the divinity, though remaining man. Finally, if we consider this serious matter attentively, we shall see that it was not compatible with the divine excellences to save the angel, nor man, without anterior merit. All is rational in God—His justice as well as His goodness, His goodness as well as His mercy ; and if He is infinitely just, and good, and merciful, He is also infinitely rational. Whence it follows that it is impos¬ sible to attribute to God without blasphemy either a goodness, or a mercy, or a justice wdiich is not built on sovereign reason, which alone renders goodness true goodness, mercy true mercy, and justice true justice. The goodness which is not rational is weakness, the mercy, debility, the justice, vengeance; and God is good, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. iii merciful, and just, not weak or vindictive. Supposing this, what is meant when He is asked, in the name of His infinite goodness, for salvation anterior to all merit? Who does not see here that what He is asked for is unreasonable, because He is asked for an action without its corresponding motive, an effect without its cause ? Singular contradiction! man asks from God, in name of His infinite goodness, that which He daily condemns in man in name of his limited reason ! and he calls that in heaven a merciful and just act which on earth he daily condemns as the caprice of nervous women or the extravagance of tyrants! As regards hell, its existence is absolutely necessary to render possible that perfect equilibrium God placed in. all things, because it exists substantially in His divine perfections. Hell, considered as a penalty, is in perfect equilibrium with heaven, considered as a reward. The faculty of being lost could alone establish in man an equilibrium with the faculty of being saved ; and that the justice and mercy of God might be equally infinite, it was necessary that hell should exist, as the term of the former, simultaneously with heaven, as the term of the latter. Heaven so supposes hell, that without it, it cannot be explained nor conceived. These two things suppose each other, as a consequence supposes its prin¬ ciple, and a principle its consequence; and as he who affirms the consequence which is in its principle, and the principle which contains its consequence, does not in reality affirm two different things, but one and the same, so he who affiims hell, which is supposed in 112 ESS A rs ON CA THO Lie ISM, heaven, and heaven, which is supposed in hell,-does not in reality affirm two different things, but one and the same. It is, then, logically necessary to admit those two affirmations, or to deny them with an absolute negation; but first of all we shall try to see what is denied by their negation. What is denied in man are the faculty of being saved and that of being lost; in God, His infinite justice and mercy. To these negations, which may be called personal, is added another, which is real—the negation of virtue and sin, good and evil, reward and punishment; and as in these negations is involved that of all the laws of the moral world, the negation of hell logically involves that of the moral world and all its laws. And don’t tell me that man could be saved without going to heaven, or lost without going to hell; for the exemption from going to heaven or to hell is neither penalty nor reward, damnation nor salvation. The justice and mercy of God either do not exist, or are infinite ; if infinite, they must terminate, on the one hand, in hell, and, on the other, in heaven, or they exist in vain, which is only another manner of being as if they were not. Well, now, if this laborious demonstration proves, on one hand, that the faculty of being saved necessarily sup¬ poses that of being lost, and, on the other, that heaven necessarily supposes hell, it will follow that he who blas¬ phemes against God because He made hell, blasphemes against Him because He made heaven, and that he who asks to be exempt from the faculty of being lost, asks also to be exempt from the faculty of being saved, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. u 3 CHAPTER III. Manicheeism of Proudhon. Be the explanation given to the free will of man what it may, there is no doubt that it will always be one of our greatest and most tremendous mysteries. In any case, it must be admitted that the faculty possessed by man of drawing evil from good, disorder from order, and of disturbing, even if only accidentally, the wonderful har¬ monies established by God in all things created, is a tremendous one, and, considered in itself, without relation to what limits or restrains it, to a certain degree incon¬ ceivable. The free will given to man is a gift so sublime and transcendental, that it appears rather an abdication on the part of God than a grace. See its effects if not. Cast your eye over the whole course of time, and you shall see how muddy and filthy flow the waters of that river on which humanity navigates. Away there, the rebellious Adam is at the head of a mutiny, and then comes Cain, the fratricide, and after him multitudes of people without God or law, blasphemers, fornicators, incestuous and adulterous; the few magnifiers of God and His glory in the end forget His glory and magnifi¬ cence, and all tumultuously sail in a capacious ship down the muddy stream of the great river, with mad and fearful clamour, like a mutinous crew. And they know not whither they go, nor whence they came, nor H ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , m the name of the ship which bears, nor the wind which impels, them. If nowand again a mournfully prophetic voice is raised, and cries, Woe to the sailors! woe to the ship! the ship and sailors pay no attention, and the hurricanes increase, and the ship begins to creak, and the obscene dances and the splendid feasts, the frantic laugh and the mad clamour, are kept up, till in a solemn moment all at once cease—the splendid feast, the frantic laugh, the obscene dance, the mad clamour, the creaking of the ship, and the howling of the hurricanes; the waters are over all, and silence sits on the waters, and the anger of God broods over the silent waters. God renews His work, and human liberty begins to undo the new divine work. A son is born to Noah who puts his father to the blush; the father curses the son, and in him his whole generation, which shall be cursed to the end of time. After the Deluge the ante¬ diluvian history begins again: the children of God renew their battles with the children of men; here is built the divine city, and opposite, the city of the world. In one, liberty is worshipped, in the other, Providence; and liberty and Providence, God and man, begin again that gigantic combat, whose thrilling vicissi¬ tudes are the subject of history. The partisans of God are everywhere defeated ; even the incommunicable and holy name of God sinks into profound oblivion, and men, in the frenzy of their victory, conspire to build a tower that might reach the heavens. The fire of heaven falls on the lofty tower, and God, in His anger, confounds the tongues of tribes; the tribes are dis- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. n 5 persed through all the quarters of the world, and in¬ crease and multiply, and people all zones and regions. Here are raised great and populous cities, there are established gigantic empires, full of pride and pomp ; brutal and ferocious hordes wander in idleness through immense woods or boundless deserts. And the world burns in discords, and is deafened with the loud clamours of war. Empires fall on empires, cities on cities, nations on nations, races on races, and peoples on peoples, till the earth is one universal misfortune and conflagration. The abomination of desolation is in the world. And where is the God of might ? What is He doing, that He thus abandons the field to human liberty, queen and mistress of the earth ? Why does He tolerate that universal rebellion and tumult, and those idols which are raised up, and that great carnage, and those accumulated ruins ? One day He called a just man, and said to him, “ I will make thee the father of a posterity as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars of the heavens ; from thy chosen race shall one day be born the Saviour of nations. I myself will govern it with my providence, and I will send my angels to bear it in their hands, that it may not fall. I shall be to it all prodigies, and it will witness to my omnipotence before the world : ”—and His acts were in keeping with His words. When His people was enslaved, He sent it liberators ; when it had no country or home, He miraculously drew it out of Egypt, and gave it a home and a country. It suffered hunger, and He gave it plenty; it suffered thirst, and in obedience 116 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, to His voice water gushed from the rocks; great multitudes of enemies opposed its passage, and the anger of God dissipated those great multitudes like a cloud. It hung its wailing harps on the willows of Babylon, and He ransomed it from its miserable cap¬ tivity, and it again saw with gladdened eye, Jerusalem the holy, the predestined, the beautiful. He gave it incorruptible judges, who governed it in peace and justice ; god-fearing kings, renowned as prudent, glorious and wise; He sent it, as His ambassadors, prophets, to discover to it His lofty designs, and make future things like the present. And that carnal and hard-hearted people buried His miracles in oblivion, rejected His warnings, abandoned His temple, broke into blas¬ phemies, fell into idolatry, outraged His incommuni¬ cable name, beheaded His holy prophets, and seethed in discords and rebellions. In the meantime the prophetic weeks of Daniel were completed, and He who was to come, sent by the Father for the redemption of the world and the con¬ solation of the nations, appeared on the earth, and see¬ ing Him so poor, so meek and humble, it despised His humility, outraged His poverty, mocked His meek¬ ness, became scandalised in Him, clothed Him in a fool’s garment, and, secretly agitated by the infernal furies, made Him drain to the dregs the chalice of ignominy on the Cross, after having drained the chalice of infamy in Pilate’s hall. Crucified by the Jews, Pie called the Gentiles, and the Gentiles came ; but after, as before, they came, the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. u 7 world pursued the path of perdition, and sat in the shadows of death. His holy Church inherited from her divine Founder and Master the privilege of persecution and outrage, and was outraged and persecuted by peoples, kings, and emperors. From her own bosom sprang those great heresies which surrounded her cradle, like monsters ready to devour her. In vain they fell prostrate at the feet of the divine Hercules: the tremendous battle between the divine and the human Hercules, between God and man, begins anew. Equal the fury, various are the issues. The field of battle is so extensive that on land, it stretches from sea to sea, and on sea, from land to land, and in the world, from pole to pole. The conquering hosts of Europe are vanquished in Asia, and those who succumb in Africa, triumph in America. There is no man, let him be aware of it or not, who is not a combatant in this hot contest; no one who does not take an active part in the responsibility of the defeat or victory. The prisoner in his chains and the king on his throne, the poor and the rich, the healthy and the infirm, the wise and the ignorant, the captive and the free, the old man and the child, the civilised and the savage, share equally in the com¬ bat. Every word that is pronounced, is either inspired by God or by the world, and necessarily proclaims, implicitly or explicitly, but always clearly, the glory of the one or the triumph of the other. In this singular warfare we all fight through forced enlistment; here the system of substitutes or volunteers finds no place. In it is unknown exception of sex or age ; here no 118 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , attention is paid to him who says, I am. the son of a poor widow ; nor to the mother of the paralytic, nor to the wife of the cripple. In this warfare all men born of woman are soldiers. And don’t tell me you don’t wish to fight; for the moment you tell me that, you are already fighting : nor that you don’t know which side to join ; for while you are saying that, you have already joined a side: nor that you wish to remain neutral ; for while you are thinking to be so, you are so no longer : nor that you want to be indifferent; for I will laugh at you, because on pro- i nouncing that word you have chosen your party. Don’t tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of the war, for you tire yourself in vain ; that war is extended as far as space, and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat: but do not imagine, however, that the gates of eternity shall be opened for you, unless you first show the wounds you bear ; those gates are only opened for those who gloriously fought here the battles of the Lord, and were, like the Lord, crucified. On turning his eyes to the spectacle presented by history, a man unillumined by the light of faith neces¬ sarily falls into one of these two Manicheeisms : into the ancient, which consists in affirming that there is one principle of good and another of evil; that those two principles are incarnate in two gods, between whom there is perpetual war: or into that of Proudhon, which consists in affirming that God is the evil and man the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 119 good, that the human, and the divine, are two rival powers, and that the only duty of man is to conquer God, the enemy of man. From the spectacle of perpetual warfare to which the world was condemned, come those two Manichean systems, one of which is in more conformity with ancient systems, and the other has a closer relation with modern doctrines; and we are forced to confess, that when we consider the notorious fact of that gigantic combat in itself, and abstracting from the wonderful harmony formed by human and divine, visible and invisible, created and uncreated, things, considered in the aggre¬ gate, that fact is sufficiently explained by either of those two systems. There is no difficulty in explaining any fact, consi¬ dered in itself. There is no fact which, considered thus, cannot be sufficiently explained by a hundred different hypotheses. The difficulty consists in fulfilling the metaphysical condition of every explanation, which requires for the true elucidation of every notorious fact, that other notorious and evident facts be not left inex¬ plicable nor unexplained in it. Any Manichean system explains whatever by its nature supposes a dualism ; and a battle supposes it; but leaves without explanation what is by nature one; and reason, even unilluminated by faith, is capable of demon¬ strating, either that God does not exist, or if He exists, He is one. In any Manichean system the battle is explained, but in none the definitive victory ; as the definitive victory of evil over good, or of good over evil, 120 ESS A VS ON CA THOL/CISM, supposes the definitive suppression of the one or the other, and what exists with a substantial and necessary existence, cannot be definitely suppressed. In this supposition we find, by way of consequence, that there is something inexplicable in the very battle we thought sufficiently explained, as every battle is inexplicable in which all definitive victory is impossible. If from what is generally absurd in every Manichean explanation, we pass to what is specially absurd in the explanation of Proudhon, we shall clearly see, that to the general absurdity of all Manicheeism are here added all particular and possible absurdities, and that even things are met with in that explanation unworthy the majesty of the absurd. In fact, when citizen Proudhon calls good evil, and evil good, he does not utter an absurdity—the absurd requires higher genius—he is only guilty of buffoonery. The absurd is not in uttering it, but in uttering it without object. The moment it is said that good and evil coexist in man and God, locally and substantially, the question which consists in in¬ vestigating in which the evil and in which the good exists, is a foolish one. Man will call God the evil and himself the good, and God will call Himself the good and man the evil. Evil and good will be in all places and in no place. The only question, then, lies in discovering who will gain the victory. If evil and good are, in that supposition, things indifferent, there is no necessity for falling into the ridiculous puerility of contradicting the common sense of the human race The peculiar absurdity of citizen Proudhon consists in LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 121 the fact that his dualism is a dualism of three members, constituting an absolute unity ; whence we see that his absurdity is a mathematical, rather than a religious, one. God is evil, man is good—this is the Manichean dualism. But in man, who is the good, there is one power essentially instinctive, and another essentially logical. By the first he is God, by the second he is man ; whence it follows that the two unities are resolved into three, without ceasing to be two; for beyond man and God there is no substantial good or evil, no combatants, no anything. Let us see now how the two unities, which are three, are converted into one, without ceasing to be two and three unities. Unity is in God; for, besides being God, by the instinctive power which is in man, He is man. Unity is in man ; for, though he is man by his logical, he is God by his instinctive, power: whence it follows that man is man and God at the same time. It results from all this, that dualism, without ceasing to be so, is trinity; that trinity, without ceasing to be so, is dualism ; that dualism, and trinity, without ceasing to be what they are, are unity; and that unity which is unity, without ceasing to be trinity, and dualism, without ceasing to be trinity, is in all places. If citizen Proudhon had said of himself what he does not say, viz., that he is sent, and then demonstrated, what he could not demonstrate, viz., that his mission is divine; the theory I am after explaining should still be rejected as absurd and impossible. The personal union of evil and good, considered as existing substantially, is impossible and absurd, because it involves an evident 122 ESS A rs ON CATHOLICISM , contradiction. In the personal variety and substantial unity which constitute the Christian’s one and triple God, as in the personal unity and substantial variety which constitute the Son made man, according to the Catholic dogma, there is a profound obscurity ; but there is no logical impossibility, however, because there is no contradiction in terms. If there be much obscurity, there is, however, no essential contradiction in the eyes of reason, in saying of three persons that they have the same fundamental substance, as there is no contradic¬ tion, though great obscurity, in the eyes of our under¬ standing, in saying that two different substances are sustained by the same person. In what there is radical impossibility, because there is an evident absurdity, a palpable contradiction, is in saying, after asserting the substantial existence of good and evil, that evil and good, substantially existing, are sustained by the same person. Wonderful! man cannot fly from the Catholic obscurity, without condemning himself to grope in one more dense, nor escape from that which paralyses his reason, without falling into that which denies, because it contradicts, it. And don’t imagine the world follows the footsteps of rationalism, in spite of its absurd contradictions and dense obscurity; it follows them on account of that dense obscurity and those absurd contradictions. Reason follows error wherever it goes, as a tender mother would follow, wherever it went, even if it were to the profound abyss, the beloved fruit of her love, and offspring of her womb. Error will kill it; but what LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM'. 123 matter if it is a mother, and dies at the hands of its offspring ? CHAPTER IV. How the dogmas of providence and liberty are saved by Catholicity , without falling into the theory of rivalry between God and man. In nothing does the incomparable beauty of Catholic solutions shine with more splendour than in their universality, that incommunicable attribute of divine solutions. No sooner is a Catholic solution received, than all the objects hitherto obscure and cloudy have light thrown on them; night becomes day, and order springs from chaos. There is none of them which does not possess that attribute and that secret virtue, whence comes the grand marvel of universal light. In those seas of light there is only one dark point, that in which lies the solution which penetrates the universe with its light. This consists in the fact, that man not being God, cannot be in possession of that divine attribute by which the Lord sees with ineffable light, all that He created. Man is condemned to receive the explanation of the light from the darkness, and of the darkness from the light. To him there is nothing evident but what proceeds from an impenetrable mystery. Between mysterious and evident things, however, there is this notable difference, that man can obscure the evident, but cannot make the mysterious clear. When he rejects, 124 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, for the purpose of entering into the possession of that ineffable light which is in God and not in himself, the divine solutions as obscure, he falls into the intricate and gloomy labyrinth of human solutions. Then what we have demonstrated occurs : his solution is particular—as particular, incomplete—and as incomplete, false. At first sight he appears to solve something ; on farther consideration we find he solves nothing he appeared to have solved ; and reason, which at first accepted his solution as plausible, ends by rejecting it as insufficient, contradictory, and absurd. As far as the question we are discussing is concerned, this was completely demon¬ strated in the last chapter. After demonstrating the evident insufficiency of the human, it only remains to demonstrate the supreme efficacy and sublime conveni¬ ence of the Catholic, solution. God, who is the absolute good, is the supreme fabri¬ cator of all good, and all He does is good. It was equally impossible for God to give to the creature any¬ thing He had not, as to give him all He had. Two things are totally impossible, viz., that He could give to anything the evil He does not possess, or the absolute good: both impossibilities are evident, as it is impossible to conceive that any one can give what he has not, or that the Creator could be absorbed in the creature ; and He is unable to communicate His own absolute good¬ ness, which would be to communicate Himself, nor evil, which would be to communicate what He has not He communicates relative good, and thereby all He can com- % v ‘ municate, viz., something of that which is in Him, and is Liberalism, and socialism. 125 not He himself, establishing between Himself and the creature that likeness which testifies to its origin, and that difference which proves the distance between them. In this way every creature proclaims by its presence who its Creator is, and that itself is only His creature. God being the Creator of all things created, all things created are good, with a relative goodness. Man is good inasmuch as he is man, the angel as angel, and the tree as tree. Even the prince who flashes like light¬ ning in the abyss, and the abyss in which he flashes, are good and excellent things. The prince of the abyss is good in himself, because in being what he is, he ceases not to be an angel, and God is the Creator of angelic nature, which is superior to all things created. The abyss is good in itself, because it is ordained to an end sovereignly good. And notwithstanding that all created essences are good and excellent, Catholicity says that evil is in the world, and its ravages are great and awful. The ques¬ tion then consists in investigating, on the one hand, what evil is ; and on the other, in what it has its origin; and finally, how it contributes with its dissonance to the universal harmony. Evil has its origin in the use man made of the faculty of choosing, which, as we said, constitutes the imperfec¬ tion of human liberty. The faculty of choosing was confined within certain limits, established by the very nature of things. All being good, that faculty could not consist in choosing between the good things which necessarily existed, and the evil, which did not exist at 126 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , all. It consisted solely in adhering to the good, or in separating from the evil; in affirming it by its union, or denying it by its separation. The understanding of man withdrew from the divine understanding, which was equi¬ valent to separating from truth; separated from the truth, it ceased to understand it. The human will withdrewfrom the divine, which was equal to separating from the good ; separated from the good, it ceased to will it. Having ceased to will, it ceased to execute, it; and as, on the other hand, man could not cease to exercise his intimate and permanent faculties, which consisted in understand¬ ing, willing, and acting, he continued to understand, will, and act, although what he understood, separated from God, was not the truth, which is in God alone, nor what he willed, the good, which is in God alone, nor could what he did be the good, which he neither understood, nor willed, and which, not being understood by his intellect, nor accepted by his will, could not be the term of his actions. Error, which is the negation of truth, was, then, the term of his understanding ; evil, which is the nega¬ tion of the good, of his will; and the term of his actions was sin, which is the simultaneous negation of truth and goodness, which are only different manifestations of the same thing, considered in two different points of view. As sin denies all that God affirms with His intellect, which is the truth, and with His will, which is the good ; and there being in God no other affir- mations but that of the good, which is in His will, and that of the truth, which is in His understanding; and God being only those two affirmations considered LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. v2? substantially—it follows that sin, which denies all that God affirms, virtually denies God in all His affirmations; and by denying Him, and doing nothing but deny Him, is the universal and absolute negation—the negation par excellence. That negation did not, or could not, affect the essence of things, which exist independently of the human will, and which were after, as well as before, the prevarication, not only good in themselves, but even perfect and excellent. Still, if sin did not deprive them of their excellence, it deprived them of that sovereign harmony which their divine Maker established in them, and is that delicate bond and that perfect order with which they were united one with another, and all with Him, when He drew them from chaos, after having drawn them from nothingness, by an effect of His infinite goodness. Through that perfect order and that admirable bond, all things moved directly towards God with an irresistible and regulated motion. The angel, a pure spirit inflamed with love, gravitated to¬ wards God, the centre of all spirits, with an amorous and vehement gravitation. Man, less perfect, but not less amorous, followed with his gravitation the movement of the angelic gravitation, to become confounded with the angel in the bosom of God, the centre of angelic and human gravitations. Matter itself, agitated by a secret movement of ascension, followed the gravitation of spirits towards that supreme Maker who drew all things to Him without effort. And as all these things, considered in themselves, are the exterior manifests' ri8 ESS A VS ON CA TH0LIC1SM , tions of the essential good which is in God, this manner of being is the exterior manifestation of His manner of being, perfect and excellent as His essence itself. Things were made in such a way, that they had one perfection mutable and another necessary and inamis- sible. Their inamissible and necessary perfection was that essential good which God placed in every creature ; their mutable perfection was that manner of being that God willed they should have, when He drew them from nothingness. God willed they should ever be what they are ; He did not, however, will they should neces¬ sarily be in the same manner. He withdrew the essences from all jurisdiction but His own; He placed, for a time, the order in which they exist under the jurisdiction of those beings which He formed intelli¬ gent and free. Whence it follows that the evil pro¬ duced by the free angelic, or the free human, will, could be, and was, nothing but the negation of the order which God established in all things created; which negation is involved in the very word that signifies it, with which is affirmed the very thing that is denied ; that negation is called disorder. Dis¬ order is the negation of order, that is to say, of the divine affirmation, relative to the manner of being of all things. And as order consists in the union of the things which God willed should be united, and the separation of those which He willed should be sepa¬ rated ; so disorder consists in uniting the things which God willed should be separated, and separating those which God willed should be united. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 129 The disorder caused by the angelic rebellion, con¬ sisted in estrangement on the part of the rebel angel from its God, who was its centre, by means of a change in its manner of being, which consisted in the con¬ version of its movement of gravitation towards its God, into a movement of rotation around itself. The disorder caused by the prevarication of man, was similar to that caused by the rebellion of the angel, as it is impossible to be a rebel and prevaricator in two ways essentially different. Man, having ceased to gravitate towards his God with his understanding, his will, and his works, constituted himself his centre, and was the ulti¬ mate end of his actions, of his will, and of his under¬ standing. The disturbance caused by this prevarication was deep and profound. When man had separated from his God, all his powers separated at once, one from the other, constituting themselves so many divergent centres. His understanding lost its authority over his will, his will lost its authority over his actions, the flesh escaped from the obedience it owed the spirit, and the spirit, which had been subject to God, fell into slavery to the flesh. All had been previously concord and harmony in man; all was afterwards war, tumult, con¬ tradictions, and discord. His nature was converted from sovereignly harmonious, into profoundly antithetical. This disorder caused in him by himself, was trans¬ mitted by him to the universe, and to the manner of being of all things; all were subject to him, and all rebelled against him. When he ceased to be the slave I 130 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , of God, he ceased to be the prince of the earth ; which will not cause us wonder, if we consider that the titles of his terrestrial monarchy were founded in his divine slavery. The animals, to which he, in token of his dominion, had given their names, ceased to hear his voice, and to understand his word, and to obey his com¬ mand. The earth was filled with weeds, the heavens became leaden, the very flowers armed themselves with thorns. Entire nature was, as it were, possessed by a mad fury against him : the seas, on beholding him approach, tossed their waves wildly, and their abysses resounded with awful clamour; the mountains raised their tops to the heavens to stop his path; the torrents rushed over his fields, and over his fragile dwellings swept the hurricanes; the reptiles spat their venom at him, the herbs distilled poisons for him; at every step he dreaded an ambuscade, and in every ambuscade, death. The Catholic explanation of evil once accepted, all that which without it appeared, and was in fact, inexplicable, is naturally explained. If the evil do not exist in a substantial manner, but rather negatively, it cannot serve as matter for a creation, and so the diffi¬ culty which arose from the co-existence of two different and simultaneous creations, naturally ceases. That difficulty was increasing, the more advance was made by that rough road, as the dualism of the creation necessarily supposed another dualism, more repugnant still to human reason—the essential dualism in the divinity, which must be conceived as a simple essence, or cannot be conceived at all. With that divine dualism LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 131 comes to the ground the idea of a rivalry at once im¬ possible and necessary—necessary, because two gods who contradict each other, and two essences which are repugnant, are condemned, by the very nature of things, to a perpetual quarrel—impossible, because a definitive victory is the final object of every contest (and here the definitive victory consists in the suppression of the evil by the good, or of the good by the evil), and neither one nor the other can be suppressed, because what exists in an essential manner, necessarily exists. From the im¬ possibility of the suppression follows the impossibility of the victory, and from the impossibility of the victory, final object of the contest, the radical impossibility of the contest itself. With the divine, in which every Manichean system ends, disappears the human, con¬ tradiction, to which the substantial co-existence of good and evil in man must lead. That contradiction is absurd, and because absurd, inconceivable. To affirm of man that he is at one and the same time essentially good and essentially bad, is the same as to affirm one of these two things : either that man is composed of two contrary essences, thus uniting what the Manichean system is obliged to separate in the Divinity; or that the essence of man is one, and being one, is good and bad at the same time, which is to affirm all that is denied, and to deny all that is affirmed, of one and the same thing. In the Catholic system the evil exists, but it does not exist essentially. The evil considered thus, is synonymous with disorder; for it is nothing else, if well 132 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , examined, but the disordered manner in which the things are, that have not ceased to be essentially good, and which, through some secret and mysterious cause, have ceased to be well ordered. The Catholic system points out that secret and mysterious cause, and in the assigning of it, if there be much that exceeds, there is nothing which contradicts or is repugnant to, reason, as, for the explanation of the perturbation of the manner of things, which even after being disturbed, preserve their essences entire and pure, there is no necessity to have recourse to a divine intervention, with which there would be no proportion between the effect and the cause ; it is enough, to explain the fact sufficiently, to have recourse to the anarchical intervention of the intelligent and free beings, which if they could not alter, in some way, the marvellous order of creation and its concerted harmonies, could not be considered either as free or as intelligent. Of the evil, considered as accidental and ephemeral, these two things can be asserted without contradiction and without repugnance —first, that as far as it is evil, it could not be the work of God ; second, that as far as it is ephemeral and accidental, it could be the work of man. In this way the affirmations of reason become confounded with the Catholic affirmations. The Catholic system once supposed, all absurdities disappear, and all contradictions are suppressed. In this system the creation is one and God is one, with which the war of the gods is suppressed with the divine dualism. The evil exists, because if it did not exist, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 133 human liberty could not be conceived; but the evil exists as an accident, not as an essence, for if it were an essence and not an accident, it would be the work of God, the Creator of all things, which involves a con¬ tradiction, repugnant both to the divine and human reason. The evil comes from man and is in man, and by coming from and being in him, far from there being any contradiction, there is a great convenience. The convenience is in this, that as the evil could not be the work of God, man could not choose it, if he did not create it, and he would not be free if he could not choose it. There is no contradiction whatever in it; for when Catholicism affirms of man that he is good in his essence and bad by accident, she does not affirm of him the same thing she denies of him. To affirm of man that he is bad by accident and good by essence, is not to say contradictory things of him, but things in which there can be no contradiction, because they are totally different. In fine, the Catholic system being once accepted, the blasphemous and impious system, which consists in supposing a perpetual rivalry between God and man, between the Creator and the creature, falls levelled to the ground. Man, author of the evil, accidental and transitory of itself, is not on the same standing with God, creator, supporter, and governor of all essences, and of all things. Between those two beings, separated by an infinite distance, there is no imaginable rivalry or possible contest. In the Manichean and Proudhonian systems, the battle between the Creator of the essential 134 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, good and the creator of the essential evil, was incon¬ ceivable and absurd, because the victory was impossible. In the Catholic system there can be no supposition of a contest between two parties, one of which must necessarily be victorious, and the other necessarily vanquished. Two conditions are necessary for the exist¬ ence of a contest: that the victory be possible, and that it be uncertain. Every battle is absurd when the victory is certain, or when it is impossible; from which it follows, that no matter how they are considered, those great battles are absurd, which are entered on for uni¬ versal domination or for supreme power, whether the sovereign be one, or the rulers two : in the first case, because he who is one will be perfectly alone ; in the second, because the two will never become one, and will be two perpetually. Those gigantic combats are of such a nature, that either they are decided before commenced, or they are not decided after they are entered on. CHAPTER V. Secret analogies between the moral and physical per¬ turbations , all derived from the liberty of man. How far the ravages of sin have gone, and to what extent the whole face of creation has been changed by so lamentable a misfortune, is a matter beyond human investigations ; but what is above all doubt is, that in LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 135 Adam his spirit and his flesh were conjointly degraded, the former by pride, and the latter by concupiscence. The cause of the physical and the moral degradation being the same, they present wonderful analogies in their various manifestations. We have said that sin, the primitive cause of all de¬ gradation, was nothing but a disorder; and as order con¬ sisted in the perfect equilibrium of all things created, and that equilibrium in the hierarchical subordination they observed one with another, and in the absolute subordi¬ nation they all maintained with their Creator, it follows that sin or disorder, which is the same thing, consisted in nothing but the relaxation of that hierarchical subordi¬ nation which things had among themselves, and of the absolute subordination in which they were with respect ta the Supreme Being, or what is the same, in the destruc¬ tion of that perfect equilibrium, and of that wonderful union in which all things were placed. And as effects are always analogous to their causes,-all the effects of sin became, to a certain extent, what their causes were, a disorder, a disunion, a disequilibrium. Sin was the disunion of man and God. Sin produced a moral and a physical disorder. The moral disorder consisted in the ignorance of the understanding, and in the weakness of the will. The ignorance of the understanding was nothing but its disunion from the divine understanding. The weakness of the will was in its disunion from the supreme will. The physical disorder produced by sin, consisted in 136 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , sickness and in death ; well now, sickness is nothing but the disorder, the disunion, the disequilibrium of the constituent parts of our body. Death is nothing but that same disunion, that same disorder, that same disequilibrium carried to the extreme. Therefore the physical and moral disorder, ignorance and the weakness of the will on one part, and sick¬ ness and death on the other, are one and the same thing. This will be seen more clearly by merely considering that all these disorders, as well physical as moral, take the same denomination at the point where they end, and the point where they begin. The concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of the spirit, are called by the same name —sin ; the definite disunion of the soul and God, and that of the body and the soul, are called by the same name— death. From this we see the connection between the physical and the moral world is so close, that it is only in the middle their difference can be observed, as they are one and the same thing in their end and in their begin¬ ning. And how could it be otherwise if the physical, as well as the moral world, comes from God, and ends in God; if God is before sin, and after death ? For the rest, that close connection between the moral and the physical world might be unknown to the earth, which is purely corporeal, and to the angels, which are pure spirits; but how could that mystery be hidden from man, composed of an immortal soul, LIBERALISM,\ AND SOCIALISM. 137 and of a corporeal matter, and who is placed by God in the confluence of two worlds ? Nor did that great perturbation produced by sin end here, as not only Adam became subject to sick¬ ness and to death, but the earth was cursed on his account, and in his name. With regard to that tremendous and, to a certain degree, incomprehensible curse, without appearing to presume to penetrate mysteries so obscure, and acknow¬ ledging, as we do, that the judgments of God are as secret as His works are marvellous, it appears to us, nevertheless, that if the mysterious relation which God has placed between the moral and the physical world, be once confessed, and is practically, though in a certain manner inexplicably, visible in man, to a certain degree, everything else is of little consequence in this profound mystery; for the mystery is in the law of relation, rather than in the applications which can be made of it by way of consequence. It is well to remark here, in proof of what we have said, and to make this difficult subject more clear, that physical things cannot be considered as endowed with an independent existence—as existing in them¬ selves, by themselves, and for themselves, but rather as manifestations of spiritual things, which alone have in themselves the reason of their existence. God being a pure spirit, and the beginning and end of all things, it is clear that all things, in their beginning and in their end, are spiritual. This being so, physical things are either vain phenomena, and do not ex ; st, or if they 138 ESSA YS ON CA THOLICISM , exist, exist by God and for God ; which means that they exist by the spirit and for the spirit; from which we infer, that whenever there is a disturbance, be it what it may, in the spiritual, there must necessarily be another analogous in the corporeal, regions; as it is impossible to conceive that things themselves could be at rest, when there is a perturbation in what is the beginning and end of all things. The perturbation, then, produced by sin was and should be general, was and should be common to the high and to the low regions, to those of all spirits, and to those of all bodies. The countenance of God, pre¬ viously placid and serene, was disturbed with anger; His seraphim changed colour, the earth bristled with thorns and weeds, and its plants were parched, and its trees withered, and its herbs dried up, and its fountains ceased to distil sweet liquor, and it was fruitful in poisons, and it covered itself with obscure, impene¬ trable, dreadful forests, and it crowned itself with wild mountains, and there was one zone torrid, and another deadly cold, and it was consumed by heat and nipped with frost, and impetuous whirlwinds sprang up on all its horizons, and its four corners were deafened with the noise of these hurricanes. Man being placed in the centre of this universal disorder, at once his work and his chastisement, he himself being disordered more deeply and radically than the rest of creation, he was exposed, without other help than that of the divine mercy, to the impetuous current of all the physical ills, and of all / LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 139 the moral tortures. His life was all temptation and battle, his wisdom ignorance, his will all weakness, his flesh all corruption. Every one of his actions was accompanied with a regret; every one of his pleasures had bitter dregs, or was followed by acute pain ; his griefs were counted by his desires, his illusions by his hopes, and his disenchantments by his illusions. His memory served as a torture, his prevision as a torment; his imagination only served to throw fringes of purple and gold over his nakedness and misery. Enamoured of the good to which he was born, he pur¬ sued the path of evil on which he had entered ; feeling the necessity of a God, he fell into the unfathomable abysses of all superstitions. Condemned to suffer—who will be capable of counting his misfortunes ? Con¬ demned to labour with fatigue—who knows the number of his toils ? Condemned to perpetual sweat on his brow—who will mark the number of drops of sweat that have fallen from his brow ? Place man as high as possible, or as low as you wish, nowhere will he be exempt from that penalty which came to us from our first sin. If calumny does not reach him who is high, envy reaches him; if envy does not reach him who is low, calumny does. Where is the flesh that has not endured pain, or the spirit that has not suffered grief ? Who was ever so high that he feared not to fall ? Who ever believed so firmly in the con¬ stancy of fortune, that he did not fear its reverses ? We men, in our birth, in our life, and in our death, are all alike, because we are all culpable, and are all punished. 140 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , If birth, if life, and if death, be not a penalty, how is it that we are born, that we live and die as every¬ thing else is born, lives, and dies ? Why do we die full of terrors ? Why do we live full of grief? And why do we come to the world, when we are born, with our arms crossed on our breast, in a penitent posture ? And why, on opening our eyes to the light, do we open them to weep, and our first salute is a sob ? Historical facts confirm the dogmas we have just expounded, and all their mysterious consequences. The Saviour of the world, to the edification and the profound dread of the few just men who followed Him, and to the scandal of the doctors, blotted out sins by curing diseases, and cured diseases by blotting out sins; now suppressing the cause by means of the suppression of the effects, and now the effects by means of the sup¬ pression of the cause. When a paralytic was placed in His presence, on an occasion when He was surrounded by a multitude of doctors and Pharisees, He raised His voice and said to him, “ Have confidence, my son, I remit your sins.” Those that were present were scan¬ dalised in their heart, thinking, on one side, that the claim to the power of absolving was pride and madness in the Nazarene; and on the other, that it was extrava¬ gant to attempt to cure diseases by absolving from sin. And as the Lord saw these culpable thoughts rising in the minds of those people, He immediately added, “ And that they may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say to thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house ; ” and it happened LIBERALISM ., AND SOCIALISM. 141 as He said; by which He demonstrated that the power of curing, and that of absolving, are one and the same power, and that sin and sickness are one and the same thing. Before going farther, it may be well to remark here, in confirmation of what we have said, two things worth remembering; first, that the Lord, before placing the heavyweight of the crimes of the world on His shoulders, was exempt from all bodily infirmity, or even indisposi¬ tion, because He was exempt from sin; second, that when He placed the sins of all nations on His head, He voluntarily accepted the effects as He had accepted the causes, and the consequences as He accepted the princi¬ ples. He accepted pain, regarding it as the inseparable companion of sin, and He sweated blood in the Garden, and He felt pain from the blow in the Pretorium, and He fainted with the weight of the cross, and He suffered thirst on Calvary, and a tremendous agony on the shameful wood, and He saw death coming with terror, and Pie groaned deep and mournfully on commending His spirit to His blessed Father. As regards the wonderful consonance of which we spoke, between the disorders of the moral and those of the physical world, the human race proclaims it, with one voice, without comprehending it, as if a supernatural and invincible power obliged it to bear testimony to the great mystery: the voice of all traditions, the sentiments of all peoples, the vague rumours scattered by the ' winds, the echoes of the whole world, all tell us myste¬ riously of a great physical and moral disorder which 142 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , happened in times anterior to the Aurora of history, in consequence of a primitive fault, whose enormity was such that it cannot be comprehended by the intellect, nor expressed in words. Even yet, if by chance the elements become disordered, and there are strange phenomena in the celestial spheres, and great chastise¬ ments of discord, of pestilence, of famine visitations,— if the seasons change the placid course of their har¬ monious rotation, and are confounded, and battle with one another,—if the earth is convulsed with earth¬ quakes, and if the winds, freed from the reins that curbed their impetuosity, become hurricanes, then rises immediately from the womb of peoples, guardians of the tremendous tradition, a persistent and tremulous voice, which seeks the cause of the unusual disturbance in a crime sufficient to enrage the Divinity, and bring on the earth the maledictions of Heaven. That these vague rumours are sometimes unfounded, and generally the offspring of the ignorance of the laws which preside over the cause of natural phenomena, is very evident ; but it is no less evident in our eyes that the error is in the application and not in the idea, in the consequence and not in the principle, in the practice and not in the theory. The tradition exists, and bears perpetual testimony to the truth in spite of all its false applications. The multitudes may err, and do err frequently, when they affirm that such a sin is the cause of such a disorder ; but they neither err nor can err, when they assert that disorder is the offspring of sin. And exactly because the tradition, considered in LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 143 its generality, is the manifestation and the visible form of an absolute truth, for that very reason it is difficult, and almost impossible, to rid people of the concrete errors they fall into in its applications. What the tradi¬ tion has of truth gives consistence to what is false in the application, and the concrete error lives and grows under the protection of the absolute truth. Nor is history wanting in remarkable examples, which come in support of this universal tradition, transmitted from father to son, from family to family, from race to race, from people to people, and from region to region, through the whole human race, even to the extremities of the earth ; for whenever crime has risen to a certain level, and has filled its measure, then tremendous catastrophes have visited nations, and rude shocks disturbed the world. First of all, there occurred that universal perversion of which the Holy Scriptures tell us, when all men, joined in the same apostacy, and in the same forgetfulness of God, lived without other good, and without other law, than their criminal desires and their frantic passions; and then, when the cup of divine wrath was full, that great conflict and that portentous inundation of waters swept over the earth, burying everything in universal destruction and in common ruin, and levelling the mountains with the valleys. When the ages afterwards reached the middle of their course, it happened, in fulfilment of the ancient prophecies and of the ancient promises, that the Desired of nations came to the world. The time of His coming: was remarkable above all for the perversity and malice 144 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISN of men, and for the universal corruption of morals. To this was added, that one day, of sad and tearful memory, the most tearful and sad of all that had passed since the creation, a people, blind and maddened, as if it were drunk with wine, raised its countenance, disturbed with the frenzy of passion, took its God in its hands, and made Him the object of its mockery, accumulated all sorts of affronts on Him, and loaded His meek shoulders with all kinds of ignominies, raised Him on high, and murdered Him on the cross between two thieves. Then again the cup of divine wrath flowed over: the sun withdrew his rays, the veil of the temple was rent in two, the rocks were split, and the whole earth suffered shocks and earthquakes. Many other examples might be adduced in confir¬ mation of the mysterious harmony which is observed between the moral and physical disturbances, and in sup¬ port of the universal tradition which in all parts testifies to and proclaims it; but on account of the grandeur of those we have mentioned, we may regard the subject as terminated. CHAPTER VI. The angelic and the human prevarications—Greatness and enormity of sin. UF to this I have given the Catholic theory about evil, the offspring of sin, and about sin, which comes to us LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 145 from human liberty, which moves in a wide field in its limited sphere, under the eye and with the consent of that sovereign Lord, who, making everything with weight, number, and measure, settled matters so well, that neither His providence may oppress the free will of man, nor the ravages of the latter, great and awful as they are, prejudice His glory. Before proceeding further, however, it strikes me as in keeping with the majesty of the subject, to give a connected account of that awful tragedy which commenced in heaven and ended in Eden, leaving aside the reflections and objec¬ tions which were disposed of in another place, and would only serve to obscure the beauty, at once simple and imposing, of this lamentable history. We have already seen how the Catholic theory is above all others, by the profound adaptibility of all its solutions ; now we shall see how the facts on which it is founded are superior to all primitive stories, in their grandeur' and dramatic effect. Up to this we discovered theit beauty by comparisons and deductions; now we shall admire their beauty in themselves, without permitting our eyes to wander to other objects. Before the creation of man, and in times removed be¬ yond human investigations, God had created the angels, happy and perfect creatures, whom He permitted to gaze attentively on the brightest splendours of His face, bathed in a sea of unutterable delights, and perpetually absorbed in contemplation of Him. The angels were pure spirits, and the excellence of their nature was greater than that of the nature of man, composed of an K ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, ia6 immortal soul and of the slime of the earth. By its simple nature the angel was connected with God, whilst by its intelligence, by its liberty, and by its limited wisdom, it had been formed to be connected with man ; as man by his spiritual portion had intercourse with the angel, and by his corporeal matter with the physical world, which was at the service of his will, and under the obedience of his word. And all creatures came into being with the inclination and the capacity of being transformed, and of ascending by the immense ladder, which, beginning in the lowliest beings, ended in that sublime Being who is above all beings, and whom the heavens and the earth, men and angels, know by a name which is above all names. The physical world panted to rise and become spiritualised, in a certain way, like man ; and man, to become more spiritualised like the angel; and the angel, to assimilate itself more to that perfect Being, the source of all life, the Creator of all creatures, whose height no rule can measure, and whose immensity no bounds can contain. All had come from God, and, rising, should return to God, who was their be¬ ginning and their origin ; and as all had come from Him, and should return to Him, there was nothing which did not contain a spark, more or less resplendent, of His beauty. In this way the infinite variety was reduced of itself to that ample unity which created all things, and placed in them a striking concert and a wonderful bond, separating those that were confused, and collecting those that were scattered. From which we see that the LIBERA LIS M) AND SOCIALISM. 147 act of creation was complex, and composed of two different acts, namely, of that by which God gave existence to what previously had none ; and of that other, by means of which He regulated all that He had given existence to. By the first of these acts He revealed His power of creating all substances which sustain all forms; with the second, the power He had of creating all the forms which embellish all substances. And as there is no substance beyond those created by God, neither is there any beauty beyond what He placed in things. For this reason, the universe, which signifies everything created by God, is the aggregate of all substances; and order, which signifies the form that God placed in things, is the aggregate of all beauties. Beyond God there is no creator, beyond order there is no beauty, beyond the universe there is no creature. If all beauty consists in the order established by God in the beginning, and if beauty, justice, and goodness are the same thing regarded in different lights, it follows that beyond the order established by God, there is no goodness, nor beauty, nor justice ; and as these three things constitute the Supreme Good, the established order which contains them all is the Supreme Good. There being no sort of good beyond the established order, there is nothing beyond the established order that is not an evil, nor is there any evil that does not con¬ sist in escaping beyond the established order. For this reason, as the established order is the supreme good, disorder is the evil par excellence; beyond disorder 148 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , there is no evil, as beyond the established order there is no good. We infer from what we have said, that order, or, what is the same, the supreme good, consists in all things pre¬ serving that bond which God placed in them when He drew them from nothingness ; and that disorder, or, which is the same, the evil par excellence , consists in breaking that admirable bond, and disturbing that sublime concert. As this bond could not be broken, nor this concert disturbed, except by one who had a will and power, to a certain degree, and in the manner that this is possible, independent of the will of God, no creature w-as capable of so much but the angels and men, the only ones, amongst all, made to the image and likeness of their Maker—that is, intelligent and free. Hence it follows that only the angels and men could cause disorder, or, what is the same, the evil par excellence. The angels and men could not disturb the order of the universe, except by rebelling against their Maker; from which it follows that, to explain evil and disorder, it is necessary to suppose the existence of rebel angels and men. All disobedience and all rebellion against God being what is called sin, and all sin being a rebellion and a disobedience, it follows that disorder cannot be con¬ ceived in creation, nor evil in the w r orld, without suppos¬ ing the existence of sin. If sin is nothing but disobedience and rebellion, nor disobedience nor rebellion anything, nor disorder any- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 149 thing, but evil, it follows that evil, disorder, rebellion, disobedience, and sin, are things in which reason discovers an absolute identity ; as the good, the esta¬ blished order, submission, and obedience, are things in which reason discovers a perfect similarity. Whence we may conclude that submission to the divine will is the supreme good, and sin the evil par excellence. When all the angelic creatures were obedient to the voice of their Maker, gazing on His countenance, bathing in His splendours, and moving without a stumble, and with concerted harmony, at the direction of His word, it happened that the most beautiful of the angels lifted his eyes from his God to fix them on himself, burying himself in his self-adoration, and ravished in presence of his beauty. Considering himself self-subsistent, and his own ultimate end, he broke that universal and inviolable law by which what is divine, has its end and beginning in what is one, which, comprehending all, and being comprehended by nothing, is the universal container of all things, and also the powerful Creator of all creatures. That rebellion of the angel was the first disorder, the first evil, and the first sin, the root of all the sins, of all the evils, and of all the disorders which were to befall creation, and particularly the human race, in succeeding times. For, when the fallen angel, now without beauty and without light, saw the man and the woman in paradise, sparkling and beautiful with the splendours of grace, feeling in himself deep sadness at another’s good, he ESS A YS ON CA FHOLICISM,, 150 formed the design of dragging them into his con¬ demnation, now that it was not in his power to become equal with them in their glory ; and taking the form of a serpent, which in future should be the symbol of craft and deceit, the horror of human nature, and the object of the divine wrath, he entered by the gates of the ter¬ restrial paradise, and stealing through the fresh and fragrant herbs, surrounded the woman with those crafty snares into which her innocence fell with the loss of her happiness. Nothing can surpass the sublime simplicity with which the Mosaic history of this sublime tragedy is given, whose theatre was the terrestrial paradise, whose witness was God, whose actors were, on the one part, the king and lord of the abysses, on the other, the rulers and lords of the earth—whose victim was to be the human race, and whose sad and lamentable catastrophe was to be bewailed with perpetual lamentations by the earth in its movements, the heavens in their courses, the angels on their thrones, and the unfortunate descendants of those unfortunate parents, in these valleys of ours without light. Why did God prohibit you from eating the fruit of all the trees of paradise ?—In this way the serpent com¬ menced his discourse, and the woman immediately felt that vain curiosity, the first cause of her crime, awaken in her heart. From this moment, her under¬ standing and her will, overcome by I know not what soft weakness, began to separate from the will of God, and from the divine understanding. The day you eat of that fruit your eyes will be opened, LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. I5i and you shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.— Under the mischievous influence of these words, the woman felt in her heart the first giddiness of pride. Fixing her eyes on herself with complacence, the face of God was veiled from her on that moment. Proud and vain, she turned her eyes to the tree of infernal illusions and of divine threats, and she found it was beautiful to the sight, and judged it would be sweet to the palate, and felt her senses burn with the hitherto unknown fire of corrosive delights ; and the curiosity of the eyes, and the delight of the flesh, and the pride of the spirit, joined together, destroyed the innocence of the first woman, and soon the innocence of the first man, and the hopes treasured for their offspring vanished like smoke before the wind. And immediately the whole universe, great as it is, was disturbed; and the disorder, commenced in the highest link of the chain of created beings, was com¬ municated from one to the other, until nothing was left in the place in which it was put by its divine Maker. That tendency inherent in all creatures to rise and ascend to the throne of God, was changed to a tendency to sink to I know not what nameless abyss ; for to remove the eyes from God, is to seek death and bid adieu to life. No matter how deep a man may dig in the unfathom¬ able abyss of wisdom, no matter how high he may rise in the investigation of the most hidden mysteries, he will never rise high enough, he will never dig deep enough, to be able to comprehend the great ravages of 152 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, that first crime, in which all subsequent ones are con¬ tained as in a fruitful seed. No ; man cannot, the sinner cannot, even conceive the greatness and the foulness of sin. To understand how great it is, and how terrible and pregnant with disasters, it were necessary to cease contemplating it from the human, and to consider it from the divine, point of view ; for, the Divinity being the good, and sin the evil par excellence; the Divinity being order, and sin disorder; the Divinity being complete affirmation, and sin absolute negation ; the Divinity being the plenitude of existence, and sin its absolute destruction, between the Divinity and sin, as between affirmation and negation, between order and disorder, between good and evil, and between being and nonentity, there is an immeasurable distance, an invincible contradiction, an infinite repugnance. No catastrophe is capable of creating disturbance in the Divinity, and altering the ineffable rest of God’s countenance. The universal deluge swept over nations, and God beheld the tremendous inundation, considered in itself, and separated from its cause, with serene eye, because it was His angels who, in obedience to His com¬ mand, had opened the cataracts of heaven, and because it was His voice that commanded the waters to cover the mountains and surround the globe. The storms gather from every point of the horizon, and congregate like a sable promontory, and the countenance of God is tranquil, because it is His will that makes the storms, it is His voice that calls them, and they come, that com¬ mands them to congregate, and they do congregate. It LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 153 is He who sends the winds to carry them over some sinful city, and it is He who, if it so suit His designs, collects and binds up the waters, and detains the light¬ ning in the clouds, and with His delicate breath dissi¬ pates these clouds through the universe. His eyes have seen the rise and fall of all empires ; His ears have heard the supplications of nations, devastated by the sword of conquest, by the scourge of pestilence, by slavery, and by famine, and His countenance has remained serene and impassible, because it is He who makes and unmakes, like vain play-toys, the empires of the world ; it is He who places the sword in the right hand of the conqueror, and it is He who oppresses the nations, decimated by famine and pestilence, when it so pleases His sovereign justice. There is a fearful place, the object of all horror and of all dread, where there is insatiable thirst without alleviation, perpetual hunger without satisfaction, where the eyes never see, the ears never hear any soothing sound, where all is agitation without repose, weeping without intermission, grief with¬ out consolation. There is no door of escape there ; all are doors of entrance. On its threshold hope dies, and memory becomes immortal. The boundaries of that place God alone knows ; the duration of those torments is of an hour which never ends. Well, now, that cursed place, with its nameless torments, altered not the coun¬ tenance of God, for it was He himself placed it where it is with His omnipotent hand. God made hell for the reprobate, as He made the earth for men and heaven for the angels and saints. Hell proclaims His justice, as the i54 ESS A YS ON CA THOUCISM , earth His goodness and heaven His mercy. Wars, in¬ undations, plagues, conquests, famines, hell itself, are a good, as all these things are suitably arranged with rela¬ tion to the ultimate end of creation, and all serve as principal instruments of the divine justice. And because all are good, and because they have been made by the Author of all good, none of them can, or does, alter the ineffable quiet and the unutterable repose of the Maker of all things. Nothing causes Him horror but what He has not made; and as He has made all that exists, nothing causes Him horror but the nega¬ tion of what He has made. Hence disorder, which is the negation of the order He placed in things, causes Him horror; and disobedience, which is the negation of the obedience due to Him. That disobedience and that disorder are the supreme evil, as they are the negation of the supreme good, in which consists the supreme evil. But disobedience and disorder are nothing but sin ; whence it follows that sin, the absolute negation on the part of man of the absolute affirmation on the part of God, is the evil par excellence , and the only thing that can cause horror to God and His angels. Sin covered heaven with mourning, hell with flames, and the earth with weeds. It was it brought sickness and pestilence, famine and death on the world. It was it dug the grave of the most famous and populous cities. It was it presided at the destruction of Babylon of the magnificent gardens, of Nineveh the exalted, of Persopolis, daughter of the Sun, of Memphis of the deep mysteries, of Sodom the impure, of Athens the comic, of Jerusalem LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 155 the ungrateful, of Rome the great; because though God willed all these things, He willed them only as a chas¬ tisement and reparation of sin. Sin squeezes out all the groans that come from human breasts, and all the tears that fall, drop by drop, from all the eyes of men ; and what is even more, and what no understanding can conceive nor words express, it drew tears from the sacred eyes of the Son of God, the meek Lamb who mounted the cross, charged with the sins of the world. Neither the heavens nor the earth, nor men, saw Him * laugh, and men, and the earth and the heavens saw Him weep ; and He wept because He had His eyes fixed on sin. He wept at the sepulchre of Lazarus, and in the death of His friend He only bewailed the death of the sinful soul. He felt sadness and was disturbed on entering the Garden, and it was the horror of sin that infused into Him that unusual disturbance, and that web of sadness. His brow sweated blood, and it was the spectre of sin that made that strange sweat flow from His brow. He was nailed to the cross, and it was sin nailed Him ; it was sin drove Him into agony, and it was sin caused His death. 156 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , CHAPTER VII. Hozv God draws good from the angelic and the human prevarication. Of all the mysteries, the most terrible is that of liberty, which constitutes man the master of himself, as well as associates him with the Divinity, in the ruling and in the government of all things human. As the imperfect liberty given to the creature, consists in the supreme faculty of selecting between obedience and rebellion towards his God, to give him this liberty is to confer on him the right of staining the immaculate beauty of the creations of God ; and as the order and the harmony of the universe consist in that immaculate beauty, to give him the faculty of staining it, is to confer on him the right of substituting disorder for order, perturbation for harmony, evil for good. This right, even confined within the limits which we mentioned, is so extraordinary, and this faculty so awful, that God himself could not have given it, if He had not been certain of converting it into an instrument for the accomplishment of His ends, and of curtailing its ravages, with His infinite power. The supreme reason of existence of the faculty, con¬ ceded to the creature, of converting order into disorder, harmony into perturbation, good into evil, is in the power which God has of converting disorder into order, perturbation into harmony, and evil into good. Sup- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 157 press this supreme power in God, and it will be logically necessary either to suppress that faculty in the creature, or to deny at once the divine intelligence and the divine omnipotence. If God permits sin, which is the evil and the disorder par excellence, this consists in the fact that sin, far from impeding His mercy and His justice, serves as an occasion for new manifestations of His justice and of His mercy. Suppress the rebellious sinner, and you will not thereby suppress the divine mercy, and the sovereign justice ; one of their special manifestations, however, would be suppressed, the one in virtue of w^hich they are applied to rebellious sinners. As the supreme good of intelligent and free beings consists in their union with God, God, in His infinite goodness, determined to so unite them, not only with the bonds of nature, but also with supernatural bonds : and as, on one part, that will might be left unfulfilled by the voluntary disunion of intelligent and free beings, and on the other, the liberty of the creature could not be conceived without the faculty of that voluntary disunion, the great problem consisted in reconciling these two, in a certain measure, opposite extremes, in such a way, that neither the liberty of the creature should cease to exist, nor the will of God be unfulfilled. As the possibility of disunion, as a testimony of the angelic and human liberty, and union, as a testimony of the divine will, were necessary, the question consists in discovering how the will of God and the liberty of the creature, the union which the former desires, and the disunion which i 5 8 ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM , the latter selects, can be reconciled, that the creature may not cease to be free, nor God cease to be Sovereign. For this, it was required that the disunion should be real in one point of view, and apparent in another; that is, that the creature could separate from God, but in such a way, that in separating from Him, it should be united to Him in another manner. Intelligent and free beings came into existence united to God by an effect of His grace. By sin they were really disunited from God, because they broke the bond of grace, really and truly, by which they bore testimony to themselves, in quality of intelligent and free creatures. Yet that disunion was nothing, if well examined, but a new manner of union, as on separating from Him, by the voluntary renunciation of His grace, they approached Him, by falling into the hands of His justice, or becoming the object of His mercy. In this way the union and disunion, which, at first sight, appear incompatible, are in reality perfectly recon¬ cilable ; and in such a way, that the disunion becomes a special manner of union, and all union is a special manner of disunion. The creature was not united to God inasmuch as He is grace, but because it was separated from Him inasmuch as He is mercy and justice. The creature which falls into His hands inas¬ much as He is justice, does not fall into them except because it is separated from Him inasmuch as He is grace and mercy ; and it is the object of God inasmuch as He is mercy, only because it was separated from Him inasmuch as He is grace, in such a way, that it was also separated from Him inasmuch as He is justice. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 159 The liberty of the creature, then, consists in the faculty of designating the sort of union which it prefers, by the disunion which it chooses ; just as the sovereignty of God consists in making the disunion selected by the creature, no matter what it may be, conclude in union. Creation is like a circle. God is, in one point of view, its circumference, in another, its centre ; as centre, He attracts creation, as circumference, He contains it. There is nothing beyond that universal container : every¬ thing obeys that irresistible attraction. The liberty of intelligent and free beings lies in flying from the circum¬ ference, which is God, to meet with God, who is the centre; and in flying from the centre, which is God, to meet with God, who is the circumference. No one, however, is able to escape beyond the circumference, nor to penetrate beyond the centre. What angel so powerful, what man so presumptuous, as to endeavour to break that great circle which God traced with His finger ? What creature will dare to upset those mathe¬ matically inflexible laws, which the Divine Intellect placed in things from all eternity ? What means the centre of that inexorable circle, but all things infinitely collected in God ? What is that circular circumference, but those things infinitely dilated in God ? And what dilation is there greater than infinite dilation ? What collection greater than infinite collection ? For this reason St Augustin, the most beautiful of geniuses and the greatest of doctors, the man in whom the spirit of the Church became incarnate, the saint ravished with love, and inundated with the sublime aids of grace, 160 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, astonished and almost beside himself on beholding all things in God and God in all things, and man desiring to fly, and not knowing whither, now from the centre which attracts him, now from the circumference which involves him, wrung this expression, like a sublime sob, from his heart —Poor mortal , do you wish to fly from Godf Cast yourself into His arms. Never did human lips pronounce an expression so amorously sublime, and so sublimely tender. It is God, then, who marks the term of all things; the creature selects the path. By marking the term where all paths end, God is omni¬ potently Sovereign ; as by selecting the path by which he has to go to the term marked for him, the creature is intelligently free. And let it not be said, that the liberty which consists in selecting one of the thousand paths, which end in the necessary term, is small, unless we consider that liberty which consists in selecting between salvation and damnation as insignificantfor those thousand paths which end in God, the necessary term of all things, are all reduced to two—hell and heaven. If the creature has not sufficient liberty, with the faculty which has been given him, of going to God by the one or by the other, what liberty could satisfy his hunger to be free ? Beyond this explanation there is no possible recon¬ ciliation between things which cannot be even imagined, except as reconciled in an absolute manner; whilst with it we discover the secret causes of the most pro¬ found mysteries, and of the loftiest designs. With it we reach the cause of the human and of the angelic LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 161 varication of the angel, it was because God knew the occult way of reconciling the angelic disorder with the divine order, just as the angel knew how to draw the angelic disorder from the divine order. The angel con¬ verted order into disorder, by transforming union into disunion. God drew order from disorder, by transform¬ ing the momentary disunion into indissoluble union. The angel did not choose to be united to God by reward, and he found himself united to Him eternally by pun¬ ishment. He closed his ears to the soft call of God’s grace, and his closed ears heard, in spite of them, the terrible thunder of His justice. Wishing to fly abso¬ lutely from God, the angel only succeeded in separating from Him in one way, to be united to Him in another. He separated from God the clement, and he was united with God the just. He separated from Him in heaven, and he was united to Him in hell. The order placed in things does not consist in their being united to God in a given way, but in their being united to God; as true disorder does not consist in separating from God on one side to be united to Him on the other, but in separating from God absolutely. Whence it follows that true order never ceases to exist, and that true disorder exists not at all. Sin is a negation, so radical, so absolute, that it not only denies order, but disorder; after denying all affirmations, it denies its own negations, and even denies itself. Sin is negation of negation, shade of shade, phantom of phantom. If God permitted the prevarica¬ tion of man, which, as we said, was less radical and culpable than the angelic prevarication, this was because L 162 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, God knew from all eternity the profound manner of reconciling the human disorder with the divine order. Man converted order into disorder by separating what God joined with a loving link. God drew order from disorder by rejoining what man separated, with a softer and more loving link. Man did not wish to be united to God with the bond of original justice and of sanctify¬ ing grace, and he found himself united to Him with the bond of infinite mercy. If God permitted his prevarica¬ tion, this was because He had in reserve the Saviour of the world, who was to come in the plenitude of time ;— that supreme evil was necessary for the supreme good, and for this great blessing, was necessary that great catastrophe. Man sinned, because God had determined to become man; and when He became man without ceasing to be God, He had enough blood in His veins, and more than sufficient virtue in His blood, to wash out sin. Man vacillated, because God had strength to sustain him ; he fell, because God had strength to raise him ; he wept, because He who had power to dry the earth when soaked with the waters of the Deluge, had also enough to dry the valley watered with our tears ; he felt pains in his members, because God could remove his pains ; he suffered great misfortunes, because God had greater rewards reserved for him. He strayed from Eden, he became subject to death, and he was laid in the grave, because God had strength to conquer death, to remove him from the grave, and to raise him to heaven. As the angelic and the human prevarications enter as LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 163 elements into the universal order, by an effect of a wonderful divine operation, so also the liberty of the angel and the liberty of man, in which these two pre¬ varications have their origin, enter as necessary elements of that supreme universal law, to which all things, all creations, the moral, the material, and the divine world, are subject. According to that law, the absolute unity, in its infinite fecundity, perpetually produces from its womb diversity, which perpetually returns to the pro¬ lific womb from which it came—the bosom of God, who is the absolute unity. God, considered as the Father, eternally produced the Son by way of generation, the Holy Ghost by way of procession, and in this way they eternally constitute the Divinity. The Son and the Holy Ghost are eternally identified with the Father, and eternally constitute with Him the indestructible unity. Considered as the Creator, He drew all things from nothingness by an act of His will, and so constituted the physical diversity ; He immediately subjected all things to certain eternal laws, and to an immutable order; and so diversity itself was nothing in the physical world but the exterior manifestation of His absolute unity. Considered as Lord and as Legislator, He gave to the angel and to man a liberty distinct from His own, and so constituted diversity in the moral world ; He im¬ mediately imposed on that liberty certain inviolable laws and a necessary term, and the necessity of that term, and the inviolability of those laws, made the 164 ESS A YS ON CA THOL/CTSM, human and the angelic liberty enter into the broad unity of His marvellous designs. The divine will, which is the absolute unity, is in the precept given to Adam in paradise when God said to him, Thou shalt not eat; the human liberty, with the annexed imperfection of the faculty of choosing, which is the diversity, is in the condition —and if thou eatest; the diversity returns to the unity from which it proceeds, first, by the threat when God said to man —thou wilt be subject to death ; and again, by the promise when He told the woman that there would be born from her One who should crush the head of the serpent, with which threat, and with which promise, God announced the two ways by which the diversity which comes from unity, returns to the unity from which it comes ; the way of justice and the way of mercy. If the precept were suppressed, the exterior manifesta¬ tion of the absolute unity would be suppressed. If the condition were suppressed, the diversity which consists in human liberty, would be suppressed in its exterior manifestation. If the threat on one side, and the promise on the other, were suppressed, the ways by which the diversity, if it is not to be subversive, has to return to the unity from which it comes, would be effaced. As there is no unity between the physical creation and the Creator, except because the former is eternally subject to fixed and immutable laws, perpetual mani¬ festations of the Sovereign Will; in the same way, there is no unitv between God and mam except because man, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 165 separated from God by his crime, returns to the God of justice if impenitent, or as purified to the God of mercy. If, after having considered the angelic and the human prevarications separately, and found that each, though a perturbation by accident, is a harmony by essence, we fix our attention on both prevarications at the same time, we will be astonished to see how their dissonance is converted into wonderful harmony, by the irresistible virtue of the divine Wonder-worker. On arriving here, and before proceeding farther, it is well to observe that every beauty of creation consists in the fact, that everything is in itself a reflex, as it were, of some of the divine perfections, so that all together are a faithful translation of God’s sovereign beauty. For this reason all creatures, each in its own way, from the brilliant globe which illumines space to the humble lily which is forgotten in the valley, and from far below the valleys crowned with lilies, to as far above 'the firma¬ ment where the orbs of heaven shine, bear witness, each in its own way, to His ineffable perfections, and sing with an endless song His excellence and His glory. The heavens sing of His omnipotence, the seas of His great¬ ness, the earth of His fecundity, the clouds, with their lofty promontories, represent the footstool on which His foot rests. The lightning is His will, the thunder His voice. He is in the abysses with His silence, with His sublime wrath in the loud hurricanes, and in the tem¬ pestuous whirlwinds. He painted us , say the flowers of the plains. He gave me , say the heavens, my sple7idid arches. And the stars, We are the sparks that drop 166 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM, /h?7/z his resplendent robe. And the angel and man On passing before us, His beautiful, and glorious, and per¬ fect figure was stamped on us. In this way some things represented His grandeur, others His majesty, others His omnipotence; and the angel, and man especially, the treasures of His goodness, the marvels of His grace, and the splendour of His beauty. God, however, is not only marvellous and per¬ fect by His beauty, and by His grace, and by His good¬ ness, and by His omnipotence; He is, besides these things and above all these things, if there were measure in His perfections, infinitely just and infinitely merciful. It follows from this that the supreme act of the creation could not be considered consummate and perfect, except after His infinite justice and His infinite mercy were realised in all their manifestations. And as neither the special justice nor the special mercy of God which are \ applied to sinners, could be exercised without the pre¬ varication of the intelligent and free beings, we may conclude that the prevarication itself was the occasion of the greatest and the most beautiful of all harmonies. When all the intelligent and free beings prevaricated, God shone forth in the midst of creation with renewed and increased splendour. The universe in general was the perfect reflex of His omnipotence ; the terrestrial paradise was specially the reflex of His grace; heaven was specially the reflex of His mercy, hell the reflex of His justice only, and the earth, placed between these two poles of creation, was at once the reflex of His justice and of His mercy. When with the angelic and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 167 human prevarication there was no perfection in God that was not manifested exteriorly, by something besides that which was afterwards to be manifested on Calvary, all things were in order. The deeper one dives into these awful dogmas, the more the sovereign convenience, and the perfect connection, and the marvellous concert of the Christian mysteries become apparent. The science of the mysteries, if well considered, is nothing else but the science of all solutions. CHAPTER VIII. Solutions of the Liberal school relative to these problems. BEFORE bringing this book to a conclusion, I think it right to ask the Liberal, as well as the Socialistic school, what they think about evil and good, about man and God—fearful questions, on which human reason neces¬ sarily stumbles, on rendering itself account of the great religious, political, and social problems.* As regards the Liberal school, I will merely say of it, that in its profound ignorance it despises theology, and not because it is not theological in its way, but because, though it is, it does not know it. This school has not yet comprehended, and probably will never comprehend, the close link that unites divine and human things, the great relationship which political, have with social and religious, questions, and the dependence which all pro- * The author refers to Continental Liberalism, which, in politics, logically leads to Socialism, as Protestantism in religion does to Infidelity. The last four of the condemned propositions of the Syllabus belong to the doc¬ trines of this school. 168 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , blems relative to government, have on those others which refer to God, the Supreme Legislator of all human associations. The Liberal school is the only one which has no theologian among its doctors and masters; the Abso¬ lutist school had them, often raised them to the dignity of governors of peoples, and the peoples increased dur¬ ing their government in importance and power. France will never forget the government of Cardinal Richelieu, famous and glorious among the most glorious and fam¬ ous of the French monarchy. The lustre of the great cardinal is so unstained, that it puts that of many kings to the blush; and his splendour so sovereign, that it did not suffer eclipse by the advent to the throne of that glorious and powerful king, whom France in her enthu¬ siasm, and Europe in her astonishment, called the Great. Ximinez de Cisneros and Alberoni, the two greatest ministers of the Spanish monarchy, were cardinals and theologians. The name of the former is gloriously and perpetually associated with that of the most renowned queen and illustrious woman of Spain, famous among nations for its illustrious women and its renowned queens. The latter is great in Europe by the grandeur of his designs, and by the acuteness and sagacity of his pro¬ digious intellect. The former, appearing in those happy days when the great acts of this nation raised her above the dignity of history, elevating her to epic altitude and grandeur, governed the great ship of state with a firm hand, and silencing the turbulent crew which went in her, carried her through rough seas to others more quiet LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 169 and tranquil, where the ship and the pilot found peace and calm. The other, coming in those miserable times when the majesty of the Spanish monarchy was dis¬ appearing, was on the point of restoring her ancient grandeurs and power, by making her weigh heavily in the political balance of European peoples. The science of God gives him who possesses it, sagacity and force, because it sharpens, and at the same time expands, the intellect. What appears to me most wonderful in the lives of the saints, and particularly of the fathers of the desert, is a circumstance which has not been yet duly appreciated. I know no man accus¬ tomed to converse with God, and to exercise himself in divine speculations, who, in equality of circumstances, is not superior to all others, either by the enlightenment and vigour of his reason, or by the soundness of his judg¬ ment, or by the penetration and acuteness of his intellect; and above all, I know none who, in equal circumstances, has not the advantage of all others in practical and prudent common sense. If the human race were not condemned to see things reversely, it would select for its counsellors theologians amongst the generality of men, and the mystics among theologians, and amongst the mystics, those who have lived a life most apart from business and the world. Amongst the persons whom I know, and I know many, the only ones in whom I have recognised an unshaken common sense, and a prodigious ' sagacity, and an amazing aptitude to give a practical and prudent solution to the most difficult problems, and to discover a means of escape in the most trying circum- 170 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM. stances, are those who have lived a contemplative and retired life; and, on the contrary, I have not yet dis¬ covered, and I do not expect ever to discover, one of those who are called men of business, despisers of all spiritual, and, above all, divine speculations, who would be capable of understanding any business. To this numerous class belong those who look on it as their office to d.eceive others, and who only deceive themselves. It is here that man is astonished at the sublime judg¬ ments of God ; for if God had not condemned those who despise or ignore Him, deceivers by profession, to be perpetually stupid—or if He had not limited the power of those who are prodigiously sagacious, human societies could not have resisted either the sagacity of the one or the malice of the other. The power of contemplative men, and the stupidity of worldlings, are the only things which maintain the world in its being and its perfect equilibrium. There is only one being in creation which possesses all the sagacity of spiritual and contemplative people, and all the malice of those who ignore or despise God, together with all spiritual speculations. That being is the devil. The devil has the sagacity of the one, without their virtue, and the malice of the others, without their stupidity, and precisely from this comes all his destructive force, and all his immense power. As regards the Liberal school, considered in general, it is not theological, except in the degree in which all schools necessarily are. Never giving an explicit exposition of its faith, nor declaring its opinion about God and man, about good and evil, and about the order or disorder LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 171 which are found in all things created ; and proclaiming, on the contrary, that it regards these profound specula¬ tions as trifles, it may be said of it, that it believes in an abstract and absolute god, served by the philosophers in the government of human things, and by certain laws which he instituted in the beginning of time in the universal government of the world. Although the god of this school is king of creation, he is perpetually igno¬ rant, with an august ignorance, of the manner in which his kingdoms are governed and ruled. When he deputed the ministers who should govern in his name, he deposited in them the plenitude of his sovereignty, and declared them perpetual and inviolable. From that time to this people owe him worship, but not obedience. With regard to evil, the Liberal school denies it in physical, and admits it in human, things. With this school all the questions relative to good or evil are resolved into a question of government, and every question of government is a question of legitimacy ; so that when the government is legitimate, evil is impos¬ sible ; and on the contrary, when the government is illegitimate, evil is inevitable. The question of good and evil, then, is reduced to investigating on one side which are the legitimate governments, and which the usurpers. The Liberal school calls the governments established by God legitimate, and illegitimate those which have not their origin in the divine delegation. God wished that material things should be subject to certain physi¬ cal laws, which He instituted in the beginning, once for 172 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ever, and that societies should be governed by reason, entrusted in a general way to the well-to-do classes, and in a special way to the philosophers who teach and direct it; whence it follows by necessary consequence, that there are but two legitimate governments—the government of human reason, incarnate in a general way in the middle classes, and in a special way in the philosophers ; and the government of divine reason, per¬ petually incarnate in certain laws, to which material things are subject from the beginning. This derivation of the Liberal legitimacy of divine right will appear strange to my readers, and above all, t to my Liberal readers ; and yet nothing appears more evident to me. The Liberal school is not atheistical in its dogmas, although, not being Catholic, it leads, with¬ out knowing and without desiring it, from consequence to consequence, to the confines of Atheism. Recognis¬ ing the existence of a God, the Creator of all creatures, it cannot deny in the God whom it recognises and affirms, the original plenitude of all rights, or the constituent sovereignty, which is the same thing in the language of the school. He who recognises in God the constituent and the actual sovereignty, is a Catholic; he who denies the actual, and recognises in Him the constituent, sovereignty, a deist ; he who denies all sovereignty in Him, because he denies His existence, is an atheist. This being the case, the liberal school, inasmuch as it is deistical, cannot proclaim the actual sovereignty of reason, without proclaiming at the same time the con¬ stituted sovereignty of God, in which the former, which LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 177 is always delegated, has its beginning and origin. The theory of the constituent sovereignty of the people does not exist in the Liberal school, except as Atheism exists in Deism, in quality of remote but inevitable consequence. Hence proceed the two great divisions of the Liberal school, the democratic and the liberal, pro¬ perly so called; the latter more timid, the former more consistent. The democratic party, carried by an inflexi¬ ble logic, has been lost in these latter times, as rivers are lost in the sea, in the schools at once atheistical and socialistic ; the liberal party struggles to be at rest on the high promontory it has raised for itself, situate be¬ tween two seas, whose waves are ascending, and will cover its top—the Socialistic and the Catholic. Of this party only we shall speak here, and we say that, not being able to recognise the constituent sovereignty of the people without being democratic, socialistic, and atheistical, nor the actual sovereignty of God without being monarchical and Catholic, it recognises, on one hand, the original and constituent sovereignty of God, and on the other, the actual sovereignty of human reason. And so we were right in saying the Liberal school does not proclaim human, but as originally derived from divine, right. In the eyes of this school there is no other evil but that which proceeds from the government’s not being where' God placed it in the beginning; and as material things are perpetually subject to the physical laws which were contemporaneous with creation, the Liberal school denies evil in the universality of things ; and on the contrary, 174 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , \ as it happens that the government of society is not settled and fixed in the philosophic dynasties, in which the exclusive right of governing human things resides by divine delegation, the Liberal school admits social evil whenever the government slips from the hands of the philosophers and middle classes, to fall into the hands of kings, or to pass to the popular masses. Of all the schools this is the most sterile, because the least learned and the most egotistical. As we have seen, it knows nothing of the nature of good or evil ; it has scarcely any notion of God, and it has no notion of man whatever. Impotent for good, because devoid of all dogmatic affirmation, and for evil, because all intrepid and absolute negation horrifies it, it is condemned, without knowing it, to embark in the ship whose fortune carries it to the Catholic port, or to the Socialistic reefs. This school only becomes dominant where society is on the wane ; the period of its domination is that transitory and fugitive time when the world does not know whether to go with Barrabas or with Jesus, and is in a state of suspense between a dogmatic affirmation and a supreme negation. Society then willingly allows itself to be governed by a school which never says, I affirm , or, I deny, and which ever says, I distinguish. The supreme interest of that school is in preventing the arrival of the day of radical negations or of sovereign affirmations; and that it may not arrive, it confounds by means of discussion all notions, and propagates scepticism, knowing as it does, that a people which perpetually hears in the mouth of its sophists the pro LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 175 and the contra of everything, ends by not knowing which side to take, and by asking itself whether truth and error, injustice and justice, stupidity and honesty, are things opposed among themselves, or are only the same things regarded from different points of view. This trying period, no matter how long it may last, is always short ; man was born to act, and perpetual dis¬ cussion, being as it is, the enemy of action, contradicts human nature. The peoples pressed by all their in¬ stincts, a day comes when they flow through the squares and the streets resolutely calling for Barrabas or Jesus, and levelling with the dust the chairs of the sophists. The Socialistic schools, prescinding from the barbarous multitudes which follow them, and considered in their doctors and masters, are far superior to the Liberal school, just because they go straight to all the great problems and questions, and because they always propose a per¬ emptory and decisive solution. Socialism is strong, only because it is a theology; and it is destructive, only because it is a satanic theology. The Socialistic schools, inasmuch as they are theological, will prevail over the Liberal school, inasmuch as it is anti-theological and sceptical; and inasmuch as they are satanic, they will succumb before the Catholic school, which is at once theological and divine. Their instincts must be in accord with our assertions, if we consider that they treasure up their hatred for Catholicism, while they have only contempt for Liberalism. Democratic Socialism is right when it says to Liberal¬ ism, What God is that you offer to my adoration, and 176 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , who must be inferior to you, for He has no will, nor even personality ? I deny the Catholic God ; but while deny¬ ing, I conceive Him. What I cannot conceive is a god without the divine attributes. Everything inclines me to believe that you have only given Him existence that He may give you the legitimacy which you want: your legitimacy and His existence are a fiction which rests on a shadow. I have come to the world to dissipate all shadows, and to put an end to all fictions. The distinc¬ tion between the actual and the constituent sovereignty has all the appearance of an invention of people, who, not daring to embrace both, desire to retain one at least. The sovereign is like God—he is one, or he does not exist. Sovereignty is like the Divinity—it either does not exist, or it is indivisible and incommunicable. Legiti¬ macy of reason are two words, the latter of which desig¬ nates the subject, and the former the attribute. I deny the attribute and the subject. What is legitimacy, and what is reason ? And in case they be something, how do you know that something is in Liberalism and not in Socialism, in you and not in me, in the middle classes and not in the people ? I deny your legitimacy, and you deny mine ; you deny my reason, and I deny yours. When you provoke me to discussion, I pardon you, because you know not what you do. Dissolvent, uni¬ versal discussion, whose secret virtue you know not, destroyed your adversaries already, and is now going to destroy yourself; as far as I am concerned, I am firmly resolved to carry it with a high hand, by murder¬ ing it that it may not murder me. Discussion is the 17 / LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. spiritual sword the spirit wields with eyes blindfold; against it neither caution nor armour avails. Discussion is the title under which Death travels when he seeks to avoid recognition and goes incognito. Rome, the pru¬ dent, recognised him, in spite of his mask, when he entered her gates dressed as a sophist; wherefore she wisely objected to his passport. Man, according to the Catholic, was lost only when he entered into discussion with the devil. Later, they tell us, this same demon appeared to Jesus in the desert, provoking him to a spiritual combat, or,- as we may call it, a discussion. But it would appear he had then somebody very different to treat with, who said to him— Begone, Satan , with which he put an end at once to discussion and dia¬ bolical tricks. It must be confessed the Catholics have the special gift of presenting great truths with a bold front, and investing them with ingenious trappings. Antiquity would have unanimously condemned who¬ ever were mad enough to call into discussion divine and human things, religious and social institutions, the magistrates and the gods. Socrates, Plato, and Aris¬ totle would have joined in deciding against him; in the great duel he would have the Cynics and the Sophists on his side. As regards the evil, it is either in the universe or it does not exist. The forms of governments are a small thing to engender it. If society is healthy and well- constituted, it will be able to resist all possible forms of government; and if it does not resist them, it is because it is badly constituted and sickly. Evil cannot be con* M i 7 8 ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM ,, ceived except as an organic vice of society, or as a con¬ stitutional vice of human nature; and in this case the remedy is not in a change of government, but in chang¬ ing the social organisation or the constitution of man. The fundamental error of Liberalism consists in giving importance to nothing but questions of government, which, compared with social and religious order, have no importance whatever. This serves to explain why Liberalism is totally eclipsed from the moment that Socialists and Catholics propose to the world, their tre¬ mendous problems and their contradictory solutions. When Catholicism asserts that the evil comes from sin, that sin corrupted human nature in the first man, and that nevertheless the good prevails over the evil, order over disorder, because the one is human, the other divine, there is no doubt, even before it is examined ; it satisfies reason in a certain manner, by proportioning the grandeur of the causes to the greatness of the effects, and by equalling the greatness of what it tries to explain, by the greatness of the explanations. When Socialism says the nature of man is sound and society unhealthy; when it places the former at open war with the latter, to extirpate the evil which is in zV, through the good which is in the other; when it convokes and calls on all men to rise up in rebellion against all social insti¬ tutions,—there is no doubt that in this way of proposing and solving the question, though there is much that is false, there is something gigantic and grand, worthy of the terrible majesty of the subject ; but when Liberalism explains the evil and the good, order and disorder, by L IB ERA LISM, AND SOCIALISM. 179 the various forms of government, all ephemeral and transitory; when, prescinding, on one side, from all social, and,- on the other, from all religious, problems, it brings into discussion its political problems as the only ones worthy by their elevation of occupying the statesman,—there are no words in any language capable of describing the profound incapacity and radical impotence of this school, not only to solve, but even to enunciate, these awful questions. The Liberal school, enemy at once of the darkness and of the light, has selected I know not what twilight between the luminous and dark regions, between the eternal shades and the divine aurora. Placed in this nameless region, it has aimed at governing without a people and without a God. Extravagant and impossible enterprise! Its days are numbered; for on one side of the horizon appears God, and on the other, the people. No one will be able to say where it is on the tremendous day of battle, when the plain shall be covered with the Catholic and Socialistic phalanxes. CHAPTER IX. Socialistic solutions. The Socialistic schools are superior to the Liberal school, as well on account of the nature of the problems which they aim at solving, as in the manner of proposing and i So ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, solving them. Their masters appear familiarised to a certain degree, with those daring speculations which have God and His nature, man and his constitution, society and its institutions, the universe and its laws, for their object. From this inclination to generalise, to consider things in the aggregate, to observe the general discrepancies and harmonies, comes the great aptitude they have to enter, and to find an exit from, without losing themselves, the intricate labyrinth of rationalistic logic. If in the great contest which, as it were, keeps the world in suspense, there were no other combatants but Socialists and Liberals, neither would the battle be long, nor the victory doubtful. All the Socialistic schools are, in the philosophic point of view, rationalistic ; in the political, republican ; in the religious, atheistical. As far as they are ration¬ alistic, they resemble the Liberal school, and they are distinguished from it inasmuch as they are atheistical and republican. The question lies in investigating whether rationalism logically leads to the point where the Liberal school stops, or to the term in which the Socialistic schools settle down. Reserving for a future occasion the examination of this question in the political, we shall here principally occupy ourselves with the religious, point of view. Considering the question under this aspect, it is clear that the system, in virtue of which a total sufficiency of solving by itself, and without the aid of God, all ques¬ tions relative to the political, the religious, the social, and the human, orders, is conceded to reason, supposes in it LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 181 a complete sovereignty and an absolute independence. This system carries with it three simultaneous nega¬ tions—the negation of revelation, the negation of grace, and the negation of providence. The negation of revela¬ tion, because revelation contradicts the total sufficiency of human reason ; the negation of grace, because grace contradicts its absolute independence ; the negation of providence, because providence is the contradiction of its independent sovereignty. But these three negations, if well examined, are resolved into one—the negation of all link between God and man ; for if man is not united to God by revelation, by providence, and by grace, he is not united to God at all. Well, now, to affirm this of God and to deny Him, are one and the same thing. To affirm Him dogmatically, after having dogmatically despoiled Him of all His attributes, is a contradiction reserved for the Liberal school, the most contradictory among the rationalistic schools. Besides, this contradiction, far from being accidental, is essential in this school, which, no matter how you view it, is an exotic compound of obvious contradictions. What it does with God in the religious, it does also in the political, order with the king and with the people. The office of the Liberal school is to proclaim the existences it annuls, and to annul the existences it proclaims. There is none of its principles which is not accompanied by a counter principle which destroys it. Thus, for example, it proclaims monarchy, and immediately ministerial responsibility, and conse¬ quently the omnipotence of the responsible ministry, 182 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , which is contradictory of monarchy. It proclaims minis¬ terial responsibility, and immediately the sovereign in¬ tervention in matters of government, of the deliberative assemblies, which is contradictory of the omnipotence of the ministers. It proclaims the sovereign interven¬ tion in the affairs of state, of the political assemblies, and immediately, the right of the electoral districts to decide on the last appeal, which is contradictory of the sovereign intervention of the assemblies. It proclaims the right of supreme arbitration, which resides in the electors, and immediately it accepts, more or less explicitly, the supreme right of insurrection, which is contradictory of that pacific and supreme arbitration. It proclaims the right of insurrection of the multitude, which is to proclaim its sovereign omnipotence, and immediately, it establishes the laws of electoral eligi¬ bility, which is to ostracise the sovereign multitude. And with all these principles and counter principles it aims at one thing—to discover, through artifice and industry, an equilibrium which it never discovers, because it contradicts the nature of society and the nature of man. There is only one power for which the Liberal school has not sought its corresponding equi¬ librium—the power of corruption. Corruption is the god of the school, and as a god, it is at one and the same time, in all places. In such a way has the Liberal school combined things, that when it prevails, all have necessarily to be corrupters or corrupted ; for where there is no man who cannot be Caesar, or vote for Caesar, or proclaim Caesar, all must be Caesars or LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 183 praetorians. For this reason all the societies which fall under the domination of this school die the same death—all die gangrened. The kings corrupt the ministers, by promising them eternity; the ministers the kings, by promising them an expansion of their v prerogative. The ministers corrupt the representatives of the people, by placing all the dignities of the state at their feet; the assemblies corrupt the ministers. The members traffic with their power, the electors with their influence; all corrupt the masses with their promises, and the masses corrupt all with their clamour and threats. Returning to the thread of this discourse, I say that when the Socialistic schools deny the existence of God, which the Liberal school asserts, they are more logical and consistent than it; and, nevertheless, they are far from being as logical and consistent in their line, as the Catholic school in its. The Catholic school affirms God with all His attributes, with a dogmatic and sovereign affirmation. The Socialistic schools, on the contrary, though they end in denying Him definitely, do not all deny Him in the same way, nor deny Him for the same reasons, nor deny Him resolutely. This consists in the fact that the most daring man is filled with dread in affirming in an absolute way, that there is no God. One would say that, arriving here, man fears he cannot pass for¬ ward, and that the heavens are falling on the blasphemer and his blasphemy. Some deny Him by saying : All that exists is God, and God is all that exists ; others, by affirming that humanity and God are identical; 184 ESS 4 YS ON CA TH 0 LI CIS M, between these there are others who assure us that in humanity there is a dualism of powers and energies, and that man is the representative of that dualism. Those who are of this opinion distinguish in man the reflective powers and the spontaneous energies : true humanity is in the former, and true divinity in the latter. Accord¬ ing to this system, God is neither all that exists, nor humanity—God is the half of man. Others are of another opinion, and deny that God is man, or part of man, humanity, or the universe; and they incline to believe that He is a being subject to different and suc¬ cessive incarnations; that wherever there is a great influence or a grand domination, there God is incarnate. God was incarnate in Cyrus, and in Alexander, and in Caesar, and in Charlemagne, and in Napoleon. He became successively incarnate in the great Asiatic empires, and then in the Macedonian, and afterwards in the Roman. In the beginning, He was the East, and . afterwards the West. The world changes its appearance in each of these divine incarnations, and moves a step in the path of progress. Each time it puts on a new appearance in consequence of a new incarnation. All these contradictory and absurd systems have become incarnate in one man, come to the world in these fatter times to be the personification of all rationalistic contradictions. This man is M. Proudhon, whom we have already mentioned, and whom we shall mention often in the course of this work. M. Proudhon passes for the most learned and consistent of modern Socialists. As far as his doctrine is concerned, there is no doubt it LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 185 is superior to that of contemporaneous rationalists; as regards his consistency, our readers may form a proper notion by the specimens we here give relative to the problems which are the subject of this book. In the “ Confessions of a Revolutionist,” M. Proudhon defines God in the following manner :—“ God is the universal power, penetrated with intelligence, which produces by the infinite consciousness which it has of itself, the beings of every kingdom, from the ineffable fluid to man, and which only in man attains to a recogni¬ tion of itself, and says :—Our Lord God, far from being the subject of our investigations, how have the wonder¬ workers dared to convert Him into a personal being, absolute king betimes, like the God of the Jews and of the Christians, and constitutional betimes, like the God of the deists, and whose incomprehensible providence appears perpetually and solely occupied in confusing our reason ? ” Here there are three things—1st, The affirmation of a universal, intelligent, and divine power, which is pan¬ theism ; 2d, More excellent incarnation of God in humanity, which is humanism; 3d, Negation of a per¬ sonal God and of His providence, which is deism. In the work which he called the “ System of Econo¬ mical Contradictions,” chap, viii., he says :—“ I will pre¬ scind from the pantheistical hypothesis, which has ever appeared to me hypocrisy or cowardice. God is per¬ sonal or He does not exist.” Here is asserted all that is denied in the former text, and denied all that the former text asserts. There a pantheistical and impersonal j86 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, God was affirmed ; here are denied, as two things equally absurd, the impersonality of God and pantheism. Further on in the same chapter he adds :—“ I think the true remedy against fanaticism is not in identifying humanity with the divinity, which is nothing else but to assert commission in political economy, and in philo¬ sophy, mysticism, and the statu quo. The true remedy is in demonstrating to humanity that God, if He exists, is its enemy.” After having upset his pantheism and his impersonal God, he here destroys humanism, which is contained in the definition of the text. On the other hand, the theory of the rivalry between God and man, of which we have already spoken in another chapter of this book, commences to invest itself with a concrete form. The condemnation of humanism, and the theory of rivalry, appear more clearly in the ninth chapter of the same work, where we find the following :—“ For my part —and I am sorry to have to confess it, certain as I am that this declaration will separate me from the most intelligent among the Socialists—the more I think on it, the more impossible it becomes for me to subscribe to this deification of our species, which, on consideration, is nothing else in the atheists of our days but the last echo of religious terror; and which, by rehabilitating and consecrating mysticism under the name of human¬ ism, again places the sciences under the rule of pre¬ occupations, morality under the rule of habit, social economy under the rule of communism, or, which is the same, of debility and misery ; and finally, logic itself LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 187 under the rule of the absurd and the absolute. And precisely because I find myself obliged to repudiate . . . . this religion, in union with all those which pre¬ ceded it, is why I am still obliged to admit as plausible the hypothesis of an infinite being, .... against which I should struggle even to death, like Israel against Jehovah, for that is my destiny.” Nothing remains of the definition of God, but the negation of providence, and even that negation dis¬ appears with this contradictory affirmation: — “And behold how we journey by chance, conducted by pro¬ vidence, which never warns us but where it wounds” (“ Systeme des Contradictions,” chap, iii.) From the above we see that M. Proudhon, embracing all the rationalistic contradictions, is now pantheist, again humanist, then manichean; that he believes in an impersonal god, and again declares as absurd and monstrous the idea of a god, if that god be not a person; and finally, that he affirms and denies provi¬ dence at the same time. In one of our former chapters, we saw how, in the manichean theory of rivalry between God and man, the Proudhonian god was representative of evil; now we shall see, according to Proudhon himself, how all this system comes to the ground. In the second chapter of the work already quoted, he explains himself in this way:—“ Nature, or the Divinity, has distrusted our hearts, and has not created in them love of man for his kind. All the discoveries of the sciences about the designs of Providence regarding social evolutions, to the shame of the human conscience 188 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , be it said, and to our happiness be it known, bear testi¬ mony to a profound misanthropy on the part of God. God gives us aid, not through goodness, but because order constitutes His essence. If He procures the good of the world, it is not because He judges it worthy of good, but because He is obliged to it by the religion of His supreme wisdom. And whilst the vulgar call Him by the tender name of Father, neither the historian nor the philosophical economist find motives for believing in the possibility of His esteeming us or loving us.” With these words the Proudhonian manicheism comes to the ground. Man is not the rival, but the despised slave of God; he is not the good nor the evil, he is a creature possessed of the gross and servile instincts which slavery engenders. God is I know not what union of severe, inflexible, and mathematical laws. He does good without being good ; and His misanthropy proves He would be wicked if He could. The Proud¬ honian god here displays an evident relationship with the Fatum of the ancients. Fatalism is discovered still more clearly in these words :—“ Being come to the second station of our Calvary, in place of resigning ourselves to sterile contemplations, what we should do, is to lend an increasingly attentive ear to the teaching of destiny. The surety of our liberty is precisely, in the progress of our punishment. “ On the heels of the fatalist comes the atheist. What is God? Where is He? Into how many gods is He multiplied ? What is His will ? How far does His power go ? What promises does He make us ? And LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 189 when we take the lamp of analysis in our hand to discover all these things, on the moment all the divinities of heaven, of earth, and of hell, are converted into a something incorporeal, impassible, immoveable, incom¬ prehensible, indefinable, and, to say it once for all, into a negation of all the attributes of existence. In fact, let man put a spirit or a special genius behind every object, or let him conceive the universe as governed by one only power, in either of these suppositions he does nothing more than affirm the hypothesis of an uncondi¬ tional, that is, an impossible, entity, to draw from it an explanation tolerably satisfactory, of the phenomena which he cannot conceive otherwise. Deep and pro¬ found mystery! To make the object of his idolatry more and more rational, the believer strips it succes¬ sively of all that could constitute its reality; and after prodigious efforts of logic and genius, we come to the fact that the attributes of the being par excellence are confounded and identified with those of nothingness. This evolution is fatal and inevitable. Atheism is at the bottom of all theodicy” (“ Systeme des Contradic¬ tions,” Prologue). Once arrived at this supreme conclusion, and at this cloudy abyss, it would appear the Furies enter into possession of the atheist. Blasphemies swell his heart, squeeze his throat, burn his lips, and when he endea¬ vours to raise them into a pyramid to the throne of God, placing one on top of another, he sees with astonish* ment that, borne down by their specific gravity, instead of rising with light wing, they fall heavy and dead into 190 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, the abyss which is their centre. His tongue can find no words that are not sarcastic or contemptuous, nor appellations that are not stupid or the offspring of anger, nor fits which are not frantic. His style is at once impetuous and muddy, eloquent without ornament, and cynically gross. Here he exclaims :—“What is the use of adoring that phantom of Divinity ? And what does He want of us by means of that gang of inspired people who persecute us everywhere with their sermons ? ” (“ Systeme des Contradictions, chap. Hi.”) And further on he allows these cynical expressions to drop from him :— “With regard to God, I know Him not. God is nothing but pure mysticism. If you desire me to listen to you, begin by suppressing that word in your discourses; for, from the experience of three thousand years, I have become convinced that every one that talks to me of God, wishes to rob me of my liberty or my purse. How much do you owe me? How much do I owe you ? Behold my religion and my God ” (chap, vi.) Having come to the paroxysm of rage, he breaks out in Chapter VIII. in the following words:—“This I say, the first duty of an intelligent and free man is to tear immediately the idea of God from his mind and con¬ science ; for God, if He exists, is essentially hostile to our nature, and we depend on Him for nothing. . . . With what right could God yet say to me, Be holy as I am holy? Deceptive spirit! I would answer Him, imbecile God ! your kingdom is now at an end: seek for other victims among the brute creation. I know I am not, and cannot ever be, holy; and as for you, how LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 191 can you be so, if you and I resemble each other ? Eter¬ nal Father, Jupiter, or Jehovah, as you may desire to be called, learn from me that now we know you. You are, you were, and you will be, perpetually the rival of Adam, the tyrant of Prometheus” (chap, viii.) And further on in the same chapter, apostrophising the Divinity which he denies, he says :—“You triumph, and no one dared to contradict you, when, after tormenting Job, the just figure of our humanity, in body and soul, you insulted his candid piety and his discreet and respectful ignor¬ ance. We were all as it were nothing in presence of your invisible majesty, to which we gave the heavens as a seat, and the earth as a footstool. Times are now changed : behold you are beaten and dethroned. Your name, in other times the compendium and sum of all wisdom, the only sanction of the judge, the only power of the prince, the hope of the poor, the refuge of the re¬ pentant sinner; that incommunicable name, handed over to execration and contempt, will be henceforth despised by the nations. God is nothing else but stupidity and fear, hypocrisy and deceit, tyranny and misery. God is the evil. As long as humanity bends before an altar, the slave of kings and of priests, it will be reprobated ; as long as one single man receives in God’s name, an oath from another man, society will be founded on perjury, and peace and love will be exiled from the earth. Retire, Jehovah; for henceforth, cured of the fear of God, and having attained true wisdom, I am ready to swear with my hand raised towards heaven, that you are only the murderer of my reason and the spectre of my conscience.” ESS A Kb ON CATHOLICISM , 192 It is himself has said it—God is the spectre of his s ' conscience. No one can deny God without condemning himself; no one can fly from God without flying from himself. That wretch, without leaving earth, is already in hell. Those muscular, violent, and impotent contrac¬ tions, this cynical phrenzy, that mad rage, that violent and tempestuous wrath, are already the contractions, the phrenzy, the rage, and the wrath of the reprobate. Without charity and without faith, he has lost the last blessing of man-hope ! And yet, occasionally, when speaking of Catholicism, he feels, without knowing it, its serene and sanctifying influence. Then his martyrdom ceases, as it were by enchantment; a gentle and refresh¬ ing breeze from heaven reaches his brow, dries up the sweat and suspends the fit of epileptic convulsions. Then he softly lets fall these words :—“ Ah ! how much more prudent has Catholicism proved itself, and how superior it is to all, sansimonians, republicans, univer- sitarians, economists, in the knowledge of society and of man! The priest knows that our life is only a pere¬ grination, and that all complete perfection is denied us in this world ; and because he knows this, he is content with commencing on earth an education, which can only be completed in heaven. The man who has grown up under the auspices of religion, satisfied with knowing, doing, and obtaining, what is sufficient for the temporal life, will never be an obstacle to the powers of earth; he would sooner prefer martyrdom. Oh, beloved religion! By what inconceivable error of reason does it happen that those who have most need of LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 193 you, are precisely the very persons who know you least ? ” I spoke before en passant of M. Proudhon’s char¬ acter for consistency; now I think it right, and even necessary, to say something more on a subject which is much more transcendent than would appear at first sight. With regard to the. character, it is a public, notorious, and consequently evident, fact, and yet that fact is totally inexplicable if we consider that M. Proudhon has adopted, one after another, all the sys¬ tems relative to the Divinity, and that there is no one among the Socialists so full of contradictions : whence it results, that his character for consistency is a fact con¬ tradictory of the fact which occasions it. By what sub¬ terranean paths, by what illation of subtle and knotty deductions, starting from the notorious fact of Proud- honian contradictions, has the world come to call those contradictions precisely by the name which con¬ tradicts them, that is, by the name of consistency ? There are here a great problem to be solved, and a great mystery to be cleared up. The solution of that problem, and the clearing up of that mystery, are in the fact, that in the theories of M. Proudhon there are at the same time contradiction and consistency—the latter real, and the former apparent If all the fragments I have just transcribed, be examined one by one, and if they be considered in themselves, without looking further, each of them is the contradiction of the one that precedes and the one that follows it, and they are all contradictory among themselves; but if we N 194 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , fix our eyes on the rationalistic theory, in which all others have their origin, it will be seen that rationalism, amongst all sins the most like original sin, is, like it, an actual error, and all errors in posse; and consequently, that with its wide unity it comprehends and embraces all errors, to whose union with it, it is no obstacle, they being contra¬ dictory amongst themselves, for even contradictions are susceptible of a certain kind of peace and a certain kind of union, where there is a supreme contradiction which involves them all. In the present case, rationalism is that contradiction which resolves all other contradic¬ tions in its supreme unity. In fact, rationalism is at once deism, pantheism, humanism, manicheism, fatal¬ ism, scepticism, atheism ; and amongst rationalists the most consistent is he who is at once deist, pantheist, humanist, manichean, fatalist, sceptic, and atheist. These considerations, which serve to explain the two facts, apparently contradictory, mentioned above, also satisfactorily explain why, instead of giving one by one the various systems of the Socialistic doctors about the Divinity, we have preferred considering them all in the writings of M. Proudhon, where they can be seen in their variety and in the aggregate. Having seen what the Socialists think of the Divinity, it remains to be seen what they think of man, and how they solve the awful problems of good and evil, con¬ sidered in general, which is the subject of this book. LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 195 CHAPTER X. Continuation of the same subject—Conclusion of this book. There has never been a man so mad as to dare deny the good and the evil, and their co-existence in history Philosophers dispute about the mode or form in which they exist and co-exist; they all, however, decidedly admit their existence and co-existence as a settled point; they all likewise agree, that in the contest which exists between the good and the evil, the former must obtain a definite victory over the latter. Leaving these points as undoubted and settled, in all else there are diversity of opinions, contradiction of systems, and end¬ less contests. The Liberal school regards it as certain, that there is no other evil but what is in the political institutions which we have inherited from time to time, and that the supreme good consists in levelling those institutions in the dust. The greater part of Socialists look upon it as settled, that there is no other evil but what is in society, and that the grand remedy is in the complete destruc¬ tion of social institutions. All agree that the evil comes to us from times past; the Liberals affirm that the good can be realised at the present time, and the Socialists that the golden age cannot commence till the future. The supreme good consisting, according to one and the other, in a supreme disarrangement, which, accord¬ ing to the Liberal school, must be realised in the poli¬ tical, and according to the Socialists, in the social, 196 ASSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , regions, the one and the other agree in the substantial and intrinsic goodness of man, who is to be the intel¬ ligent and free agent of both disarrangements. This conclusion has been explicitly enunciated by the Social¬ istic schools, and is implicitly involved in the theory which the Liberal schools hold. That conclusion follows from their theory, in such a way, that if the conclusion be denied, the theory itself comes to the ground. In fact, the theory, according to which the evil is in man and proceeds from man, is contradictory of the other, according to which, the evil is in the social or political institutions, and proceeds from the political and social institutions. Supposing the former, what logically follows is, to extirpate the evil in man, with which its extirpation in society and in government must neces¬ sarily be secured. Supposing the latter, what logically follows is, to extirpate the evil directly in society or in government, in which are its centre and its origin. From which we see that the Catholic, and the rationalistic, theories are not only incompatible, but even contradic¬ tory. By the Catholic, disturbance, whether political or social, is condemned as mad and useless. The rational- • istic theories condemn all moral reform of man as use¬ less and mad. And the one and the other are consis¬ tent in their condemnations ; for if the evil be not in government or in society, why will you disturb society or government ? And on the contrary, if the evil is not in individuals, nor proceeds from individuals, why will you attempt an interior reform of man ? The Socialistic schools feel no inconvenience in ac- LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 197 cepting the question, presented in this way. The Liberal school, on the contrary, sees in its acceptation, and not without reason, serious inconvenience. Accept¬ ing the question as it presents itself of its own accord, the Liberal school finds itself in the dire necessity of denying with a radical negation, the Catholic theory considered in itself and in all its consequences, and this is exactly what the Liberal school resolutely refuses to dc. The friend of all principles, and of their counter¬ principles, it does not wish to be separated from the one nor the other, and is perpetually occupied in reconciling all contradictory theories and all human contradictions. Moral reforms do not appear ill in its eyes, but political disarrangements appear excellent, without adverting that these things are incompatible; for man, purified interiorly, cannot be the agent of disturbance ; and the agents of disturbance, by the very fact of being so, declare that they are not interiorly purified. On this occasion, as on all others, the balance between Catholicism and Socialism is absolutely impossible; for—one of two things—either man is not to be purified, or disturbances are not to be realised. If unpurified man takes on himself the duty of disturber, political, are only the preclude of social, disturbances ; and if man relinquishes the office of political disturber, to become the reformer of himself, neither social nor political disturbances are possible. So in the one as in the other case, the Liberal school has necessarily to abdicate in favour of the Socialistic, or in favour of the Catholic, schools. It follows that the Socialistic schools have logic and reason on their side, when they maintain against the 198 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , Liberal school, that if the evil is essentially in society or in government, there is nothing to be done but to disturb government or society, without its being either necessary or convenient, but on the contrary, pernicious and absurd, to attempt the reform of man. Suppose the innate and absolute goodness of man, man is at once the universal reformer and irreformable himself, which is equal to transforming man into God— his essence ceases to be human to become divine. He is absolute^ good in himself, and produces the absolute good outside himself by his disturbances. Supreme good, and the cause of all good, he is most excellent, most wise, and most potent. Adoration is a necessity so imperious, that the Socialists, being atheists, and not adoring God, make gods of men, that they may adore something, in some way. These being the ruling ideas of the Socialistic schools about man, it is clear the Socialist denies his anti¬ thetical nature as a pure invention of the Catholic school. Hence Sansimonianism, and Fourrierism do not admit that man is so constituted that his understanding leads him one way, and his will another, nor do they grant there is any sort of contradiction between the spirit and the flesh. The supreme end of Sansimonianism is to demonstrate practically the conciliation and the unity of those two powerful energies ; this supreme concilia¬ tion was symbolised in the Sansimonian priest, whose office was to satisfy the spirit by means of the flesh, and the flesh by means of the spirit. The principle common to all Socialists, which consists in giving ill- constituted society a construction analogous to that of LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 199 man, who is constructed in an excellent manner, led the Sansimonians to deny all species of political, scientific, and social dualism, the negation of which was necessary, supposing the negation of the antithetical nature of man. The pacification between the spirit and the flesh once proclaimed, it was logical to proclaim the universal pacification and reconciliation of all things; and as things are not pacified or reconciled except by unity, universal unity was a logical consequence of human unity; and hence the religious, political, and social pantheism, which constitutes the ideal despotism to which all the Socialistic schools aspire with an im¬ mense aspiration. The common father of the school, Saint Simon, and the patriarch of the school, Fourrier, are its august and glorious personifications. Returning to the nature of man, which is our special object at present, supposing, on one side, its unity, and on the other, its absolute goodness, it was logical to proclaim man holy and divine, not only in his unity, but also in all and in each of the elements which consti¬ tute it; and hence the proclamation of the sanctity and divinity of the passions. For this reason all the Socialistic schools, some implicitly, others explicitly, proclaim the passions divune and holy. Supposing the sanctity and the divinity of the passions, it was logical to explicitly condemn all repressive and penal systems, and above all, to condemn virtue, whose office it is to impede their march, prevent their explosion, and repress their impetuosity. And in fact, all these things, which are at once the consequence of anterior principles, and 200 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, principles of more remote consequences, are taught and proclaimed with more or less cynicism in all the Social¬ istic schools, amongst which the Sansimonian and Fourrierian schools shine forth, like two suns in a star- spangled firmament. That is what is signified by the rehabilitation of woman and the pacification of the flesh. That is what is signified by Founder's theory about attractions. Fourrier says :—“ Duty proceeds from man (understand society), and attraction from God.” Madame de Coeslin, quoted by M. Louis de Rayband, in his “ Studies on Contemporaneous Reformists,” has expressed this same thought with greater exactness by saying:—“The passions are of divine institution, the virtues of human institution ; ” which means, supposing the principles of the school, that the virtues are perni¬ cious, and the passions salutary. For this reason the supreme end of Socialism is to create a new social atmosphere, in which the passions may move freely, commencing by destroying the political, religious, and social institutions which oppress them. The golden age announced by the poets and expected by the nations, will begin in the world when that great event occurs, and that magnificent aurora appears on the horizon. The earth will then be a paradise, and that paradise with gates to the four winds, will not be, like the Catholic paradise, guarded by an angel. The evil will have dis¬ appeared from the world, which heretofore has been, but shall no longer be, condemned to be a valley of tears. This is what Socialism thinks of good and of evil, of God and man. My readers will not certainly require LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 201 me to follow the Socialistic schools step by step, on the broken path of their mischievous extravagances. Much less will they require me to do so, when they consider, that they were virtually refuted from the moment I placed before their eyes, the majesty of the Catholic doctrine relative to these great questions, in its simple and august magnificence. Nevertheless, I consider it an imprescindible and holy duty to level with the ground that edifice of error; and for this, I have but to employ one sole argument and one single word, enough, and more than enough, to effect my purpose. Society can be considered in two different points of view, the Catholic and the pantheistical. Considered in the Catholic point of view, it is nothing but the reunion of a multitude of men, who all live under the rule and protection of the same laws, and of the same institutions. Considered in the pantheistical point of view, it is an organism which exists with an individual, concrete, and necessary existence. In the first supposi¬ tion, it is clear that, as society does not exist indepen¬ dently of the individuals who constitute it, there can be nothing in the society which is not previously in the individuals; whence it follows, by necessary conse¬ quence, that the evil and the good which are in it, come to it from man. Considered from this point of view, it is absurd to endeavour to extirpate the evil from the society in which it exists by incidence only, without touching the individuals in whom it was originally and essentially. In the second supposition, according to which, society is a being which exists of itself with a 202 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , concrete, individual, and necessary existence, those who admit it are obliged to solve in a satisfactory way, the very questions which, with respect to man, the ration¬ alists propose to Catholics, viz., Whether is society essentially or accidentally evil ?—if the former, what way, in what circumstances, and on what occasion, has the social harmony been disturbed with that mischievous incidence ? We have seen how Catholics untie all these knots, in what way they solve all these difficulties, and in what manner they answer all these questions relative to the existence of evil, considered as a consequence of the human prevarication. What we have not yet seen, and what we shall never see, is the manner and the force of the Socialistic solutions of those same difficulties re¬ lative to the existence of evil, considered as existing solely in social institutions. This sole consideration would authorise me in saying that the Socialistic theory is a theory of mountebanks, and that Socialism is nothing but the social reason of a company of buffoons. To be as sober as I purposed, I will end this argumentation by placing Socialism in this dilemma :—The evil which is in society is an essence or an accident. If it be an essence, to extirpate it, it is not enough to upset social institutions ; it is necessary besides to destroy society itself, which is the essence that sustains all forms. If the evil be acci¬ dental,* then you are obliged to do what you have not done, what you do not do, what you cannot do: you are obliged to explain to me at what time, by what cause, in what way, and in what form, that accident has LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 203 supervened, and then, by what series of deductions you come to constitute man the redeemer of society, giving him power to cleanse its stains and to wash away its sins. It will be useful to warn the incautious here, that rationalism, which furiously attacks all the Catholic mysteries, afterwards proclaims, in another way, and for another purpose, those very mysteries. Catholicism affirms two things—the evil and the redemption ; rationalistic Socialism comprehends in the symbol of its faith, the same affirmations. Between Socialists and Catholics there is no more than this difference— the latter affirm the evil of man, and the redemption on the part of God; the former affirm the evil of society, and the redemption on the part of man. The Catholic, with his two affirmations, does nothing but affirm two simple and natural things—that man is man, and exe¬ cutes human works, that God is God, and executes things divine. Socialism, with its two affirmations, does nothing more than affirm, that man undertakes and accomplishes the enterprises of a God, and that society executes the works belonging to man. What does human reason gain by abandoning Catholicism for Socialism, except to leave what is at once evident and mysterious, for what is at once mysterious and absurd ? Our refutation of the Socialistic theories would not be complete, if we had not recourse to the arsenal of M. Proudhon, now full of reason, and now full of elo¬ quence and sarcasm, when he combats and pulverises ms companions in arms. See here what M. Proudhon thinks of the harmonica! 204 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , nature of man, proclaimed by St Simon and by Fourrier, and of the future transformation of the earth into a garden of delights, announced by all the Socialists :— “ But man, considered in the aggregate of his manifesta¬ tions, and when all his antinomies appear exhausted, presents one still, which, referring to nothing that exists on earth, remains here below, without solution of any sort. This serves to explain why, no matter how per¬ fect order may be in society, it is never so perfect as to exile bitterness and weariness. Felicity in this world is an ideal we are condemned to be ever aiming at, and which the invincible antagonism of nature and the spirit perpetually places beyond our reach ” (“ Systeme des Contradictions,” chap, x.) Pay attention now to the fol¬ lowing sarcasm against the native goodness of man :— “The greatest obstacle equality has to surmount, is not in the aristocratic pride of the rich, but in the indis¬ pensable egotism of the poor; and do you dare, in spite of that, to count on his innate goodness to reform at once, the spontaneity and the premeditation of his malice ? ” (“ Systeme des Contradictions,” chap, viii.) The sarcasm becomes intensified in the following words, taken from the same work and from the same chapter: —“ The logic of Socialism is truly marvellous: man is good, they tell us, but it is necessary to disinterest him in the evil, that he may abstain from it: man is good, they repeat, but it is necessary to interest him in the good, that he may reduce it to practice ; for if the interest of his passions carry him to evil, he will do the evil; and if he is disinterested in the good, he will not LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 20$ execute it. I11 this case, society will have no right to upbraid him for attending to his passions, for it was its obligation to conduct him by means of his passions. What an excellent nature was that of Nero, and how marvellously enriched with gifts! What an artistic soul was that of Heliogabalus, who organised prostitu¬ tion ! And as regards Tiberius, what a powerful and grand character his was ! And, on the contrary, where shall we find words sufficient to blame the society which produced those divine souls, and, nevertheless, gave being to Tacitus and Marcus Aurelius? And this is what we Socialists call innate goodness of man, and sanctity of his passions! A Sappho, full of wrinkles and abandoned by her lovers, submits her neck to the yoke of matrimony; disinterested in love, she resigns herself to Hymen. And they call that woman holy ! It is a pity this word has not in French the double meaning it has in the Hebrew tongue ! The whole world would then agree about the sanctity of Sappho.” The sarcasm is invested with that form, eloquently brutal, which might be called the Proudhonian form, in the twelfth chapter of the same work, where M. Proudhon says :—“ Let us pass rapidly by the side of those St Simonian and Fourrierian constitutions, and above all others of the same stamp, whose authors go about the streets and squares, promising to unite with happy link, free love with the purest modesty, delicacy, and spiritu¬ ality; sad illusion of an abject Socialism, last dream of delirious debauch. Give wings to passion through inconstancy, and immediately the flesh will tyrannise 20 6 ESS A VS ON CA TEOLICISM ,, over the spirit; lovers will be nothing to each other but the vile instruments of pleasure; the longing of the senses will succeed the fusion of hearts, and .... to form a judgment of such things it is not necessary to have passed, like St Simon, through the custom-house of the popular Venus.” After having given, and refuted in general, the Social¬ istic theories relative to the problems which are the subject of this book, it only remains to explain and refute M. Proudhon’s theory relative to the same pro¬ blems, to bring this long and complicated debate to a conclusion. M. Proudhon compendiously but satis¬ factorily lays down his doctrine in Chapter viii. of the work we have just quoted, in the following words :— “The education of liberty, the subjection of our interests, the rescue or the redemption of our soul, this is what the Christian mystery, properly interpreted, signifies, as Lessing has demonstrated. This education will last as long as our life, and that of the human race. Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Zoroaster, were all apostles of expiation, and living symbols of penance. Man is by nature a sinner, which does not mean precisely that he is bad, but rather that he is badly made. His destiny is to be perpetually occupied in endeavouring to create his proper ideal within himself.” In this profession of faith there is something of the Catholic theory, something of the Socialistic theory, and something which is neither the one nor the other, and thereby constitutes the individuality of the Proud- honian theory. LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 207 What there is here of the Catholic theory consists in the acknowledgment of the existence of evil and of sin, in the confession that sin is in man and not in society, and that the evil does not come from society but from man ; and finally, there is here belonging to the Catholic theory the explicit acknowledgment of the necessity of redemption and penance. What there is of the Socialistic theory, is in the affir¬ mation that man is the redeemer. What constitutes the individuality of the Proudhonian theory consists, on one side, in the following theory contradictory of the Social¬ istic theory, viz., that man the redeemer does not redeem society, but redeems himself; and in this other, contradic¬ tory of the Catholic theory, that man has not made himself bad, but on the contrary, that he has been badly made. Leaving aside what in this theory is in conformity with the Catholic on one hand, and with the Socialistic theory, on the other, I will confine myself to that solely which renders it different from the others, and in virtue of which, it is neither Socialistic nor Catholic, but exclu¬ sively Proudhonian. The individuality of this theory consists in affirming that man is a sinner only because he has been badly made. Under this supposition M. Proudhon has given a remarkable proof of sound reason and good logic, in seeking the redeemer outside the Creator, as it is clear we could not be well redeemed by him by whom we were badly made. As God could not be the redeemer, and a redeemer being necessary, either man or an angel should be it. Being doubtful of the existence of the 208 ASSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , angels, and certain of the necessity of the redemption, having no one else to intrust it to, he gave it to man, who is at once a sinner and the redeemer of his sins. All these propositions are well connected and knit together. Where they are all weak is in the fact which serves them as foundation and basis; for man has been either well made or badly made. In the first case, the theory falls to the ground; and in the second, the following argumentation occurs :—If man is badly made, and is his own redeemer, there is a manifest contradic¬ tion between his nature and his attribute; for if man, no matter how badly made he may be, is made in such a way as to be able to amend the work of his Maker, even to the degree of redeeming himself, far from being a creature badly made, he is a most perfect creature; for what greater perfection can be imagined, than what consists in the faculty of blotting out all his sins, of amending all his imperfections, and, to say it in a word, of redeeming himself ? Well now, if in the fact of his being his own redeemer, no matter what his imperfec¬ tions may be besides, man is a most perfect being, to say of him at one and the same time, that he has been badly made, and that he is his own redeemer, is to affirm what is denied, and to deny what is affirmed, because it is to affirm that he has been made most perfect, and that he has been badly made. And let it not be said his imperfections come to him from God, and the great perfection of redemption from himself; for to this we will answer, that man could never become his own redeemer, if he had not been made with the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 209 faculty of reaching to such a great height, or, at least, with the faculty of acquiring that faculty in the course of time. It is necessary to grant some of these things, and to grant anything here, is to grant all; for if when he was made he was his redeemer in posse , before being so actually, that posse, in spite of all his imperfections, constituted him most perfect. Hence the Proudhonian theory is nothing less than a contradiction in terms. The conclusion of all that has been said is, that there is no school which does not recognise the simultaneous existence of good and evil, and the Catholic alone satisfactorily explains the nature and the origin of the one and the other, and their various and complicated effects. It teaches us that there is no good whatever, that does not come from God, and that all that pro¬ ceeds from God is good; it tells us how the evil com¬ menced with the first error of the angelic and the human liberty, which from being obedient and sub¬ missive, became rebellious and prevaricating, and how, and to what degree, those two great prevarications change all things with their influence and ravages. It tells us, in fine, that the good is de se eternal, because it is de se essential, and that the evil is a transitory thing because it is an accident: whence it follows the good is not subject to falls or changes, and the evil can be removed and the sinner redeemed. Reserving for a future occasion the explanation of those great and sovereign mysteries, through whose prodigious virtue the evil was extirpated in its origin, we have limited ourselves to place in relief the sovereign industry and 210 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , the wonderful artifice with which God converts the effects of the primitive fall, into constituent elements of a superior good and of a more excellent order; hence we explained in what manner the good springs from the evil, by the virtue of God, after having explained in what way the evil springs from the good, by the fault of man, without the human action or the divine reaction implying rivalry of any sort, between beings which are separated by an infinite distance. As regards the Rationalistic schools, the examination of their various systems serves to demonstrate their profound ignorance of all that relates to these deep questions. As regards the Liberal school, its ignorance is proverbial among the learned ; in quality of laical school, it is essentially antitheological; and in quality of antitheological, it is impotent to give a great impulse to civilization, which is ever the reflex of a theology. Its proper office is to falsify all principles, by combining them capriciously and absurdly, with those that con¬ tradict them: by this means it expects to arrive at an equilibrium, and it only arrives at confusion; it thinks it is advancing to truth, and it is only going to war. But as it is impossible to withdraw one’s self entirely from the authority of theological science, the Liberal school is less laical than it believes, and more theological than would appear at first sight. The question of good and evil, the most essentially theological of all that can be imagined, is proposed and solved by its doctors, though it is seen immediately they are not acquainted with the art of proposing, and the manner of solving, it. In the first LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 2 11 place, they prescind from the question relative to evil in itself, to the evil par excellence , to occupy themselves solely with a certain sort of evil, as if it were possible for one who is ignorant of what evil is, to know what particular evils are ; in the second place, particularising the remedy, as they particularised the evil, they dis¬ cover it solely in certain political forms, forgetting that those forms are perfectly indifferent, as reason tells us, and history demonstrates. Pointing out the evil where it does not exist, and the remedy where it is not to be found, the Liberal school has placed the question outside its proper point of view, by which it has introduced confusion and disorder into the intellectual regions. Its ephemeral domination has proved mischievous to human societies, and during its transitory reign the dis¬ solvent principle of discussion has impaired the com¬ mon sense of nations. In this state of society there is no disturbance which may not be feared, nor catas¬ trophe which may not happen, nor revolution which may not be inevitable. As regards the Socialistic schools, by merely con¬ sidering the manner in which they propose the ques¬ tions, we discover their superiority over the Liberal school, which is not in a position to oppose any kind of resistance to them. Being, as they are, essentially theological, they measure the abysses in all their pro¬ fundity, and are not wanting in a certain grandeur in the manner of proposing the problems and solving them. Considered, however, more attentively, and on entering into the intricate labyrinth of their contradictory solu- 212 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , tions, their radical weakness, hidden under a grand appearance, is immediately discovered. The Socialistic sectaries are like the pagan philosophers, whose theolo¬ gical and cosmogonical systems formed a monstrous union, on one side, of disfigured and incomplete biblical traditions, and on the other, of unsustainable and false hypotheses. Their grandeur comes to them from the atmosphere which surrounds them, all impregnated with Catholic emanations, and their contradictions and their weakness, from their ignorance of dogma, from their neglect of tradition, and from their contempt for the Church, the universal depositary of Catholic dogmas and of Christian traditions. Like our dramatic writers of another age, who, confounding everything grotesquely, though ingeniously, used to put in the mouth of Caesar discourses becoming the Cid, and expressions worthy of the knights of Christendom in the mouth of Moorish warriors, the Socialists of our times are perpetually occupied in giving a rationalistic sense to Catholic words, giving fewer proofs of ingenuity than of candour, and proving themselves occasionally less malicious than innocent. There is nothing less Catholic, nor more rationalistic, than to enter forcibly the rationalistic citadel and the Catholic citadel, taking from the former the ideas, with .all their contradictions, and from the latter the garments, with all their magnificence. Catholicism, for its part, will not consent to those scandalous intrigues, nor to that shameful confusion, nor to those stupid spoils. Catholicism is in a position to shew, that it alone LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 213 possesses the regular index of all political, religious, and social problems; that it alone has the secret of great solutions ; that it will not do to admit it by halves, nor to take its words to cover with them the nakedness of other doctrines; that there is no other evil nor other good but the good and the evil which it points out; that things cannot be explained except as it explains them ; that the God alone whom it proclaims, is the true God ; that the man alone whom it defines, is the true man; that humanity is what it says it is, and nothing else; that when it has said to men that they are brothers, equal and free, it has said at the same time how they are so, in what manner they are so, and to what degree they are so; that its words have been made to the measure of its ideas, and its ideas to sustain \ its words; that it is necessary to proclaim Catholic liberty, equality, and fraternity, or to deny at once all those things and all those names ; that the dogma of the redemption exclusively belongs to it; that it alone tells us the cause, and the object, of the redemption, and how the Redeemer and the redeemed are called; that to accept its dogma to disfigure it, is the part of a mountebank, and a malicious buffoonery ; that he who is not with it is against it; that it is the affirmation par excellence , and that against it there can be nothing given but an absolute negation. In this way does the question stand between Ration¬ alists and Catholics. Man is sovereignly free ; and being free, he can accept the purely Catholic, or the purely rationalistic, solutions ; he can affirm all or deny all; he 214 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , &*c. can be saved or lost. What man cannot do, is to change with his will the nature of things, which is immutable. What man cannot do, is to find repose and rest in the Liberal or Socialistic eclecticism. Socialists and Liberals are under the obligation of denying all, to have the right of denying anything. Catholicism, humanly considered, is great, only because it is the union of all possible affirmations ; Liberalism and Socialism are weak, only because they unite in one various Catholic affirmations and various rationalistic negations, and because, instead of being schools contradictory of Catholicism, they are only two different schools. The Socialists do not appear daring in their negations, except when compared with the Liberals, who see a rock in every affirmation, and a danger in every negation. Their timidity, how¬ ever, strikes the view when they are compared with the Catholic school; it is only then we discover the boldness with which it affirms, and the timidity with which they deny. How ! you call yourselves apostles of a new gospel, and you tell us of evil and sin, of redemption and grace, things of which the old gospel is full! You call yourselves the depositaries of a new political, social, and religious science, and you talk to us about liberty, equality, and fraternity, things as old as Catholicism, which is as old as the world ! He who said He would exalt humility and lower pride, fulfils His word in you. He condemns you to be only stupid commentators of His immortal Gospel, by the very fact of your aspiring with wanton and mad ambition, to promulgate a new law from a new Sinai, if not from a New Calvary. BOOK III. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS RELATIVE TO ORDER IN HUMANITY it \ , . ' 1 i • PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS RELATIVE TO ORDER IN HUMANITY. CHAPTER I. Transmission of sin, dogma of imputation. With the sin of our first parents are sufficiently ex¬ plained that great disorder and that formidable con¬ fusion which things suffered soon after their creation, which confusion and disorder were converted, as we saw, without ceasing to be what they were, into elements of a more excellent order and a greater harmony, by that secret and incommunicable virtue which is in God, of drawing order from disorder, from confusion concert, and good from evil, by a most simple act of His sove¬ reign will. What that sin by itself alone does not explain, is the perpetuity and constancy of that primi¬ tive confusion, which subsists yet in all things, and particularly in man. To explain satisfactorily this subsistence, it is necessary to suppose the subsistence of the cause, and to explain the subsistence of the cause, 218 MSSA YS ON CA THOLICISM , we are obliged to suppose the perpetual transmission of sin. The dogma of the transmission of sin, with all its consequences, is one of the most fearful, most incom¬ prehensible and obscure, of all the mysteries that have been taught us by divine revelation. That sentence of condemnation uttered on the head of Adam against all generations of men, as well those that have been, and those that are at present, as those that will be in future to the consummation of time, does not at first sight square well in the human intellect with the justice of God, and much less with His inexhaustible mercy. One would say, on considering it lightly and for the first time, that it is a dogma taken from those inexorable and sombre religions of the East, whose idols have ears to hear only laments, eyes to see only blood, and a voice to utter only anathemas and to demand vengeance. The living God, in the act of revealing that tremendous dogma, appears, rather than the mild and clement God of the Christians, the Moloch of the idolaters, increased in greatness and barbarity, who, not content now with tender flesh to appease his devouring hunger, buries human generations one after another in the caverns of his belly. Why are we punished, all nations say, turning to God, if we were not culpable ? Entering fully and directly into the body of the question, it will not be a difficult task to demonstrate the deep convenience of this profound mystery. Before all, we should observe that the very persons who deny the transmission of sin as a revealed dogma, are obliged LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 219 to acknowledge, that even making complete abstraction from what we hold as faith, when considering this matter, w r e ever come to the same term by different ways. Let us grant that sin and punishment, being personal of themselves, are of themselves intransmis- • sible ; and after making this concession, we will yet evidently demonstrate that with or without it, what the dogma teaches is still untouched. In fact, no matter how we consider this subject, we shall always find, that sin can produce in him who com¬ mits it, such destructions, and changes so great, as to be capable of altering, physically and morally, his primitive constitution : when this occurs, man, who transmits all that he constitutionally possesses, transmits to his children by generation his constitutional conditions. When a great explosion of anger produces an infirmity in the enraged, and this infirmity which it produces in him becomes constitutional and organic, it is very simple and natural that he should transmit to his children, by way of generation, the constitutional and organic evil which he suffers. That constitutional and organic evil, con¬ sidered in its physical aspect, is reduced to a real infirmity, and, considered in its moral aspect, to a pre¬ disposition of the flesh to subjugate the spirit, with that same passion which produced, when it was actual, those terrible ravages. It is beyond all doubt that the prevarication of Adam, being the greatest of all pos¬ sible prevarications, should and did alter his moral and physical constitution in a radical manner; and this being so, it is clear he should transmit to us, with his 22 C ESS A YS ON CA TH0LIC1SM , blood, the ravages of his sin, and the predisposition to commit it actually. It follows from what we have said, that in reality those who deny* the dogma of the transmission of sin effect nothing, if they do not at the same time deny what cannot be denied without evident foolishness and madness—viz., that a fault, when it is great, leaves behind it a trail in the constitution and in the organism of man, and that organic and constitutional trail is transmitted from one generation to another, corrupting them all in their constitutional and organic essence. Nor is there more progress made by those who, deny¬ ing the transmissibility of sin, deny the dogma of impu¬ tation or the transmission of the penalty ; for the very thing which they remove from themselves in quality of penalty, comes down on them with another name—with the name of misfortune. Let us grant the misfortunes which we suffer, are not a penalty which carries with it the idea of a voluntary determination on the part of him who inflicts it. It will still always result, that in every supposition our great misfortunes are equally inevit¬ able and certain : those who do not admit them as a legitimate consequence of sin, are obliged to admit them as a natural consequence of the necessary relations which exist between causes and their effects. According to this system, the radical corruption of their nature was a penalty on our first parents, voluntary sinners. Their voluntary disobedience deserved the penalty of the cor¬ ruption which was imposed on them by an incorruptible Judge. That same corruption is in us a misfortune, as LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 221 it is not imposed on us as a penalty, but comes to us in our quality of heirs of a nature radically corrupted. And that misfortune is so lamentable, that God himself could not decree our exemption, without altering the law of causality which is in things, by means of a por¬ tentous miracle. That miracle was wrought in the plenitude of time in a manner so convenient and so elevated, by ways so secret, by means so supernatural, and by counsel so sublime, that the unutterable work of God should be scandal for some and madness for others. The transmission of the consequences of sin, explains itself without any kind of contradiction or violence. The first man came on the world adorned with inestim¬ able privileges: his flesh was subject to his will, his will to his understanding, which received its light from the Divine Understanding. If our first parents had pro¬ created before they sinned, their children would have participated, by way of generation, of their uncorrupt nature. To prevent things happening thus, a miracle would have been necessary on the part of God, as that transmission could not be impeded, except by changing the law, in virtue of which everything transmits what it has to another, in virtue of which a being could only transmit what precisely it has not. Having fallen into miserable rebellion, our first parents were justly de¬ spoiled of all their privileges, and their spiritual union with God, with whom they were united. Their wisdom was converted into ignorance, all their power into weakness. As regards the original justice and grace in which they were created, they were completely removed from them t 222 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , their flesh rebelled against their will, their will against their understanding, their understanding against their will, their will against the flesh, and their flesh, their will, and their understanding against that magnificent God, who had placed them in such magnificence. In this state it is clear the father could only transmit by generation what he possessed, and that the son should be born ignorant from ignorant, weak from weak, cor¬ rupted from corrupted, separated from God from sepa¬ rated from God, infirm from infirm, mortal from mortal, rebel from rebel. To have him born wise from igno¬ rant, strong from weak, united to God from separated from God, healthy from infirm, immortal from mortal submissive from rebel, it were necessary to change the law in virtue of which like engenders like, into another in virtue of which contraries should engender contraries. It is easily seen, from what we have said, that natural reason reaches the same term as the dogma, though by a different route. There are speculative differences between them, there are no practical differences: to measure the immense distance there is between the natural and supernatural explanation of the fact we are considering, it is absolutely necessary to extend the view beyond that fact. It is then we discover the sterility of the human explanation, and the extraordi¬ nary fecundity of the divine explanation. This fecun¬ dity will be seen farther on with the glare of evidence; at present my duty is to expound and demonstrate the dogma of transmission, which, without invalidating whatever truth there is in the natural explanation of LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 223 the fact of transmission, rectifies whatever is false and incomplete in it. Natural reason calls what is transmitted to us mis¬ fortune. The dogma calls it by three names—fault, penalty, and misfortune: it is a misfortune, inasmuch as it is inevitable; it is a penalty, inasmuch as it is volun¬ tary on the part of God ; it is a fault, inasmuch as it is voluntary on the part of men. The marvel is in its being a true misfortune, in such a way that it is con¬ verted into a blessing ; in its being truly a penalty, in such a way that it is also a remedy, and in its being a true fault, in such a way that it is also a blessed fault. In this great design of God, more than in His other designs, if possible, shines forth that sovereign virtue by which He reconciles what appears irrecon¬ cilable, and by means of which He resolves into a magnificent synthesis all antinomies, and all contra¬ dictions. As far as regards the fault, the whole question con¬ sists in this difficult problem—How can I be a sinner, when I do not sin ? How can I sin when an infant? To solve it, it is right to observe, that our first father was, at one and the same time, an individual and a species, variety and unity joined in one ; and as it is a fundamental and primitive law that the variety which is in the unity, should leave the unity in which it is, to be separately constituted, with the necessity of returning in its ultimate evolution to the unity in which it originally resided, hence it was that the species which was in Adam, left Adam by generation to 224 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , become separately constituted. But as Adam was an individual at the same time that he was a species, it necessarily resulted that Adam was in the species in the same way he was in the individual. When the individual and the species were one and the same thing, Adam was that very thing; when the individual and the species were separated to constitute unity and variety, Adam was those two things separated, in the same way as he had been those two things joined in one. There was then an Adam individual and an Adam species ; and as the sin took place before the separation, and as Adam sinned conjointly with his individual nature and with his collective nature, it resulted that one and the other were sinners. Well now, if the individual Adam died, the collective Adam has not died, and not having died, he preserves his sin. As the collective Adam and human nature are one and the same thing, human nature is perpetually culpable, because it is perpetually sinful. Applying these principles to the case in question, we see clearly that human nature, being in every individual, Adam, who is that same human nature, lives perpe¬ tually in every man, and lives in him with what consti¬ tutes Adam’s lasting life—sin. Now we can more easily comprehend how sin can exist in the child just born. When I am born, I am a sinner, in spite of being a child, because I am Adam ; I am a sinner, not because I sin now, but because I sinned actually, when I was called Adam, and was an adult before I was a child, and had the name I have. When Adam came from LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 225 the hands of God I was in him, and he is in me now, when I come from the womb of my mother. Not being able to separate myself from his person, I cannot separate myself from his sin; and yet I am not Adam in such a way as to be confounded with him in an absolute manner. There is something in me which is not in him, something by which I am distinguished from him, something which constitutes my individual unity, and which distinguishes me from what I am most like; and that which constitutes me individual variety, relatively to the common unity, is what I have received and have from the father who engendered me, and from the mother who had me in her womb. They have not given me the human nature, which comes to me from God, through Adam, but they have put the family seal and stamped their figure on it; they have not given me my being, but the manner in which I am, adding the less to the greater, that is, what distinguishes me from others, to that which assimilates me to others—the particular to the common, the individual to the human ; and as that which is human and which assimilates me to others is what is essential in him, and what is individual and distinctive is no more than an accident, it follows that having from God, through Adam, what constitutes his essence, and from God, through his father, what constitutes his form, there is no man who, considered on the whole, is not more like Adam than his own father. With regard to the penalty, the question is solved of itself from the moment it is ascertained that the fault P 226 ESS A YS ON CA TBOL/C/SM, is transmitted to me, as the one cannot be conceived without the other. It is just that I should be punished, if it is certain that I am culpable; and as in these matters what is just is necessary, it follows that the misfortune which I suffer, without ceasing to be a mis¬ fortune, is necessarily a penalty. Penalty and mis¬ fortune, which are different things in the human, are identical in the divine point of view. Man gives the name of misfortune to the evil produced in quality of inevitable effect of a secondary cause, and penalty to the evil which a free being voluntarily imposes on another in punishment of a voluntary fault; and as everything that happens necessarily happens by the will of God, at the same time that everything happening by His will happens necessarily, it follows that God is the Supreme equation between the necessary and the voluntary, which, though distinct for man, are in Him one and the same. You see how in the divine point of view every misfortune is always a penalty, and every penalty a misfortune. From what we have already said, we see how great is the error of those who, without marvelling at the mys¬ terious analogies and the secret affinities which God has established between fathers and their children, wonder at those same affinities and those selfsame mysterious analogies, established by God between the rebel Adam and his miserable descendants. No intellect can understand, nor reason reach, nor imagination dream of, the strength of the link and the lightness of the bond placed by that same God between all LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 227 men and that one man, at once unity and collection, singular and plural, individual and species, who dies and survives, who is real and symbolical, figure and essence, body and shadow, who had us all in him, and who is in us all; awful sphinx, who presents a new diffi¬ culty from every point of view. And as man cannot fathom with his reason, nor with his imagination, nor with his intellect, what there is singularly complex and mysteriously obscure in that nature, neither can he measure, though he bring all the powers of his soul into play, the immense distance that exists between our sins and the sin of that man unique, like him, in its pro* found malice and in its incomparable greatness. After Adam no one has sinned like Adam, and no one will sin like him to the end of time. . His sin, participating of the nature of the sinner, was at once one and various, because it was a single sin in reality, and all sins in posse ; with it Adam left a stain on what no man can stain again, on the pure whiteness of his purest inno¬ cence. We who sin now, do nothing more by heaping sins on top of sins, than place stains on top of stains ; Adam alone could obscure the snowy plain. Our damaged nature being a great evil, and our sins a greater evil, that compound is not wanting in a certain beauty of relation, which springs from that secret har¬ mony which there is between the peculiar foulness of sin, and the peculiar foulness of the nature of man. Foul things can be harmonised among themselves as well as beautiful things , and when this happens, there is no doubt but that what is essentially foul in things, is 228 ESS A YS ON CA TH0LIC1SM , tempered in some measure by what is harmonious and concerted in them. This undoubtedly must be the reason why physical ugliness always appears to diminish with years. Old age is not a thing that sits badly on ugliness, as ugliness loses what is repugnant in it, when harmonised with wrinkles. Nothing, on the contrary, is more sad to behold, and nothing more horrible to imagine, than old age painted on the face of an angel, or ugliness wedded to the spring-time of life. Women who were handsome, and who when grown old preserve a relic of what they were, have always appeared to me horrible ; there is something in me which keeps scream¬ ing, Who was the wretch that dared to unite for the first time the things which God made to be separated ? No ; God has not made beauty for old age, nor old age for beauty ; Lucifer is the only one amongst the angels, and Adam among men, who united all that was decrepid and foul, with all that was resplendent and beautiful. CHAPTER II. How God draws good from sin and penalty , and from the purifying action of pain, freely accepted ,. REASON, which rebels against the penalty and the sin transmitted to us, accepts, though not without repug¬ nance, all that was transmitted, if it drops its own proper name, and takes that of inevitable misfortune. And yet LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 229 it were not difficult to demonstrate to evidence, that this misfortune could not become converted into a blessing except on condition of its being a penalty; and hence we have the necessary consequence, that in its definitive result the rationalistic is less acceptable than the dog¬ matic solution. Considering our present corruption as merely the physical and necessary effect of primitive corruption, and that the effect lasts as long as the cause, it is clear that if there be no means of removing the cause, neither is there of removing the effect. Primitive corruption-- cause of our present corruption—being an accomplished fact, our present corruption is a definitive fact that con¬ stitutes us in a perpetual misfortune. Considering, on the other hand, that there can be no union between the corrupt and incorruptible, it follows that in the rationalistic explanation, all union between man and God, not only in the present, but in all future time, is totally impossible. If human corruption is indelible and perpetual, and if God is eternally incor¬ ruptible, between the incorruptibility of God and the perpetual corruption of man, there is an invincible re¬ pugnance—an absolute contradiction. In this system, then, man is perpetually shut out from God. And do not answer that man could be redeemed, for the logical consequence of this system is precisely the impossibility of human redemption. There is no re¬ demption for misfortune, except inasmuch as it is regarded as the penalty of sin. Suppress the sin, and the suppression of the penalty follows ; and with the sup- 230 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , pression of the sin and the penalty, there is no remedy for the misfortune. The free will of man is totally inexplicable in this system. In fact, if man is born in necessary separation from God, if he lives in necessary separation from God, and if he dies in necessary separation from God, what signifies the free will of man ? If there be no transmission of sin and penalty, the dogma of the redemption, that of man’s free will, and with them all others, fall to the ground immediately; for if man is not free, he has not the dominion of the earth : if he has not the dominion of the earth, the earth is not united to God through man ; and if it be not united to God through man, it is not united to Him in any way. Man himself, if he have not liberty, does not separate from God in one way, to return to Him in another ; he separates from Him absolutely. God does not reach him with His goodness, nor with His justice, nor with His mercy. All the harmonies of creation vanish, all its bonds are broken; chaos is in all things, and all things in chaos. So far as God is concerned, He ceases to be the Catholic—the living God; God is up on high, creatures are here below, and neither God troubles Him¬ self about creatures, nor creatures about God. The divine consonance of the Catholic dogmas shines forth in nothing more resplendently, than in the admir¬ able union they have among themselves—a union so marvellous and so intimate, that human reason cannot conceive a greater, and finds itself placed in the tremen¬ dous alternative of accepting or of denying them all. LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. #31 And this consists in the fact that each of them does not contain a different truth, but one and the same, the number of dogmas corresponding exactly to the number of its aspects. Nor have we yet exhausted all the consequences that necessarily follow from considering the lamentable mis¬ fortune of the human race, abstracting absolutely from the penalty. If its misfortune is not at the same time a penalty also, if it is only an inevitable effect of a necessary cause, the little that Adam preserved, and which we preserve, from the primitive state, remains without explanation whatever, it being worthy of re¬ mark, in contradiction of what would appear at first sight, that not justice, but on the contrary mercy, it is, which gleams in that solemn condemnation which followed immediately on sin. If God had abstained from intervening in the tremendous catastrophe with His condemnation ; if, when He saw man separated from Him, He had turned His back, and entered into His tran¬ quil repose—in a word, if, instead of condemning him, He had delivered him over to the inevitable consequences of his voluntary disunion and of his voluntary separation, his fall would have been irremediable and his perdition infallible. That his fall might have a remedy, it was necessary that God should approach man, by uniting Himself to him in some way, with merciful bond. Penalty was the new bond of union between the Creator and His creature, and mercy and justice were mysteri¬ ously united in it—mercy because it is a bond, justice because it is a penalty. 232 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , If you remove from sufferings and pains the idea of penalty, you not only destroy the bond between the Creator and the creature, but you also destroy the puri¬ fying and expiatory influence their action has on man. If pain is not a penalty, it is an evil without admixture of good whatever; if it is a penalty, though it be an evil from its origin, which is sin, yet it is a great good, by the purification of sinners. The universality of sin necessitates the universality of purification, which in its turn requires pain to be universal, that the whole human race may be purified in its mysterious waters. This ex¬ plains why all men born suffer from their birth to their death. Pain is the inseparable companion of life in this obscure valley, filled with our sighs, deafened with our lamentations, and moistened with our tears. Every man is a suffering being, and everything not painful is strange to him. If he fixes his eyes on the past, he grieves to see it vanished; if on the present, he bewails the past as bitter ; if on the future, he feels perturbation, because the future is full of shadows and mysteries. How little soever he considers, he discovers that the past and present and future are all, and all is nothing— the past is gone, the present is rapidly going, and the future has not come. The poor are loaded with fatigue, the rich with indigestion, the powerful with pride, the lazy with weariness, the lowly with envy, and the mighty with disdain. The conquerors who drive the nations, are themselves driven by furies, and only stumble on others because they are flying from themselves. Lust consumes the flesh of the youth with its impure flames ; LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 233 ambition takes the youth, made man, from the hands of lust, and burns him in other flames, and drives him into other conflagrations ; avarice seizes him when lust re¬ jects and ambition abandons him ; she gives him an artificial life called sleepless ; old misers only live be¬ cause they do not sleep—their life is nothing but the absence of sleep. Travel the length and breadth of the land, cast your eyes behind and before you, devour space and time, and you shall find nothing in the dominion of men, but what is stated here—a pain which never abates, and an increasing lamentation. And this pain, voluntarily ac-> cepted, is the measure of all greatness, because there is no greatness without sacrifice, and sacrifice is merely pain voluntarily accepted. Those whom the world calls heroes, are they who, when transfixed with a sword of pain, voluntarily accepted the pain with its sword. Those whom the Church calls saints, are they who accepted all pains, those of the spirit as well as those of the flesh. The saints are those who, when beseiged by avarice, laid aside all the treasures of the world ; who, when solicited by gluttony, remained sober; who, when burned by lust, holily accepted the combat, and were chaste ; who, when entering on the battle, were assailed by filthy thoughts, and remained pure ; who rose so high by humility that they conquered pride; who, when saddened by another’s prosperity, made such an effort, as to convert their base sadness into holy joy; who flung to earth the ambition which raised them to the stars; who changed their idleness into diligence; 234 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, who, when weighed down by sadness, gave a bill of divorce to their sadness, and rose by a generous effort to spiritual joy; who, when enamoured of themselves, renounced their self-love for love of others, and with heroic abnegation offered their life for them in perfect holocaust. The human race has been unanimous in acknowledg¬ ing the sanctifying virtue of pain. Hence we find that man in all times, in all countries, and among all nations, has always paid worship and homage to great misfor¬ tunes. CEdipus is grander in the day of his misfortune than in the period of his glory ; the world would have forgotten his name if the divine wrath had not hurled him from his throne. The melancholy beauty in the countenance of Germanicus comes from the misfortune Ivhich overtook him in the spring-time of life, and from that beautiful death he died, far from his beloved country and the atmosphere of Rome. Marius, who is no more than a cruel man when elevated by victory, is sublime when he falls from his lofty eminence into the mud of the marshes. Mithridates appears grander than Pompey, and Hannibal than Scipio. Man, without knowing why, always inclines to the side of the con¬ quered—misfortune appears to him more beautiful than victory. Socrates is less grand by the life he lived than by the death he died ; immortality comes to him, not from having known how to live, but from having died heroically—he owes less to philosophy than to his hemlock. The human race would have been indignant with Rome if she had permitted Caesar to die like other LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 235 men—his glory was so great that he deserved to be crowned by some great misfortune. To die tranquilly in one’s bed, invested with sovereign power, is a thing scarcely allowed to a Cromwell. Napoleon should have died some other way—he should have died conquered in Waterloo : proscribed by Europe, he should have been placed in a tomb fabricated for him by God from the beginning of all time ; a wide trench should separate him from the world—wide enough for the ocean to flow in it. Pain establishes a certain equality between all those who suffer, which is to establish it between all men, for all suffer : by pleasure we are separated, by pain united in fraternal bonds. Pain removes the superfluous, and gives us what we want, and establishes a most perfect equilibrium in man : the proud man does not suffer « without losing some of his pride, nor the ambitious man some of his ambition, nor the passionate man some of his anger, nor the impure man some of his impurity. Pain is sovereign in extinguishing the fires of the pas¬ sions. At the same time that it removes what injures us, it gives us what ennobles us—the hard-hearted do not suffer without feeling themselves more inclined to compassion, nor the disdainful without feeling more humble, nor the voluptuous without feeling more chaste. The violent become tamed, the weak fortified. No one comes out of that furnace of pain worse than he entered : the greater number come out with sublime virtues they knew not of. One goes in impious, and comes out religious ; another avaricious, and comes out an alms- 236 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , giver; another without ever having wept, and comes out with the gift of tears ; another heart-hardened, and comes out merciful. In pain there is a something fortifying, manly, and profound, which is the origin of all heroism and of all greatness ; no one has felt its mysterious contact without improving: the child ac¬ quires by pain the vitality of youth, youth the maturity and gravity of men, men the bravery of heroes, heroes the sanctity of saints. On the contrary, whoever abandons pain for delights, at once commences to descend with a rapid and conti¬ nuous progress. From the eminence of sanctity he sinks into the abyss of sin, from glory to infamy. His heroism is converted into weakness—from the habit of yielding, he even forgets all about effort; from the habit of falling, he loses even the faculty of rising. In delights he loses his vitality, all the powers of the soul their energy, and all the muscles of the body their strength. In delight there is something corrupting and enervating, which brings with it silent and hidden death. Woe to him who does not resist its perfidious though sweet voice, like unto that of the ancient syrens ! Woe to him who does not retreat and fly, when it invites him with its fragrance and flowers, before he falls, over¬ come, into that trance, akin to death, which it communi¬ cates to the senses with the aroma of its flowers and the scent of its fragrance ! When this happens, he either miserably succumbs, or comes out totally transformed : the child that passes through it never becomes a youth, on the youth grow LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 2 37 grey hairs, and the old man perishes. Man leaves there as spoils the strength of his will, the virility of his intel¬ lect, and loses his instinct for great things. Cynically egotistical and extravagantly cruel, he feels nameless passions boil in his blood : if you place him in a humble grade, he will fall into the hands of justice and the exe¬ cutioner ; if in an eminent position, you will be shocked to see him give loose rein to his voracious appetites and his ferocious instincts. When God wishes to chastise a people for their sins, He enchains them at the feet of voluptuous rulers. Their senses are besotted with the opium of delights, and nothing can rouse them from their stupid state but the smell of blood. All those monsters whom the pretorian guard saluted in imperial Rome with the title of Emperor, were voluptuous and effeminate. France at the same time worshipped pro¬ stitution and death—prostitution in her temples and on her altars, death in her squares and on her scaffolds. There is, then, something hurtful and corrosive in pleasure, as there is something purifying and divine in pain. Let it not be believed, however, that these two things, which are opposed to each other, are not in a certain way united ; for as it happens that he who freely accepts pain feels in himself a certain spiritual delight, which fortifies and elevates him, so also he who resigns himself to delights experiences a pain which, instead of fortifying, enervates and depresses him. Pain is that universal penalty to which we are all subject by sin. Whithersoever man turns his eyes, he discovers pain like a mute and melancholy statue, which he has 238 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, always before him. Pain has something in common with the Divinity, which surrounds us like a circle. We approach it, whether we gravitate to the centre or rush to the circumference ; and to rush from or gravitate to it, is to rush and gravitate to God, to whom we rush at every step, and to whom we gravitate in all our gravita¬ tions. The difference is this, that some pains lead us to the God of goodness and clemency, others to the God of justice and anger, and others again to the God of pardon and mercy. By pleasure we approach the pain which is penalty, and by resignation and sacrifice the pain which is medicine. See, then, the madness of the children of Adam, who, unable to escape from pain, fly from that which is medicine, to fall into that which is penalty ! How marvellous is God in all His designs, and how admirable in that divine art of drawing good from evil, order from disorder, and all kinds of harmony from all sorts of discordance! From human liberty comes the discordance of sin, from sin the degradation of the species, from the degradation of the species pain, and pain is at the same time a misfortune in the corrupt and a penalty in the sinful species. As far as it is a misfor¬ tune, it is inevitable ; as far as a penalty, it is redeemable; and as grace is in the redemption, grace is also in the penalty. In this way the most tremendous act of the justice of God, becomes the greatest act of His mercy. Through it man can, when aided by God, rise superior to himself, by accepting pain with a voluntary accepta¬ tion, and that sublime acceptation instantly turns the LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 239 penalty into a medicine of incomparable virtue. Every negation of this doctrine establishes the disorder intro- duced into humanity by sin, as it necessarily, and at once, leads to the negation of some of the essential attributes of God, and to the radical negation of human liberty. If the question, considered in this point of view, concerns the universal order of creation, in the same way, and for the same reasons, as the question relative to the human and angelic prevarication ; considered in a more restricted point of view it concerns, directly and fundamentally, the special order established by God in the various elements of which human nature is com¬ posed. The voluntary acceptation of pain produces those great prodigies of which we speak, only because it has the power of radically changing the whole economy of our being. By it is subdued the rebellion of the flesh, which again subjects itself to the will; by it the will is overcome, and subjects itself to the yoke of the intellect; by it the rebellion of the intellect is sup¬ pressed, and it subjects itself to the dominion of duty; by the fulfilment of duty man returns to the obedience and worship of God, from whom he was separated by sin. All these prodigies are accomplished by him who, with generous impulse, heroically turns against himself, and does violence to the flesh to subject it to the will, and to the will to subject it to the intellect, and to the intellect to make it operate in God and for God, united to Him by the bond of duty. This is not the occasion to mention the conditions and assistance with which the human will can rise to 240 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, an effort so supernatural and sublime. What here concerns us is to establish the fact, that without this elevation on the part of the will, manifested in the voluntary acceptance of pain, that sovereign harmony and that wonderful concert, that God established in man, and in all his powers, could not be restored. CHAPTER III. Dogma of solidarity—Contradictions of the Liberal school. Every one of the Catholic dogmas is a marvel, prolific in marvels. The human intellect passes from one to another as from one to another evident proposition, as from a principle to its legitimate consequence, united together by a bond of most rigorous deduction. And every new dogma discovers to us a new world, and in each new world the eye rests on new and extensive horizons ; and at sight of those most extensive horizons, the mind is astounded at the extent of the magnificence it discovers. The Catholic dogmas explain by their universality all universal facts, and these very facts, in their turn, explain the Catholic dogmas. In this way what is various is explained by what is one, and what is one by what is various, the contained by the container, and the container by the contained. The dogma of the wisdom and providence of God exolains the order and marvel’ LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 241 lous concert of all things created, and this order and concert give the explanation of the Catholic dogma. The dogma of human liberty serves to explain the primitive prevarication, and this same prevarication, attested by all traditions, serves as a demonstration of the dogma. The prevarication of Adam—a divine dogma as well as a traditional fact—fully explains the great disorders which disturb the beauty and harmony of things ; and those very disorders, in their evident manifestations, are a perpetual demonstration of the prevarication of Adam. The dogma teaches that evil is a negation and good an affirmation, and reason tells us there is no evil which does not resolve itself into a negation of a divine affirmation. The dogma proclaims that evil is accidental and good substantial, and facts demonstrate that there is no evil which does not consist in a certain vicious and disordered manner of being, and no substance, which is not relatively perfect. The dogma affirms that God draws universal good from universal evil, and perfect order from absolute disorder, and we have seen how all things tend to God, though in different ways, and by their union with God con¬ stitute the universal and supreme order. Passing from the universal to the human order, the connection and harmony, on the one side, of the dogmas among themselves, and on the other, of the dogmas with the facts, are no less evident. The dogma which teaches the simultaneous corruption in Adam of the individual and of the species, explains to us the trans¬ mission by generation of the sin and its effects ; and the Q ESS A YS ON CA THOLlClSM , 242 antithetical, contradictory, and disordered nature which we all see in man, leads us from induction to induction, first to the dogma of a general corruption of the whole human species, then to the dogma of a corruption trans¬ mitted by blood, and lastly, to the dogma of primitive prevarication, which, connecting itself with the dogma of human liberty given to man, and that of the Providence which gave him that liberty, becomes the point of con¬ junction of the dogmas which serve to explain the order and concert in which human things were established, with those other more universal and sublime ones which explain the weight and number and measure with which all creatures were made by the Creator. If we follow up the dogmas relative to human order, we shall see those general laws of humanity, which astonish us by their wisdom and astound us by their grandeur, spring from them, as from a most prolific source. From the dogma of the concentration of human nature in Adam, united to the dogma of the trans¬ mission of that human nature to all men, springs the dogma of the substantial unity of the human race, as a consequence from its principle; the human race being one, should be also various, according to that law, the most universal of all laws, by virtue of which everything that is one is resolved into what is various, and every¬ thing various into what is one. The human race is one by the substance which constitutes it, and various by the persons who compose it: whence it follows that it is one and various at the same time. In the same way, each one of the individuals who compose humanity, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 243 being- separated from the rest by what constitutes it an individual, and united to them by what constitutes it an individual of the species—that is, substantially—be¬ comes, like the human race, one and various at the same time. The dogma of actual sin is correlative of the dogma of variety in the species, that of original sin and its imputation of the dogma which proclaims the substantial unity of the human race ; and as a conse¬ quence of one and the other, comes the dogma which teaches that man is subject to a responsibility peculiarly his own, and another which he shares in common with all men. That responsibility in common, which is called soli¬ darity , is one of the most beautiful and august revela¬ tions of Catholic dogma. By solidarity, man, elevated to a superior dignity and a more sublime sphere, living before and surviving himself, is prolonged as long as time, and extended as far as space. It consolidates, and to a certain degree creates, humanity,—a word which was void of meaning in ancient societies, but now signi¬ fies the substantial unity of human nature, and the close relationship all men have with each other. We see at once that what human nature gains in this dogma in grandeur, the same does man gain in nobility, which is the reverse of what happens in the communist theory of solidarity, of which we shall speak hereafter. According to that theory, humanity is not solidarious in the vast aggregate of all men who are by nature one, but in the sense that it is an organic and living unity which absorbs all men, who serve, instead of constituting, 244 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , it. The dignity to which the species is raised by the Catholic dogma reaches individuals. Catholicity does not elevate its lofty level on one side to lower it on the other, nor has it discovered humanity’s titles of nobility to humble man, but one and the other are conjointly elevated to the divine grandeur and its sublime heights. When I fix my eyes on what I am, and regard myself as in communication with the first and with the last of men, and when I view my work, and see my action survive me, and in its perpetual prolongation become the cause of other and other actions, which in their turn survive and are multiplied to the end of time ; when I think that all those joint actions, which have their origin in my action, take body and a voice, and raise that voice which they take to acclaim me, not only for what I did, but for what others did through me, as either worthy of reward or deserving of death ; when I con- » sider all these things, I must say for myself that I throw myself in spirit at the feet of God, unable to compre¬ hend or measure all the immensity of my grandeur. Who but God could raise so harmoniously and evenly the level of all things ? When man wishes to raise any¬ thing, he can never do so without depressing what he does not raise. In the sphere of religion he cannot raise himself without depressing God, nor God without depressing himself; in politics he is unable to render homage to liberty, without denying it to authority ; in social spheres he knows nothing beyond sacrificing society to the individual, or individuals to society, as we have seen, perpetually fluctuating between com- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 245 munist despotism and the anarchy of Proudhon. If he has ever attempted to maintain all in their proper level, by establishing a certain amount of peace and justice between them, the balance in which he weighed them has immediately fallen in fragments to the earth, as if there were an irremediable want of proportion between the weight in the scales and the weakness of man. It would appear as if God, when constituting him lord of the sciences, withdrew one alone from his jurisdiction— the science of equilibrium. This might serve to explain the absolute impotence to which all equilibrist parties appear to be condemned in history, and why the grand problem of the harmo¬ nising of the rights of the State with those of individuals, and of order with liberty, is still a problem, as it was when associations were first formed. Man cannot keep things in equilibrium without preserving their being, nor preserve their being without abstaining from putting his hand to them. Placed and firmly fixed by God in their proper positions, every change in their manner of being, placed and fixed, is necessarily a disequilibrium. The only peoples who have been at once respectful and free, the only governments that have been at once moderate and strong, are those in which the hand of man is not seen, and whose institutions were formed with that slow and progressive vegetation, with which everything stable in the dominions of time and history progresses. That grand power which has been exceptionally denied to man, resides in God in a special and primitive 2 |6 £\5T,4 KS” C4 THOLICISM, manner. Hence everything that comes from His hand comes from it in perfect equilibrium, and everything that is where God placed it, is maintained perfectly poised. Without recourse to examples foreign to the question, the very subject we are treating and en¬ deavouring to solve is quite sufficient to place this truth beyond all doubt. The law of solidarity is so universal, that it is mani¬ fested in all human associations ; and to such a degree too, that as often as man associates, he falls under the jurisdiction of that inexorable law. Through his ancestors he is in solidarious union with times past, and by the succession of his own actions, and through his descendants, he enters into communion with future times; as an individual of a domestic society, he falls under the law of the solidarity of the family; as a priest or magistrate he is in communion of rights and duties, of merits and demerits with the magistracy or with the priesthood ; as member of the political association, ne falls under the law of national solidarity; and finally, in quality of man he is reached by human solidarity. And nevertheless, though responsible under so many heads, he preserves whole and intact his personal re¬ sponsibility, which none other diminishes, none other restricts, none other absorbs. He may be a saint though an individual of a sinful family, incorrupt and incorruptible though member of a corrupt society, pre¬ varicator though member of a pure magistracy, and a reprobate though member of a most holy priesthood. And on the contrary, that supreme power conferred on LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 24 7 him of withdrawing from solidarity by an effort of his sovereign will, in no way alters the principle, that as a general rule, and leaving his liberty intact, a man is what the family is in which he is born, and the society in which he lives and breathes. In all the prolongation of historic time this has been the universal belief of all nations, which, even after they had lost the track of the divine traditions, retained a knowledge of this law of solidarity. Although they did not raise their mind to the contemplation of all its grandeur, they instinctively knew this law, but were totally ignorant of where it had its deep roots and its broad foundations. As the dogma of the unity of the human race was known only to the people of God, the others could have no idea of humanity, one and soli- darious; however, if they were unable to make application of this law to the human race with which they were unacquainted, they acknowledged and even exaggerated it in all their political and domestic associations. The idea of the mysterious transmission by blood, not only of the physical, but even of those other qualities which exist exclusively in the soul, is in itself sufficient to explain all the institutions of the ancients, as well domestic as political and social. This is the very idea of solidarity, inasmuch as all that is trans^ mitted to many in common, constitutes the unity of those to whom it is transmitted ; and to say of many that they are in communion among themselves, is the same as to say they are solidarious. When the idea of the transmission of physical and moral qualities prevails 248 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , among a people, their institutions are necessarily aristocratic. Hence all ancient peoples in whom the exclusiveness of the idea, when applied to certain social groups, was not tempered by its general, and we might say democratic, character, when applied to all men, were aristocratically constituted. The more glorious races conquered and reduced to slavery the inferior races; and among the families which composed the constitutive groups of a race, power was seized on by the one which boasted the most glorious ancestors. The heroes, before entering on the fight, raised to the skies the glory of their illustrious lineage. Cities founded their right to domination in their genealogical tree. Aristotle, with all antiquity, believed some men were born to command, and with the necessary qualities, and received that right and these qualities conjointly by hereditary transmis¬ sion. Correlative with this common belief was another that there were races cursed and disinherited, incapable of transmitting by generation any quality or any right, and consequently condemned to legitimate and per¬ petual slavery. The democracy of Athens was no more than an insolent and tumultuous aristocracy, served by enslaved multitudes. The Iliad of Homer— encyclopaedic monument of pagan wisdom—is the history of the genealogies of the gods and heroes: considered thus, it is nothing but the most splendid of all peerage lists. This idea of solidarity among the ancients was only disastrous inasmuch as it was incomplete. The various social, political, and domestic solidarities, not LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 249 being hierarchically subordinated to the human soli¬ darity, which regulates and limits, because it embraces, all, could produce nothing but wars, perturbations, con¬ flagrations, and disasters. Under the rule of pagan soli¬ darity, the human race was constituted in a state of universal and permanent war; and hence antiquity pre¬ sents no other spectacle to our view but the destruction of nations by nations, kingdoms by kingdoms, races by races, families by families, and cities by cities. The gods combat with gods, men with men, and often one and the other sound the note of war, and men and the immortal gods come to blows. Within the walls of the same city there is no solidarious association which does not aspire to exercise a domineering and absorbing action, first over its own individuals, and then over other associations. In the domestic association the personality of the child is absorbed by that of the father, and that of the wife by the husband: the child is converted into a thing; the wife, subject to perpetual tutelage, sinks into perpetual infamy ; and the father, master of the child and of the wife, converts his power into tyranny. Above the tyranny of the father is the tyranny of the State, which embraces in a common absorption the wife, the child, and the father, de facto annihilating the domestic society. Even patriotism among the ancients is nothing more than a declaration of war made on the whole human race by a caste con¬ stituted into a nation. Coming now from past ages to the present, we shall see, on one side, the perpetuity of the idea contained in 250 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , the dogma, and on the other, the perpetuity of its ravages whenever it wanders entirely, or in part from, the Catholic dogma. The Liberal and Rationalist school at one and the same time denies and admits solidarity, and is ever absurd whether it admits or denies it. In the first place, it denies human solidarity in the religious and political orders—in the religious order, by denying the hereditary transmission of the penalty and the sin, which is the exclusive foundation of this dogma ; and in the political order, by proclaiming maxims which contradict the solidarity of peoples; amongst others especially the maxim of non-intervention and its correlative, that every one should take care of himself, and have no solicitude for the affairs of his neighbour. These maxims, which are one and the same, are nothing but pagan egotism, without the virility of its hatred. A people indoctrinated with the enervating maxims of this school, will call others strangers, because they have not the courage to call them enemies. The Liberal and Rationalist school denies family solidarity, inasmuch as it proclaims the principle of the legal aptitude of all men to attain all public offices and all the dignities of the State, which is a denial of the action of ancestors on descendants, and the com¬ munication of the qualities of the former to the latter, by hereditary transmission. But at the very time it denies that transmission, it acknowledges it in two different ways—first, by proclaiming the perpetual identity of nations; and second, by proclaiming the 251 LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. hereditary principle in monarchy, The principle of national identity either signifies nothing, or it means there is a community of merits and demerits, of glories and disasters, of talents and aptitude between past gene¬ rations and the present, the present and the future; and this community is totally inexplicable, unless con¬ sidered as the result of hereditary transmission. On the other hand, hereditary monarchy, considered as the fundamental institution of the State, is a contradictory and absurd institution whenever the principle of the virtue of transmission by blood, which is the constitutive principle of all historical aristocracies, is denied. Finally, the Liberal and Rationalist school, in its repugnant materialism, gives to riches communicated the virtue it denies to the transmission by blood ! The rule of the millionaires appears to it more legitimate than the rule of the nobles! At the heels of this ephemeral and contradictory school come the Socialist schools, which, while granting all its principles, deny all its consequences. The Socialists take from the Liberal and Rationalist schools the negation of human solidarity in the political and religious orders. Denying it in the religious order, they deny the transmission of the sin and the penalty, and, moreover, the sin and the penalty themselves; denying it in the political order, they take from the Socialist and Liberal school the principle of the equal aptitude of all men for the offices and dignities of the State ; but, advancing further, they demonstrate to the Liberal school that this principle logically carries with it the 252 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, suppression of hereditary monarchy, and this entails the suppression of all monarchy, which, if not hereditary, is a useless and embarrassing institution. Then they show, without much effort, that supposing the natural equality of man, that equality carries with it the suppression of all aristocratic distinctions, and consequently the sup¬ pression of the electoral vote, in which they do not acknowledge the mysterious virtue of conferring sove¬ reign attributes denied to blood. The people, according to the Socialists, have not come out from the slavery of the Pharaohs to fall into that of the Assyrians and Babylonians, nor are they so devoid of rights and power, as to drop into the hands of the rapacious rich after escaping from the insolent nobles. Nor does it appear to them less absurd to deny the solidarity of the family, and establish the solidarity of a nation. Ac¬ cepting the former of these principles, they absolutely deny the latter, as contradictory of it; and as they pro¬ claim the perfect equality of all men, so do they also proclaim the perfect equality of all peoples. The following consequences flow from this. Men being perfectly equal among themselves, it is absurd to divide them into groups, as such partition has no other foundation but the solidarity of the groups—a solidarity denied by the Liberal school as the origin of perpetual inequality among men. If this be so, what logically follows is the dissolution of the family. This dissolution follows from the Liberal principles and theories, in such a way, that without it, those principles cannot be realised in political associations. In vain will Liberalism , and socialism. 253 you proclaim the idea of equality ; this idea cannot take body as long as the family remains. The family is a tree, which with prodigious fecundity perpetually pro¬ duces the idea of nobility. But the suppression of the family carries with it the suppression of property as a necessary consequence. Man, considered in himself, cannot be the proprietor of the earth, for a very simple reason : proprietorship of a thing cannot be conceived without a certain manner .of proportion between the proprietor and the thing possessed, and between the earth and man there is no proportion whatever. To demonstrate this thoroughly, it will be sufficient to observe that man is a transitory being, and the earth a thing which never dies or passes away. This being so, it is contrary to reason that the earth should fall under the proprietorship of men, con¬ sidered individually. The institution of property is absurd without the institution of the family: the reason of its existence is in it or in something similar, such as the religious orders. The earth, which never dies, can fall only under the proprietorship of a religious or family association, which never passes away; therefore, on the implicit suppression of the domestic association, and the explicit of the religious, or, at least, of the monastic association, by the Liberal school, the suppression of the proprietorship of the earth follows like a logical sequence from its principles. That suppression is so identified with the principles of the Liberal school, that the latter has ever inaugurated the period of its domination by seizing on the property of the Church, by the suppres- 254 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, sion of the religious orders, and of entail, without ad¬ verting that by seizing on the one and suppressing the others, it did little as far as its principles were con¬ cerned ; as to its interests, in quality of proprietor, it did too much. The Liberal school, which is anything but learned, has never comprehended that as it is necessary for the earth, in order to become susceptible of appropri¬ ation, to fall into the hands of some one that could per¬ petually preserve its proprietorship, the suppression of entail, and the spoliation of the Church, with the clause that it can never again acquire property, is equivalent to condemning property with an irrevocable condemnation. That school has never comprehended that the earth, speaking logically, can be the object, not of individual, but of social appropriation; and can only be so under the monastic or the family form of entail, which, as regards perpetuity, are identical, as both one and the other subsist perpetually. The ecclesiastical and civil abolishment of property, tumultuously proclaimed by Liberalism, carries with it, in some time more or less proximate, but not very distant, considering the pace of modern events, universal spoliation. Then it will know what it is now ignorant of: that property has no reason of exist¬ ence except in the hands of the dead, as the earth, of itself perpetual, cannot be matter of appropriation by the living, who pass away, but by the dead, who ever live. When the Socialists, after denying the family as an explicit consequence of the Liberal school, and the faculty of acquiring property in the Church, a principle equally recognised by the Liberals as well as by the LIBERALISM,\ AND SOCIALISM. 255 Socialists, deny property as an ultimate consequence of all these principles, they do nothing more than crown the work ingeniously commenced by the doctors of Liberal¬ ism. Finally, when after suppressing individual pro¬ perty, communism proclaims that the State is universal and absolute proprietor of all land, although it is evi¬ dently absurd in other conceptions, it is not so in our actual point of view. To be convinced of this, we have only to consider that the dissolution of the family in the name of the principles of the Liberal school once consummated, the question of property lay between individuals and the State alone. Well now, when the matter is put thus, it is beyond all doubt that the titles of the State are superior to those of individuals, as the former is by nature perpetual, and the latter cannot be perpetuated except in the family. From the perfect equality of all peoples, logically deduced from the principles of the Liberal school, the Socialists, or rather I, in their name, draw the following consequences :—As from the perfect equality of all the families which compose the State the Liberal school draws in necessary consequence, the non-existence of solidarity in domestic society, in the same way and for the same reason, from the perfect equality of all peoples in the bosom of humanity results the negation of poli¬ tical solidarity. If the nation is not solidarious, we must necessarily deny it all that which is naturally denied the family, in the supposition that it is not solidarious. In the non-solidarious family was denied, first, that secret and mysterious bond which unites it in the present time 256 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , with the past and the future ; and as a consequence of this negation, are denied, secondly, its imprescriptable right of participating in the glories of its ancestors, and its virtue of communicating to its descendants some reflex of its own glory. Arguing in the same way, it is necessary to deny of a non-solidarious nation what is denied of a non-solidarious family; whence it follows, that with regard to it we must deny, on the one hand, that it has any relation with past or future time, and on the other, that it has any right to claim a part of past or future glory. What is denied of the family, logically, results in the destruction in man of that attachment to the hearth which constitutes the happiness of domestic society; by identity of reason, what is denied of the nation necessarily results in the radical destruction of that love of country, which, raising man above himself, impels him to daringly undertake the most heroic enter¬ prises. Whence we see that from these negations are drawn, for domestic and for political society, the following con¬ sequences :—The solution of continuity in time and glory, the suppression of love of family and of patriot¬ ism, which is the love of country, and finally, the dis¬ solution of domestic and political society, which cannot exist nor be conceived without that continuity of time and communion of glory, and without being founded on those great loves. The Socialistic schools, which, though more logical than the Liberal, are not quite as much so as appears at first sight, do not advance from consequence to conse- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM . 257 quence to our ultimate conclusion, which is, however, supposing their premises, not only logical, but absolutely necessary. The proof of it is in the fact that Socialists, pressed by logic, are in practice what they do not wish to be in theory. In practice they are yet Frenchmen, Italians, Germans; in theory they are citizens of the world, and like the world, their country is without frontiers. Madmen ! they know not that where there are no frontiers there is no country, and where there is no country there are no men, although perhaps there may be Socialists. Of the parties contending for domination, the right of victory belongs to the most logical; this is at once a true principle and an universal and constant fact. Humanly speaking, Catholicity owes her triumphs to her logic. Even if God did not lead her by the hand, her logic would triumphantly carry her to the ultimate ends of the earth, as will appear more clearly in the following chapter. CHAPTER IV. Continuation of the same subject—Socialistic contradictions: If there be any truth demonstrated in our last chapter. it consists in the affirmation that the Liberal school has done nothing but establish premises which end in Socialistic consequences, and the Socialistic schools, R 258 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM . nothing but draw the consequences contained in the Liberal premises. Those two schools differ not in ideas, but in daring : when the question thus stands between them, it is clear the victory belongs by right to the more daring, and the more daring without any doubt is that which, without stopping midway, accepts their consequences with the principles. If this be so, there is no doubt, as was sufficiently demonstrated in our last chapter, that Socialism has the best of the battle, and that hers is the palm of victory. From the force of logic paraded by it in its contests with the Liberal, the Socialistic school has acquired a certain character of being logical and consistent, which, though, to a certain degree, is not, however, sufficiently justified ; in being more logical than the most illogical and contradictory of all the schools, the Socialistic does not effect very much, or rather nothing at all : and to deserve its character it is obliged to do more : on the one hand, it is obliged to demonstrate that it is not only logical and consistent in a relative, but also in an absolute manner, and then, that it is logical and con¬ sistent absolutely in the truth: for if it be only so in error, its logic and consistency is only a special manner of being illogical and inconsistent. There is no true consistency nor logic except in absolute truth. Well, now, Socialism is wanting in these two con¬ ditions : on the one hand, it is contradictory, because it is not one, as is proved by the variety of its schools, symbol of the variety of its doctrines : on the other, it is not consistent, because, like the Liberal school, it LIBERALISM , SOCIALISM. 259 refuses to accept, although not to the same degree, all the consequences of its own principles : and finally, its principles are false, and its consequences absurd. That it does not accept all the consequences of its own principles, we saw in the former chapter, when we remarked that the dissolution of political society being a logical consequence of its negation of all solidarity, it was content with accepting the dissolution of domestic society. There are those who believe that Socialism will be ruined because it asks and demands too much ; but I am of opinion that the contrary is the case, and its destruction will arise from its asking and demand¬ ing too little. In fact, what would be logical in the present case was to begin by asking that people should change their name every succeeding generation. In the system of solidarity, I can well conceive that the national name should be one, as the nation is one, in the whole course of history. That France should be called the nation governed by Louis Philippe and Clovis, is con¬ ceivable—not only conceivable, but natural—and not only natural, but necessary, supposing the system which upholds French solidarity, and communion of disasters and glories of past and present, of present and future generations. But it is inconceivable and contrary to the nature of things, in the system which cuts the thread 'of glory and time at every generation. In this system there are as many families and peoples as there are generations, and logic requires in this case, that as the representative names follow the vicissitudes of the things represented, with every change of generation there should 26 o ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, be a corresponding change in the names of peoples and families. That the absurd competes here with the gro¬ tesque, no one can deny ; but that the grotesque and the absurd are rigorously logical, no one can question, and these are precisely the two things which should be invincibly demonstrated. Socialism must freely ac¬ cept the death it has to die, choosing between the il¬ logical and absurd. The Socialistic, demonstrated without much effort against the Liberal, school, that the family, political, and religious solidarity once denied, national or monarchi¬ cal solidarity could not be admitted ; and on the con¬ trary, that it was absolutely necessary to suppress in the national public code the institution of monarchy, and in the public international code the constitutive differ¬ ences of peoples. But those same Socialistic schools, with a contradiction of which there is no example in the Liberal school, contradictory and absurd as it is, immediately recognise the highest, the most universal, humanly speaking, the most inconceivable, of all soli¬ darities, viz., the human solidarity. The banner of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as the common patrimony of all men, either signifies nothing, or that all men are soli- darious. The recognition of that solidarity, separated from the others and from the religious dogma which teaches and explains it to us, is an act of faith so super¬ natural and heroic, that I myself cannot conceive it, accustomed as I am to believe what I do not comore- x head, as a Catholic. To believe in the equality of all men, when we see LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM . 261 them all unequal; to believe in liberty, when we see slavery established in all parts ; to believe that all men are brothers, when history tells all are enemies; to believe that there is a common mass of misfortunes and of glories for all men born, when I see nothing but individual glories and misfortunes; to believe I am referred to humanity, when I know humanity is referred to me; to believe that humanity is my centre, when I constituted myself the centre of all; and finally, to believe that I should believe these things, when they are proposed to me by those who tell me that I should believe only my own reason, which contradicts all those things they propose to me, is an absurdity so stupendous, an abbera- tion so inconceivable, that I stand mute and astounded 1 in its presence. My astonishment increases when I observe that those who affirm human solidarity, deny that of the family,which is to affirm that enemies are brothers, and that brothers should not be brothers; that those who affirm human solidarity are the same who a little before denied the political, which is to affirm I have nothing in common with my own, and all in common with strangers; that those who affirm human solidarity deny religion, though the former cannot be explained without the latter ; and from all this I deduce in legitimate consequence that the Socialistic schools are at once illogical and absurd— illogical, because after demonstrating against the Liberal school that some solidarities cannot be accepted while others are rejected, they fall into the same error, accept¬ ing one amongst all, and rejecting the remainder—absurd. 262 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, because precisely the one they proposed to me is not a point of reason but of faith, and because this proposal comes to me from those who deny faith and proclaim the imprescriptable right of reason to empire and sovereignty. The Socialistic schools would be astounded, if, on call¬ ing their dogmas into question, the idea occurred to us of demanding from them a categorical answer to this categorical question :—Whence do you draw the conclu¬ sion that men are solidarious, brothers, equal and free ? And yet this question, which is valid against Catho¬ licity, obliged as it is to answer everything that is asked it, is more valid still against the most ration¬ alistic of all schools. Those abstract forms have not certainly been drawn from history. If history lends some support to any philosophical system, it is not certainly to that which proclaims the solidarity, the liberty, the equality and fraternity of the human race, but rather to that one nervously articulated by Hobbes, according to which universal, incessant, and simultaneous war is the natural state of man. Man is scarcely born when he appears to have come to the world through the mysterious power of a malicious conjuror, and charged with the load of an inexorable condemnation. All things raise their hands against him, and he raises his angry hand against all things. The first breath of air that blows on him, or the first ray of light that strikes him, is the first declaration of war by external things. All his vital powers rebel against the pressure of pain, and his whole existence is concentrated LIBERALISM , AND SOCLALISM. 263 in a sob. The greater number do not exceed this, for at this point and moment death seizes them ; the minority who sucessfully resist, begin to tread the way of their dolorous passion, and after continual war and various issues, stumble into the ultimate catastrophe, faint from their efforts and broken down by their sorrows. The earth is to them avaricious and cruel; it demands from them that sweat which is their life, and in exchange for the life it takes, scarcely distils a drop of water from its fountains to assuage their thirst, and a mouthful of food from its stores to appease their hunger. It prolongs their life, not that they may live, but that they may continue their sweats. Tyrants prolong the life of their slaves only because life is necessary to prolong their services. Wherever men gather together, the weak fall under the tyranny of the strong. A woman, remarkable for her talents, desiring to give proof of her ingenuity, began to think one day what would be the greatest of strange paradoxes, and she found none greater than that which affirms with calm¬ ness that slavery is a thing of modern, and liberty of ancient date. Whether she came to believe it herself through force of repetition, I know not: there is no manner of doubt, however, that the world believed it from her, and what was more, was very worthy of believing it. As regards equality, we know not, although it is possible—what is not possible to a ration¬ alistic philosopher—whether this idea derives its histori¬ cal and philosophical affiliation from the division of the human race into castes, of which some there be whose 264 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, office it is to command, and others to obey, and all to break out into wars and rebellion. The idea of frater¬ nity comes undoubtedly from those long periods of peace and calm which form the golden link of history. And as regards the idea of solidarity, who does not see whence it comes ? Who is ignorant of the fact that the Romans, in whom all antiquity is condensed, called foreigners and enemies by the same name, which, I suppose, was symbolical of human solidarity ? If those ideas cannot come to us from history, which condemns and belies them in all its pages, filled with sighs and written in blood, they must come to us either from events which happened in that primitive age which precedes all historic time, or directly from pure reason. As regards this latter source, I will merely say, without fear of contradiction, that pure reason is only exercised on things of pure reason ; and that, treating here of investigating the constituent elements of human nature, we are not dealing with a matter of pure reason, but with a fact, which, existing obscure with respect to us, requires to be more closely observed and have light thrown on it, that its obscurity may be converted into clearness. As regards that primitive age which pre¬ cedes all historic time, it is clear we cannot know it if it be not revealed to us. Supposing this, I feel myself authorised to ask the following question :—If you have not what you affirm, from reason, which is ignorant of, nor from history, which you know contradicts it, nor from an age anterior to all historic time, which is un¬ known to you, because you go on the supposition that LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 265 it has not been revealed, whence have you it ? And if you have it from no one, why do you affirm it? Shake¬ speare has told us what your theories are: they are words, words, and nothing but wordsbut words, I add, which inflict death on him who pronounces and on him who listens to them. This powerful virtue they have from the fact that they are not rationalistic words, which in themselves have no virtue whatever, but Catholic words, which have the privilege of giving life and taking it away, of slaying the living and resuscitating the dead. Those words are never pronounced in vain, and ever infuse terror, because no one knows whether they are going to give life or inflict death, although all know how great is their omnipotence. One day, when the shades of evening were falling on the serene and peaceful waters, the Lord entered into a fragile bark, followed by His disciples, and when the Lord closed His eyes, overcome by sleep, an impetuous tempest excited the waves, and the disciples began to pray, thinking they were about to perish. The Lord opened His eyes, and pronounced a few words, which the sea and winds heard with rever¬ ence : the sea became calm, and the wind ceased to blow. And then turning to His disciples, He uttered other words in their ears, and His disciples were filled with great fear :—Et timuerunt timore magno. The tempest was to them less terrific than the word of the Saviour. Another day, when two men tormented by devils came to the Lord and implored His grace, the Lord said to the devils, Go ; and the devils, obeying 266 ESS A YS ON CA THOUCISM, His voice, left the men free, and sought an asyium in unclean animals, who cast themselves into the sea, and were buried in its waters. Those who cared the herd, full of dread, through virtue of the divine word, sought safety in flight, and communicating their terror to the people of that region, they all went to the Lord and besought Him to leave their territory:—“ And they that kept them fled, and coming into the city, told everything, and concerning them that had been pos¬ sessed by the devils. And behold the whole city went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart from their coasts” (Matt. viii. 33, 34). The omnipotence of the divine word was more terrible to the people than the malevolence of the infernal spirits. When I hear a divine, that is a Catholic, word pro¬ nounced, I immediately look round to see what has happened, for I am certain that something must happen, and that what must happen must necessarily be a miracle of divine justice, or a prodigy of mercy. If it be the Church that pronounces it, I look for salvation; if some one else pronounces it, I look for death. Ask the world why it is filled with terror and dread, why the air is full of sad and sinister rumours, why all societies are disturbed, and hang in suspense like one who dreams he is about to lose his foothold and fall into an abyss. To ask the world, this is the same as to ask why one trembles when he sees a malefactor or a madman enter a store of powder with a lighted candle, the one igno¬ rant of, the other knowing too well, the virtue of the LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 267 candle. What has saved the world up to this is that the Church was in past times sufficiently powerful to extirpate heresies, which, consisting principally in teach¬ ing a doctrine different from that of the Church in the words the Church employs, would have long since hurried the world to its ultimate catastrophe, if they had not been extirpated. The real danger to human societies commenced on the day the great heresy of the sixteenth century acquired the right of citizenship in Europe. Since that, there is no revolution which does not involve for society a danger of death. This con¬ sists in the fact, that as they are all founded on the Protestant heresy, they are all fundamentally heretical. See, if not, how they all establish and legitimise them¬ selves with words and maxims taken from the gospel. The Sanculotism of the first French revolution sought its historic antecedents and titles of nobility in the humble nakedness of the meek Lamb ; nor were there wanting those who recognised the Messias in Marat, and called Robespierre his apostle. From the revolution of 1830 sprang the Sansimonian doctrine, whose mystic extravagances formed, I know not what new gospel emended and improved. From the revolution of 1848 sprang impetuously and copiously all the Socialistic doctrines expressed in evangelical words. Men had seen nothing of this before the sixteenth century. I do not wish to say by this that the Catholic world had not suffered great agonies, nor that ancient societies had not passed through great changes and transformations; I merely wish to say that those changes were not capable 268 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, of bringing society to the ground, nor those agonies of depriving it of life. To-day everything happens the reverse ; a battle lost by society in the streets of Paris suffices to bring European society to the ground, as if suddenly struck by a thunderbolt ; e cadde come corpo morto cade. Who does not see in modern revolutions compared with ancient an invincible power of destruction, which not being divine, must necessarily be Satanic ? Before leaving this subject, I think it opportune to make an important observation here, which I will leave to the reflection of my readers. We have a faithful report of two of the speeches of the angel of darkness; the first is that he made to Eve in paradise, the second to our Lord in the desert. In the first he used the words of God, disfigured to suit his purpose; in the second he quoted Scripture, interpreted in his own way. Would it be rash to believe, that as the word of God, taken in its true sense, is the only one which has the power of life, is also the only one, when disfigured, that has the power of death ? If this were so, it would be sufficiently explained why modern revolutions, in which the word of God is more or less disfigured, possess that destruc¬ tive virtue. Returning now to the Socialistic contradictions, I will say that it is not sufficient to have denied one after another religious, domestic, and political solidarity, if, as I have proved, human solidarity is not also denied, and with it liberty, equality, and fraternity, principles •all which can only find in it at once their reason and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 269 their origin ; and as the negation of these foundations of all Socialistic doctrines brings the whole edifice to the ground, it follows that Socialism cannot be consis¬ tent, if, beginning with the negation of Catholicism, it does not end in the negation of itself. I know that when Socialists profess the dogma of human solidarity, they do not thereby profess the Catholic doctrine. I know that between the one dogma and the other there is an essential difference, scarcely veiled by the identity of name. Humanity, which in the eyes of the Catholic only exists in the individuals which constitute it, exists in the eyes of the Socialist individually and concretely: whence it results, that when Socialists and Catholics say that humanity is solidarious, although they appear to say the same thing, in reality they say different things. Notwithstanding this, the Socialistic contradiction is evident, and placed beyond all doubt. Although humanity be the universal intelligence served by special groups which bear the name of peoples and families, logic requires that they should all obey in it and through it the same law, and that the groups be solidarious if it be solidarious. Hence the necessity of denying human solidarity, or of affirming it at once in individuals, in families, and in the State. Well, now, if there be one thing evident, it is that Socialism is incompatible with that radical negation and this abso¬ lute affirmation. To deny human solidarity is to deny itself, and to affirm the solidarity of the social group is to deny itself in another way. The world cannot 2/0 ESS A VS ON CA TH0L1CISM, become subject to Socialistic law without renouncing the sway of reason. Hence we see how far its most famous doctors, and above all, he who amongst those who compose its apostlate enjoys the greatest renown and fame, are from deserving the character of being consistent. M. Proudhon, in his contests with those partisans of the new gospel who desire the extinction of all individual rights, and the concentration in the State of all domestic, civil, political, social, and religious, rights, did not require to make great efforts to demonstrate that communism, that is, governmentalism elevated to the extreme, was extravagant and absurd in the prin¬ ciples common to the new sectaries. In fact, com¬ munism, conceiving the State as an absolute unity which concentrates in itself all rights and absorbs all individuals, conceives it as highly and powerfully soli- darious, as unity and solidarity are one and the same thing considered in two different points of view. Catho¬ licity, depositary of the dogma of solidarity, derives it from unity, which makes it possible and necessary. Well, now, as the fundamental point of Socialism is precisely the negation of that dogma, it is clear that communism contradicts itself when it denies it in theory and recognises it in practice, when it denies it in its prin¬ ciples and affirms it in its applications. If the negatior of the family solidarity carries with it that of the famil); itself, the negation of political solidarity carries with it that of all government. That negation proceeds equally I LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 271 from the notions Socialists form of the equality and the liberty common to all men, as that equality and liberty cannot be conceived as limited by a government, but simply and naturally by the free action and reaction of individuals on each other. M. Proudhon is then con¬ sistent when he says in his “ Confessions of a Revolu¬ tionist : ”— “ All men are equal and free. Society is then, as well by its nature as by the functions of its destiny, antinomical, which means ungovernable. The sphere of activity of each citizen being the result, on the one hand, of the natural division of labour, and on the other, of the election he makes of a profession, and the social functions being constituted in such a manner as to produce an harmonic effect, order becomes the result of the free action of all; whence I draw the absolute negation of government : every one who puts his hand on me to govern me is a tyrant and a usurper, and I proclaim him my enemy.” But if M. Proudhon is consistent in denying govern¬ ment, he is only so by halves when he indicates this negation as the last of those which are involved in these Socialistic doctrines. With the family is denied domestic solidarity, with government political solidarity ; but in the very place he denies those two solidarities, he affirms, with inconceivable contradiction, the human, which serves them for foundation. We already demonstrated that to affirm equality and liberty is the same as to affirm human solidarity. Nor does the contradiction stop here ; for at the same time that he affirms equality and liberty in his “ Confessions of a Revolutionist.” he 272 ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM,\ denies fraternity in Chap. vi. of his book of “ Economical Contradictions,” in these words :—“ Do you speak to me of fraternity ? We shall be brothers if you insist on it, provided that I be the eldest brother, and you come after me on this condition :—that society, our common mother, respect my primogeniture and my services by giving me double portion; you tell me you will attend to my necessities proportionately to my resources, and I on the contrary require you to attend to them pio- portionately to my labour; otherwise I cease to laboui.” Whence we see the contradiction is double, for if, on one hand, there is contradiction in affirming human solidarity when the domestic and political are denied, there is still greater contradiction in denying fraternity when the principle of liberty and equality among men is proclaimed. Equality, liberty, and fraternity are principles which mutually suppose each other, and are resolved one in the other, as the human, the political, and the domestic solidarities are dogmas which are re¬ solved in and mutually suppose each other. To accept some and reject others is to accept what is rejected and reject what is accepted; is at one and the same time to deny what is affirmed and affirm what is denied. As regards the question relative to government, the negation of all government on the part of M. Proudhon is only an apparent contradiction. If the idea of govern¬ ment is not in contradiction with the Socialistic idea, there is no necessity to deny it; if there is contradiction between these two ideas, it is a notorious inconsistenc)^ to proclaim in another form the government he denies. M. LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 273 Proudhon, who denies government, symbol of unity and of political solidarity, recognises it in another manner and form, when he recognises and proclaims social unity and solidarity in the following words :—“ Only society, that is, the collective being, can follow its inclination and abandon itself to its free will without fear of abso¬ lute and immediate error. This superior reason which is in it, and which slowly escapes from it through the manifestations of the multitude and the reflections of individuals, always puts it right in the end. The philo¬ sopher is incapable of discovering the truth by intuition ; and if he attempt to direct society, he runs a great risk of establishing his own ideas, inefficient and insufficient ever, in place of the eternal laws of order, and thus hurrying society to the abyss. The philosopher requires something to direct him. What else can that something be but the law of progress, and that logic which resides in humanity as in its centre ? ” (“ Confessions of a Revo¬ lutionist.”) Here three things are supposed — unity, solidarity, and, in a word, social infallibility, precisely the selfsame things which communism afflrms or supposes in the State; and these others are denied, the capacity and com¬ petence of individuals to govern nations, the very thing denied in them by communism. Whence it follows that the followers of Proudhon and the communists reach % the same term by different roads : the one and the other aff rm government, and with it the unity and solidarity of human societies. Government is for one and the other infallible—that is to say, omnipotent ; and being so, S 274 ESS A VS GN CA THOLICISM , excludes all idea of liberty in individuals, who, when placed under the jurisdiction of an omnipotent and in¬ fallible government, can be nothing but slaves. Let government reside in the State, symbol of political unity, or in society, considered as a solidarious being, it will ever result that government is the condensation of all social rights, as well in the first as in the second of these suppositions. Whence follows, for the individual consi¬ dered isolatedly, the most complete slavery. M. Proudhon, then, does the contrary of what he says, and is altogether contrary to what he appears ; he pro¬ claims liberty and equality, and constitutes tyranny; he denies solidarity, and yet supposes it; he calls him¬ self an anarchist, and has a hunger and thirst for govern¬ ment. He is timid, and appears daring; the daring is in his phrases, the timidity in his ideas. He appears dogmatical, and he is sceptical; he is sceptical in sub¬ stance and dogmatical in form. He solemnly announces that he is going to proclaim new and strange truths, and he does nothing but makes himself the echo of ancient and discredited errors. That apothegm of his, that property is robbery , has captivated the French by its originality and ingenuity. It will be well for our neighbours to know that this apothegm is of ancient date this side of the Pyrenees. From Viriatus to our own days, every robber that takes to the road, on presenting his gun at the breast of the traveller, calls him a robber , and takes from him all that he has because he is a robber. M. Proudhon has done nothing but steal his apothegm from the Spanish LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 275 robbers, as they rob the traveller of his purse. As he presents himself in spectacle to the nations as original, when he is only a plagiarist, so when only apostle of the past, he calls himself the prophet of the future. His principal artifice consists in expressing the idea he affirms in words which contradict it. Every one calls despotism despotism, but M. Proudhon calls it anarchy; and when he has given its contradictory name to the thing affirmed, he makes war on his friends with the name, and on his enemies with the thing. With the communistic dictatorship which is at the bottom of his system, he scares capital, and with the word anarchy he alarms and drives away his friends the communists; and when he turns his eyes in all directions, and sees the one without power to fly, and the other already in shame¬ ful flight, he bursts into a loud laugh. Another of his artifices consists in taking from each system what, though not sufficient to confound him with those who sustain it, is quite enough to excite the anger of those who contradict it; he has whole pages which might be subscribed by all partisans of order—these pages are directed to the turbulent; and others which might be subscribed by the most fanatical democrats—these are directed to the friends of order. In some he makes a show of the most filthy atheism, and when writing them he intends them for Catholics ; and others, in fine, might be accepted by the most fervent Catholic, and these he destines for the ears of materialists and atheists. The man’s greatest pleasure is to raise his hand against every one, and oblige every one to raise his hand against ESS A YS ON CATHOLICISM\ 276 1 him. When he says that he regards as an enemy whoever wishes to govern him, he reveals only the half of his secret; the other half consists in affirming that every one who follows and obeys him is his enemy. If the world once became Proudhonian, he, in opposition to the world, would cease to be Proudhonian ; and if the world followed his example in that, he would hang himself from the first tree he met on the road. I know *aot if after the misfortune of not being able to love, which is the satanic misfortune par excellence , there be a greater than not desiring to be loved, which is the Proudhonian misfortune. And yet that man, the tre¬ mendous object of divine wrath, preserves away there, in the most hidden recess of his obscure and darkened being, something of light and love, something which distinguishes him from the infernal spirits; although he is involved in shadows which are rapidly condensing, he is not all hatred and darkness. Declared enemy of all literary as well as all moral beauty, he is beautiful without knowing it, literarily and morally, in the few pages he consecrates to the bashful suavity of modesty, to pure and chaste love, and to Catholic harmony and magnificence. His style then rises to the level of the majesty and pomp of his subject, or assumes the soft and pleasing form of freshest idyls. . Considered isolatedly, M. Proudhon is inexplicable and inconceivable. M. Proudhon is not a person, although he appears so : he is a personification. Though con¬ tradictory and illogical as he is, the world calls him consistent, because he is a consistency ; he is the con- LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 2 77 sistency of all the exotic ideas, of all the contra¬ dictory principles, and of all the absurd premises, modern Rationalism has established for the last three hundred years; and as the consequence contains its premises, and the premises their consequence, those three centuries necessarily contain M. Proudhon, as M. Proudhon necessarily involves them. For this reason, the examination of the one and of the other gives the same result. All the Proudhonian contradictions are in the last three hundred years, and in M. Proudhon are the contradictions of the last three centuries, and both contradictions are concentrated in that, in a certain way, most notable work of the present age, the “ System of Economical Contradictions.” Between this work and its author, and those rationalistic centuries, there is an absolute identity: the only difference is in the names and forms; the thing represented in common takes here the name of book, there the form of man, and farther on that of time. This explains why M. Proudhon is condemned to never be, and to always appear to be, original. He is condemned to never be original, be¬ cause, supposing the premises, what is there less original than the consequence? He is condemned to always appear so, because what can appear more original than the concentration, in one sole person, of all the contradic¬ tions of three contradictory centuries ? This does not mean that M. Proudhon does not seek after true originality. M. Proudhon wishes to be truly original when he aspires to formulate the synthesis of all antinomies, and to discover the supreme equation of 278 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , all contradictions; but it is precisely here, where lies the manifestation of his individual personality, that we discover his impotence. His equation is only the begin¬ ning of a new series of contradictions, and his synthesis of a new series of antinomies. Placed between property, which is the thesis, and communism, which is the anti¬ thesis, he seeks the synthesis in non-hereditary property, without remarking that non-hereditary property is not property, and consequently his synthesis is no synthesis, because it does not suppress the contradiction, but only a new manner of denying the conquered thesis, and affirming the victorious antithesis. When, to formulate the synthesis—which is to comprehend on one hand authority, which is the thesis, and liberty, which is the antithesis—he denies government and proclaims anarchy; if by this he wishes to say that there is to be no govern¬ ment, his synthesis is nothing but the negation of the thesis, which is authority, and the affirmation of the antithesis, which is human liberty; and on the contrary, if he means that dictatorial and absolute government is not to reside in the State, but in society, in that case he does nothing but deny the antithesis and affirm the thesis, deny liberty and affirm communistic omnipotence. In either case, where is the reconciliation ?—where the synthesis ? M. Proudhon is strong only when he is con¬ tent with being the personification of modern Rational¬ ism, by nature absurd and contradictory ; and he is weak only when he manifests his individual personality, when he is converted from a personification into a person. If after examining him in his various aspects, I were LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 279 asked what is the dominant trait of his spiritual physi¬ ognomy, I would answer that it is the contempt of God and men. Never did man sin so grievously against humanity and the Holy Ghost. When that chord of his heart is struck, it ever sounds with eloquent and sonorous echo. It is not he who speaks then; no, it is another who is in him, who holds him in his bonds, who has possession of him, and throws him into epileptic con¬ vulsions ; it is another who is greater than he, and keeps up a perpetual dialogue with him. What he says some¬ times is so strange, and he says it in such a strange way, that the mind hangs in suspense, and knows not if it be a man or a devil who speaks, or whether he speaks seri¬ ously or in jest. As regards himself, if he could arrange things according to his caprice, he would prefer to be taken for a devil rather than for a man. Man or devil, whichever he be, it is certain that three centuries of dam¬ nation press on his shoulders with crushing weight. CHAPTER V. Continuation of the same subject. The most consistent of modern Socialists, in the point of view from which we have been treating the question, appears to me to be Robert Owen, when, breaking into open and cynical rebellion against all religion, deposi¬ taries of religious and moral dogmas, he denied duty at 28 o ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , one stroke, by denying not only collective responsibility, which constitutes the dogma of solidarity, but also in¬ dividual responsibility, which rests on the dogma of the free will of man. Having denied free will, Robert Owen denies sin, and the transmission of sin. So far, no one can doubt that there is logic and consistency in all these deductions ; but where the contradiction and extravagances commence, is when Owen, having denied sin and free will, affirms and distinguishes moral good and evil, and when affirming and distinguishing these, he denies the penalty which is their necessary conse¬ quence. Man, according to Robert Owen, acts in consequence of invincible convictions. These convictions come to him, on one side, from his special organisation, and on the other, from the circumstances which surround him ; and as he is not the author, either of that organisation, or of those circumstances, it follows that the former, as well as the latter, act in him fatally and necessarily. All this is logical and consistent, but it is all illogical and contradictory and absurd to affirm good and evil when human liberty is denied. The absurd reaches the inconceivable and the monstrous, when our author at¬ tempts to found a society and a government in juxta¬ position with irresponsible beings. The idea of govern¬ ment and that of society are correlative of the idea of human liberty. Deny one, and the negation of the others logically follows ; and when you either deny or affirm all, you do no more than affirm and deny the same thing, and at one and the same time. I know LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 281 not if there be in human annals a more striking proof of blindness, of inconsistency, and of madness, than that which Owen gives, when, not satisfied with the extrava¬ gance of affirming society and government, after having denied individual responsibility and liberty, he yet goes further, and falls into the inconceivable extravagance of recommending benevolence, justice, and charity to those who, not being responsible or free, cannot love, nor be just, nor be benevolent. The limits which I imposed on myself on commencing this work, prevent me from advancing as far as might be desirable in the wide field of Socialistic contradictions. Those that we have given are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to establish beyond all doubt the incontrovertible fact that Socialism, from whatever point of view we may consider it, is a stupid contradiction, and nothing but chaos can come from its contradictory schools. Their contradiction is so palpable, that it will not be difficult for us to place it in relief, even in these points on which all those sectaries appear to be united and agreed. If there be any negation which is common to them, it is certainly the negation of the solidarity of the family, and of nobility. Once arrived here, all the revolu¬ tionary and Socialistic doctors raised their voices to deny that community of glories and of misfortunes, of merit and of demerit, which the human race has ever recognised as a fact, between ancestors and descendants in all ages. Very well, those same revolutionists and Socialists affirm of themselves in practice the very thing they 282 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , have been denying of others in theory. When the French Revolution, bloody and destructive, trampled on all the national glories ; when, intoxicated with its triumphs, it believed itself sure of final victory, I know not what aristocratic pride of race seized it, which was in direct opposition with all its dogmas. Then it was that the most famous revolutionists, presenting them¬ selves to the view of men, like ancient feudal barons, commenced to be very scrupulous and careful in giving letters of naturalisation in their noble family. My readers will remember that famous question put by the doctors of the new law, to those who presented them¬ selves to them in the white robes of candidature—What crime have you committed ? Unfortunate the man who had committed no crime, for he would never see the gates of the capital open for him, in which the revolu¬ tionary demigod flashed in awful majesty ! The human race had instituted the nobility of virtue, the revolution instituted that of crime. When after the revolution of February, we have seen the Socialists and Republicans divide themselves into categories separated one from the other by formidable abysses ; when one party with the title of republicans of the eve , showered con¬ tempt and ridicule on the other who had only been republicans of the day following ; when, more fortunate, and consequently more arrogant than others, some proudly said, The coast is all ours, for republicanism is natural in us, and comes to us with the blood—what is this but proclaiming in full tide republicanism all the prejudices of solidarity? Examine one by one all LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 283 its schools, each and all struggle to constitute them¬ selves a family, and to lay claim to the most noble descent. In this family group the ancestor is Saint Simon the noble; in that, Fourrier the illustrious; in the atheist group, Babeuf the patriot. In all there is a common chief, a common patriotism, a common glory, a common mission ; and all the groups and all the families, united by a close solidarity, seek in past ages some personality so noble, so lofty, so exalted, that it may serve all as a bond of union and centre. Some fix their eyes on Plato, the glorious personification of ancient wisdom ; others, carrying their mad ambition to the high¬ est pitch of blasphemy, fix them on the Redeemer of the human race. Perhaps they might despise Him, being humble; but in their insolent pride they do not forget that, humble and poor and wretched as He was, He was a king, and felt the noble blood of kings flowing in His veins. As regards M. Proudhon, the perfect type of Socialistic, which is, in its turn, the perfect type of human, pride—going back on the wings of his arrogance to ages more remote, he seeks his ancestors in those times that bordered on the creation, when the Mosaic institution flourished amongst the Hebrews. On a more opportune occasion I will satisfactorily demonstrate, as regards M. Proudhon, his nobility is so ancient, and his descent so illustrious, that to discover its origin it is necessary to go still farther, even to times removed be¬ yond the wide circle of history, and to beings in perfec¬ tion and dignity incomparably superior to man. At present, it is sufficient for my purpose to say that the 284 ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM , Socialistic schools are condemned in an irrevocable manner; that every one of their principles is contra¬ dictory of the one that precedes it, and of the one that follows it; that their conduct is the complete condemna¬ tion of all their theories, and their theories the radical condemnation of their conduct. It only remains for us to form a proximate idea of what the Socialistic edifice would be without those defects of proportion, which deform and prevent it from coming under any regular style of architecture. Having seen what present Socialism is in its contradictory dogmas, it may be useful that we briefly examine what future Socialism must be when age has stripped it of its contradictions and its inconsistency. Here the method is to take as starting-point, any of the propositions affirmed in common by all the. schools, and to deduce from it, one by one, the consequences which it contains. The fundamental negation of Socialism is the negation of sin, that grand affirmation which is, as it were, the centre of the Catholic affirmations. That negation carries with it, by way of consequence, a series of nega¬ tions, some relative to the divine, others to the human, and others to the social, being. To go over that whole series would be a thing impossible, and foreign to our purpose: what we have to do is, simply to point out the more fundamental of these negations. The Socialists not only deny sin, but the possibility of sin. The fact, and the possibility of the fact, being denied, the negation of human liberty follows, which cannot be conceived without .sin, or, at least, without the LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 285 power in human nature of converting its innocence into sin. Liberty being denied, the responsibility of man must be denied. The negation of responsibility carries with it the negation of penalty ; this once denied, the negation of divine government follows on the one hand, and the negation of human government on the other. There¬ fore, with regard to the question of government, the negation of sin ends in nihilism. Individual responsibility being denied, responsibility in common must be denied. What is denied of the indi¬ vidual cannot be affirmed of the species, which signifies that human responsibility does not exist. As we cannot affirm of some what, on one hand, we deny of each individually, and, on the other, of all collectively, it follows that once denying the responsibility of the individual, and that of the species, we must deny the responsibility of all associations. This signifies that there is no social, political, or domestic responsibility. Therefore, with reg ard to the question of responsibility, the negation of sin ends in nihilism. Individual, domestic, political, and human responsi¬ bility being denied, the negation of solidarity in the individual, in the family, in the State, and in the species follows, as solidarity signifies nothing more than respon¬ sibility in common. Therefore, as regards solidarity, the negation of sin ends in nihilism. Solidarity in man, in the family, in the State, and in the species being denied, we must deny unity in the species, in the State, in the family, and in man, as the 286 ESS A VS ON CA FHOLIC/SM, identity between solidarity and unity is so complete, that what is one cannot be conceived, unless as being soli- darious, nor what is solidarious unless as being one. Therefore, as regards the question of unity, the negation of sin ends in nihilism. Unity being absolutely denied, the following negations follow—that of humanity, that of the family, that of society, and that of man. The fact is, nothing exists but under the condition of being one, and therefore it cannot be affirmed that the family, society, and humanity exist, but on condition of affirming domestic, political, and human unity ; these three unities being denied, the negation of these three things must follow. To affirm these existences and deny their unity, is to be guilty of a contradiction in terms. Each of these things must be one, or cannot be at all; therefore if they are not one, they do not exist ; their very name is absurd, for it is a name which does not represent nor designate anything. With regard to the individual man, his negation follows in a different way. The individual man is the only one can exist to a certain degree, without being one and solidarious ; what is denied by denying his unity and solidarity, is that in different moments of his life he is one and the same person. If there be no bond of union between the past and the present, and between the present and the future, what follows is that man only exists in the present moment. But in this supposi¬ tion it is clear that his existence is more phenomenal than real. If I do not live in the past, because it is past, LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 287 and because there is no unity between the present and the past; if I do not live in the future, because the future does not exist, and because when it will exist it will not be future ; if I only live in the present, and the present does not exist, because when I am about to affirm it exists it has already past, the result is that my existence is more theoretical than practical; for in reality, if I do not exist at all times, I do not exist at any time, I do not conceive time except in its three forms united, and I cannot conceive it when I separate them. What is the past, but something that is not now ? What is the future, but something that does not yet exist ? And who can detain the present a sufficient time to affirm it, after it has escaped from the future, and before it is converted into the past ? Therefore to affirm the existence of man, denying the unity of time, is nothing else than to give him the speculative existence of a ma¬ thematical point. Therefore the negation of sin ends in nihilism, as well in regard to the existence of humanity, of society, and of the family, as in regard to the exist¬ ence of man. Therefore all the Socialistic, or to speak with more exactness, all the Rationalistic doctrines necessarily end in nihilism ; and there is nothing more natural and more logical, if we examine it well, than that those who separate from God should end in nothing, as there is nothing beyond God. Supposing this, I am authorised in accusing present Socialism of being timid and contradictory ; to deny the Christian God to affirm another god ; to deny humanity under one aspect, to affirm it in a different point of ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, view; to deny society with certain forms, to come to subsequently affirm it with different forms ; to deny the family on one hand, and to affirm it on the other; to deny man in a certain way, to afterwards affirm him in a different or contrary way: all this is to enter on the path of timid, contradictory, and cowardly transactions. Present Socialism is a semi-Catholicism, and nothing more. If the limits of this work permitted, it would not be difficult for me to demonstrate that in the most advanced of its doctors, there is a greater number of Catholic affirmations than Socialistic negations, which produces an absurd Catholicism and a contradictory Socialism. If we affirm a god, we must fall into the hands of the God of Catholics; if we affirm humanity, we come to the humanity, one and solidarious, of the Christian dogma; if we affirm society, we must sooner or later come to the Catholic affirmation about social institutions; if we affirm the family, we must afterwards affirm, one way or another, all that Catholicism affirms, and all that Socialism denies; in fine, every affirmation of man, no matter how it is made, is finally resolved into the affirmation of Adam the man of Genesis. Catholicism is like those formidable cylinders through which if a part pass, the whole must go. Through that formidable cylinder shall pass, without leaving a track behind, unless it change its course, Socialism with all its pontiffs, and with all its doctors. M. Proudhon, who is not usually ridiculous, is so, however, when, establishing as a formula the negation of government as the last of all negations, he goes about LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 289 in the sublimity of his audacity, with almost august ges¬ ture, demanding of the people the first place amongst Socialists. Socialists in presence of Catholics, are like Greeks in presence of the priests of the East—children who appear men. The negation of all government, far from being the last of possible negations, is nothing but a preliminary negation, which future Nihilists will set down in the last of their axioms. Not going beyond that, M. Proudhon will have to pass, like the rest, through the Catholic cylinder; everything but nothing¬ ness passes through it. He must then affirm nothings, or pass through that cylinder with all his negations, with all his affirmations, with his whole soul, and with his whole body. Whilst M. Proudhon does not valiantly choose his party, he authorises me to accuse him before future Rationalists, as suspected of latent Catholicism. Catholicism is not a thesis, and not being so, cannot be combated by an antithesis; it is a synthesis which em¬ braces all, which contains all, and which explains all, which cannot be, I will not say conquered, but even combated, except by a synthesis of the same species, which, like it, should embrace, contain, and explain all things. In the Catholic synthesis all human theses and antitheses have convenient room. It attracts and condenses all in itself, with the invin¬ cible force of an incommunicable virtue. Those who think they are outside Catholicism, are in it, because it is, as it were, the atmosphere of intelligences; the Socialists, like the rest, after gigantic efforts to separate themselves from it, have done no more than become bad Catholics. T ESSA VS ON CA THOLICDAf, 290 CHAPTER VI. Dogmas correlative of that of solidarity—Bloody sacri¬ fices — Theories of the Rationalistic Schools about Capital Punishment . As Socialism is an incoherent compound of thesis and antithesis, which contradict and destroy each other, the grand Catholic synthesis resolves all these things into unity, by infusing into them all its sovereign harmony. It may be said of its dogmas, that without ceasing to be various, they are one only. In such a way do those which precede merge into those which follow, and those which follow into those which precede, that it cannot be determined which is the first or which the last in that divine circle. That virtue possessed by all, of penetrat¬ ing one another in their most intimate essence, prevents any of them from being affirmed or denied by itself, and renders it necessary for all to be affirmed or denied together; and as in its dogmatic affirmations all pos¬ sible affirmations are exhausted, it follows that against Catholicism there can be no affirmation of any sort, and no particular negation against its prodigious synthesis : there can be nothing but an absolute negation. Well, now, God, who is so manifest in the Catholic expression, has disposed things in such a way that that supreme negation, logically necessary to form a contrast to the divine expression, is totally impossible, as a person must, in order to deny all, commence by denying him- LIBERALISM , SOCIALISM. 291 self, and if he deny himself, he can deny nothing else afterwards. Hence it follows that the Catholic expres¬ sion, being invincible, is eternal ; from the first day of creation it comes expanding in space and resounding in time, with an immense force of expansion, and with an infinite power of resonance. The sovereign virtue has not yet diminished ; and when the hours cease to roll, and space is annihilated, that expression will be eternally resounding in the highest heavens. Everything in this world below is passing—men with their sciences, which are nothing but ignorance, empires with their glories, which are nothing but smoke; that resounding expression is alone at rest and in its proper being, affirming all with one sole affirmation which is ever consistent with itself. The dogma of solidarity, confounding itself with that of unity, constitutes with it one sole dogma; considered in itself, it is resolved into two, which, like that of solidarity and that of unity, are one and the same in essence, and two in their manifestations. The solidarity, and the unity, of all men amongst ‘themselves, carry with them the idea of a responsibility in common, and this responsibility supposes in its turn, that the deserts of the one can injure or be of advantage to the other. When it is the evil that is communicated, the dogma preserves its generic name of solidarity, and it changes it for reversibility, when it is the advantage that is communicated. Thus we say that we all sinned in Adam, because we have all solidarity in him; and we were all saved by Jesus Christ, because His merits were reversible to us. 292 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , And we see the difference is here only in the names, and does not at all alter the thing signified. The same happens with the dogmas of imputation and of substitu¬ tion—they are both nothing but those same dogmas considered in their application. By virtue of the dogma of imputation we all suffer Adam’s penalty, and by the dogma of substitution the Lord suffered for us all. But as we here see, there is substantially ques¬ tion but of one dogma. The principle in virtue of which we have been saved in the Lord, is identical with that by which we were all culpable, and punished in Adam. That principle of solidarity, by which are explained the two great mysteries of our redemption and of the transmission of sin, is in its turn explained by that same transmission, and by the human redemp¬ tion. Without solidarity you cannot even conceive a prevaricating and redeemed humanity ; and on the other hand, it is evident that if humanity has not been redeemed by Jesus Christ, nor has fallen in Adam, it cannot be conceived as being one and solidarious. As by this dogma, joined to that of the prevarication of Adam, is revealed to us the true nature of man, God has not permitted that it should fall into oblivion amongst the nations. This serves to explain why all the peoples of the world bear clearest testimonies to it, and why those testimonies are recorded, eloquently in history. There is no people so civilised nor tribe so uncultivated, that has not believed these two things, that the sins of some can bring down the anger of God on the heads of all, and that all can be saved from the LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 293 penalty, and from sin transmitted, by the offering of a victim in perfect holocaust. For the sin of Adam God condemned the human race, and saved it through the merits of His beloved Son. Noah, inspired by God, condemns in Canaan his whole race ; God blesses in Abraham, and afterwards in Isaac, and then in Jacob, the whole Hebrew race. Sometimes He saves culpable children through the merits of their ancestors; at other times He chastises, even in their last generation, the sins of culpable ancestors ; and none of these things, which reason regards as incredible, has caused astonishment or repugnance in the human race, which has believed them with a firm and lasting faith. CEdipus sins, and the gods pour out the cup of their displeasure on Thebes. CEdipus is the object of the Divine wrath, and the merits of his expiation are reversible to Thebes. On the greatest and most solemn day of creation, when God himself Made Man was about to proclaim by His death the truth of all these dogmas, He desired that they should be first proclaimed and confessed by the deicide people itself, who, vociferating with supernatural and sinister clamour, let these words fall from its lips— “ His blood be upon us and upon our children! ” It would appear that God permitted both times and dogmas to be here condensed. On the same day, the same people, by putting Him to death, imputes to One, and chastises in Him, the sins of all, and demands the application of the same dogma to itself, by declaring its children participators in its sin. On that same day on which this was proclaimed by a whole people, God 294 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, himself proclaims the same dogma by making Him¬ self solidarious with man ; and the dogma of reversi¬ bility by asking the Father, in reward of His suffering for the pardon of His enemies; and the dogma of satis¬ faction by dying for them ; and that of redemption, the consequence of all the others, by which the sinner was redeemed ; for the substitute, who suffered death in vir¬ tue of the dogma of solidarity, was accepted in virtue of that of reversibility. All these dogmas, proclaimed on the same day by a people, and by a God, and fulfilled, after being pro¬ claimed, in the person of a God, and in the generations of a people, were being proclaimed and fulfilled, though imperfectly, from the beginning of the world, and were symbolised in an institution before they were fulfilled in * a person. The institution in which they were symbol¬ ised, was that of bloody sacrifices. That mysterious and, humanly speaking, inconceivable institution, is a fact so universal and constant, that it exists in all peoples and in all regions. So that amongst social institutions, the most universal is precisely the most inconceivable, and appears the most absurd, it being here worthy of note, that universality is an attribute common to the institu¬ tion in which those dogmas are symbolised, to the Per¬ son in whom they were fulfilled, and to the dogmas themselves which were symbolised in that institution, and fulfilled in that person. Imagination itself cannot conceive other dogmas, Person, or institution more universal. Those dogmas contain all the laws by which human things are governed ; that Person contains LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 295 the divinity and humanity joined in one; and that institution is, on one side, commemorative of what those dogmas contain of universal, on the other, symbolical of that one Person in whom universality par excellence exists, whilst on another side, considered in itself, it reaches to the confines of the world, and extends beyond the limits of history. Abel is the first man that offered to God a bloody sacri¬ fice after the great tragedy of paradise; and that sacri¬ fice, inasmuch as it was bloody, was acceptable in the eyes of God, who rejected that of Cain, which consisted of the fruits of the earth. And what is here singular and mysterious is, that he who had shed blood in ex¬ piatory sacrifice, conceives a hatred of blood, and dies sooner than shed that of his enemy; whilst he who refuses to shed it as the sign of expiation, becomes so brutal as to shed the blood of his brother. How does it happen that when shed in one way it removes, and in another impresses, stains ? How is it that all shed it in a different manner ? From that first effusion of blood it ceased not to run, and it never ran without condemning some and purifying others, ever preserving intact its condemnatory and its purifying virtue. All the men that come after Abel the just, and Cain, the fratricide resembled more or less one of those two types of those two cities which are governed by contrary laws and different governors, and are called the city of God and the city of the world ; which are not opposed because the one sheds blood and the other does not, but because in the one it is shed by love, and 296 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM,\ in the other by vengeance; in the one it is offered to man, and in the other to God, in expiatory sacrifice and acceptable holocaust. The human race, in which the breath of the biblical traditions was never totally extinguished, has ever believed with an invincible faith these three things : that it is necessary blood should be shed ; and when shed in one way it purifies, and in another maddens. Of these truths clear testimony is given by history, full of the accounts of cruel episodes, bloody conquests, the subversion and destruction of famous cities, atro¬ cious deaths, pure victims placed on smoking altars, of brothers rising against brothers, the rich against the poor, parents against their children, the entire earth being like a lake which neither the winds cool nor the sun warms with his powerful rays. They are no less clearly witnessed to by the bloody sacrifices offered to God on all the altars of the world, and finally, by the legislation of all peoples, which excommunicates him who takes life, and deprives him of his own. In the tragedy of “ Orestes,” Euripides puts in the mouth of Apollo these words :—“ Helen is not culpable of the war of Troy ; her beauty was only the instrument of which the gods availed themselves to enkindle war between two peoples, and cause to flow the blood which was to purify the earth stained with a multitude of crimes.” Whence we see that the poet, echo at once of the human and the popular traditions, attributes to blood a secret virtue of purification which is myste- riouslv hidden in it. * LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 297 As sacrifice depends on the existence of that cause and that virtue, it is clear that blood must have acquired this virtue under the empire of that cause, in an epoch anterior to bloody sacrifices ; and as these sacrifices have been instituted since the time of Abel, it is beyond all doubt that the cause and virtue we speak of are anterior to Abel, and contemporaneous with the great event of paradise in which that virtue and its cause must neces¬ sarily have their beginning. That great event is the pre¬ varication of Adam. As the flesh of Adam was culpable, and in the flesh of Adam that of the whole species, it was necessary, that the penalty might bear proportion with the crime, it should fall on all flesh, like the crime itself. Hence the necessity of the perpetual effusion of human blood. The crime of Adam had been followed, however, by a promise of a Redeemer ; and that promise, substitut¬ ing the Redeemer for the culprit, was capable of sus¬ pending the sentence of condemnation till He who was to come should appear. This explains why Abel, depo¬ sitary for Adam at once of the sentence of condemnation, and of its suspension till the Substitute who was to suffer the penalty for the culprit should come, instituted the only sacrifice which could be acceptable in the eyes of God—the commemorative and symbolic sacrifice. The sacrifice of Abel was so perfect that it contained in itself, in a wonderful manner, all the Catholic dogmas : as far as it was a sacrifice in general, it was an act of devotion and adoration towards the omnipotent and sovereign God ; as far as it wasva bloody sacrifice, it was the proclamation of the dogmas of the prevarication of 298 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , Adam, and of the liberty of the prevaricator, who would not have been culpable without free will; and of the transmission of the sin and the penalty, without which Adam alone should be offered in sacrifice; and of solidarity, without which Abel would not have inherited sin. At the same time, it was, with respect to God, an acknowledgment of His justice, and of the care He has of all human things. Considering it with reference to the victims offered to the Lord, it was at once a commemoration of the promise He gave of removing the penalty from the true culprit, and of the reversibility, by virtue of which those punished for the sin of Adam were to be saved by the merits of Another, and of the substitution, by virtue of which One who was to come should be offered in sacrifice for the whole human race. Finally, as the victims were first born lambs with¬ out spot, the sacrifice of Abel was symbolical of the true sacrifice, in which the meek and spotless Lamb, only Son of the Father, was to be offered in holiest sacrifice for the sins of the world. In this way Catholi¬ city, which explains and contains all things by a miracle of condensation, is completely contained and explained in the first bloody sacrifice offered to God by man. What virtue is that possessed by the Catholic religion, which allows her to dilate and become condensed with an infinite dilation and condensation ? What wonders are those which with their immense variety find room in a symbol ? And what symbol is that so comprehensive and perfect as to contain so many things of such a nature? Such sublime consonance and harmony, perfections so LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 299 sovereign and beautiful, hang over man, that they sur¬ pass not only our understanding, but all we could desire or fancy. Passing from Father to Son, the tradition began to be slowly but surely obscured and blotted out from the-memory and intellect of men. God in His infinite wisdom did not allow the grand echoes of the biblical traditions to be totally effaced from the earth, but in the midst of the tumults of peoples, precipitated one on the other, and all debased by idolatry, those echoes were so changed and weakened, that they lost their magnificent richness of sound, and became vague, inter¬ mittent, and confused. Then it was that men drew from the vague idea of a primitive fault infecting the blood, the consequence, that it was necessary to offer to God in sacrifice the blood of man himself. The sacrifice ceased to be symbolical when it became real; and as it was part of the divine intention to bestow efficacy and virtue on the sacrifice of the Redeemer alone, human sacrifices were wanting in virtue and efficacy. But even as it was, those imperfect and inefficacious sacrifices virtually contained in themselves, on one side, the dogmas of original sin, of its transmission and of soli¬ darity; and on the other, of reversibility and of sub¬ stitution, although unable to symbolise either the true substitution or substitute. When the ancients sought an innocent victim free from all spot, and conducted it to the altar crowned with flowers, that it might by its death appease the divine wrath and satisfy for the debt of the people, they 3 oo ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM,\ were in a great measure right, and wrong only in some things. They were right in affirming that the divine justice should be appeased ; that it could not be so, except by the shedding of blood ; that one could satisfy for the debt of all, and that the redeeming victim should be innocent. They were right in all these things, because all these things were only the explicit affirma¬ tion of great Catholic dogmas. They erred exclusively in believing that a man could be so innocent and just, as to be efficaciously offered in sacrifice for the sins of the people, in quality of redeeming victim. This one error, this sole forgetfulness of one Catholic dogma, con¬ verted the world into a sea of blood. If there were no others, it would of itself have been sufficient to impede the coming of all true civilisation. Barbarism— ferocious and sanguinary barbarism—is the legitimate and necessary consequence of forgetting any Christian dogma. The error I am pointing out, was an error only in one conception and in one point of view : the blood of man cannot be expiatory of original sin, which is the sin of the species, the human sin par excellence; but it can be, and is, expiatory of certain individual sins. Whence follow, not only the legitimacy, but also the necessity and convenience, of the penalty of death. The universa¬ lity of its institution proves the universality of the belief of the human race in the purifying efficacy of blood, shed in a certain way, and in its expiatory virtue when it is shed in that way. Without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb. ix. 22). Without the blood shed LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 301 bv the Redeemer, the common debt the human race in Adam contracted with God would never have been extinguished. Wherever the penalty of death has been abolished, society has distilled blood from all its pores. On its suppression in Saxony followed that terrible and bloody battle of May, which drove the State into the trance of death, so that it was obliged to appeal to foreign intervention. The very principle of its suppres¬ sion, proclaimed in Frankfort in name of the common country, threw the affairs of Germany into greater dis¬ order than ever before in its troubled history. On its suppression by the Provisional Government of the French Republic, followed those tremendous days of June, which shall eternally live, with all their horror, in the memory of men. These would have been followed by others in fearful and rapid succession, if a holy and acceptable victim had not intervened between the anger of God and the crimes of that culpable government and of that sinful city. No one can know nor tell how far the virtue of that august and innocent blood might extend ; but, humanly speaking, we may say, without fear of being belied by the facts, that blood will run again in abun¬ dant streams, at least until France enters again under the jurisdiction of that providential law, which no people ever transgressed with impunity. I will not end this chapter without making a reflec¬ tion which appears to me of the utmost importance: if such effects have been produced by the suppression of the penalty of death in political crimes, how far would its ravages reach if the suppression were extended to 302 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM\ \ common crimes ? Well, now, if there be one thing evident to me, it is, that the suppression of the one involves the suppression of the other at some time more or less distant, and I also think it beyond all doubt, that the suppression of the penalty of death, in both conceptions, leads to the suppression of all human penalties. To suppress the highest penalty in the crimes which attack the security of the State, and with it of the members who compose it, and retain it in those perpetrated only against individuals, appears to me a monstrous incon¬ sistency, which cannot long resist the logical evolution of human events. On the other hand, to suppress as excessive the penalty of death in the one and the other, is the same as to suppress all kind of penalty for inferior crimes; for when a penalty less than that of death is applied to the former, any that may be applied to the latter must be wanting to the laws of just proportion, and will be resisted as oppressive and unjust. If the suppression of the penalty of death in political crimes is founded on the negation of political crime, and this negation on the fallibility of the State in these matters, it is clear that every system of penalty falls to the ground ; for fallibility in political things supposes fallibility in all moral things, and fallibility in the one and in the other carries with it the radical incompetence of the State to qualify any human action as a crime. Well, now, as this fallibility is a fact, it follows that in this matter of penalty all governments are incom¬ petent, because all are fallible. One can only be accused of crime by him who can LIBERALISM , SOCIALISM. 303 accuse him of sin, and he only can impose penalties for the one, who can impose them for the other. Govern¬ ments are not competent to impose a penalty on man, except in quality of delegates of God ; and human law has power only when it is the commentary of the divine law. The negation of God and of His law on the part of governments, is equal to the negation of themselves. __ * To deny the divine and affirm the human law, to affirm crime and deny sin, to deny God and affirm any govern¬ ment whatever, is to affirm what is denied ; and to deny what is affirmed is to fall into a palpable and evident contradiction. Then the blast of revolutions begins to blow, which will soon restore the empire of logic which presides at the evolution of events, suppressing human contradictions with an absolute and inexorable affirma¬ tion, or with an absolute and peremptory negation. The Atheism of the law and of the State—or what in the end- is the same, but expressed in a different manner, the complete secularisation of the State and of the law— is a theory which does not square well with that of penalty, the one coming from man in his state of sepa¬ ration from God, and the other from God in his state of union with man. It would appear that governments know, by means of infallible instinct, that only in the name of God can they be just and strong. And so it happens that when they begin to be secularised, or to separate from God, they immediately relax in their penalties, as if they felt their right diminished. The lax theories of modern criminal jurists are contemporaneous with religious decadence. 3°4 ESS A VS ON CA THOLTCISM, and their rule in modern codes with the complete secu¬ larisation of political powers. Since then the criminal has been so transformed in our eyes, that the children regard as an object of pity what was a subject of horror to their parents. He who yesterday was called a criminal, is to-day called eccentric or mad. Modern Rationalists call crime misfortune. The day shall come when the government will pass into the hands of the unfortunate, and then there will be no other crime but innocence. The theories on penalty held in absolute monarchies in their days of decay, were followed by those of the Liberal schools, who brought them to the present pass. After the Liberal come the Socialistic schools, with their theory of holy insurrections and heroic crimes. Nor shall these be last; for away there on the far-off horizon new and more bloody auroras begin to dawn. The new gospel of the world is perhaps being written in a prison; the world will only get what it deserves, when it is evan¬ gelised by the new apostles. Those who made people believe that the earth can be a paradise, have made them more easily believe it can be a paradise without blood. The evil is not in the illusion ; it is in the fact that, precisely on the moment and hour the illusion would be believed by all, blood would flow even from the hard rocks, and earth would be transformed into hell. In this obscure and lowly valley man cannot aspire to an impossible happiness, without incurring the misfortune of losing the little he has. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 305 CHAPTER VII. Recapitulation—Inefficacy of all the proposed solutions — Necessity of a more profound solution. Up to this we have seen in what manner the liberty of man and that of the angel, with the faculty of choosing which constitutes their imperfection and their danger, was a thing not only justified, but also convenient. We have also seen how, from the exercise of that constituted liberty, evil came with sin, which profoundly disturbed the order established by God in all things, and the very suitable manner of being of all creatures. Farther on, after having marked the disorders.of creation, we proposed to ourselves to demonstrate, and we did demonstrate perfectly, we think, that as to the angel and to man, gifted with the tremendous power of draw¬ ing evil from good, and of corrupting all things, the one with his rebellion, the other with his disobedience, and both with sin, God, to establish a contrast to that destructive liberty, reserved to himself the power of drawing good from evil, and order from disorder, making large and convenient use of it, so as to place things in a more regulated manner of being, than they would have attained without rebellious angels and sinful men. As it was impossible to avoid evil without suppressing the angelical and the human liberty, which were a great good, God, in His infinite wisdom, succeeded in trans¬ forming evil without suppressing it, so as to make it U 306 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM,\ serve in His omnipotent hand as the instrument of greater convenience, and of more sublime perfections. To demonstrate what suited our purpose, we observed that the general end of things was to manifest, each in its own way, the sublime perfections of God, and to be like sparks of His beauty and reflexes of His magni¬ ficent glory. Constituted in the point of view of this universal end, we had no difficulty in demonstrating that from the human disobedience and the angelical rebellion incomparable good flowed, and that the one as well as the other served to make creatures, which pre¬ viously reflected only the divine goodness and the divine magnificence, also reflect all the sublimity of His mercy and all the grandeur of His justice. Order was not universal and absolute, except when creatures had in them all these splendid reflexes. From the problems relative to the universal order of things, we passed to those which refer to the general order of human things: wandering through this wide field, we saw evil propagate in humanity with sin ; there we saw how humanity was in Adam, and the sinful species in the individual. As sin, considered in itself, was powerful enough to disturb the order of the universe, it was also powerful enough, and with more reason, to infuse disorder into all human things. In order to un¬ derstand what we said before, and what we shall repeat again, it is well to remark here, that as the universal end of all things is to manifest the divine perfections, the particular end of man is to preserve his union with God, the seat of his joy and of his rest. Sin disordered Lib ERA LIS M, AND SOCIALISM. 307 things, by separating man from that union which con¬ stitutes his special end ; and from that moment the problem, as far as regards humanity, consists in deter¬ mining how evil can be conquered in its effects and in its cause—in its effects, that is to say, in the corruption of the individual and of the species, in all its conse¬ quences ; in its cause, that is to say, in sin. God who is most simple in His works because He is most perfect in His essence, conquers evil in its cause and in its effects, by one sole transformation ; but this trans¬ formation is so radical and extraordinary, that through it all that was evil is transformed into good, and all that was imperfection into sovereign perfection. Up to this we have been explaining the manner and the form in which God transforms into instruments of good the very effects of evil and sin. Proceeding all from a primitive corruption of the individual and of the species, they are nothing else in the species or in the individual, considered in themselves, but a lamentable misfortune. Misfortune means necessary effect; and if the cause from which the effect flows is one of those which act constantly, misfortune then is by its nature invincible. By imposing the misfortune as a penalty, God made its transformation possible, by means of its voluntary ac¬ ceptation on the part of man. When man, aided by God, heroically accepted his misfortune as a penalty, his misfortune did not change its nature, considered in itself, which would be totally impossible ; but it acquired a new and strange virtue, the virtue of expiation and purification. Ever preserving its invincible identity, it 3°8 ESSA KS' ON CATHOLICISM, produces effects which naturally are not in it, whenever it combines in a supernatural way with voluntary ac¬ ceptation. This consoling and sublime doctrine comes to us, at one and the same time, from God, from reason, and from history, constituting a rational, historical, and dogmatic truth. The dogma of the transmission of sin and of penalty, and that of the purifying action of the latter when freely accepted, led us, as it were by the hand, to the examina¬ tion of the organic laws of humanity, by which all its historic evolutions and all its movements are sufficiently explained. The aggregate of those laws constitutes human order, and constitutes it in such a way that it cannot be even imagined otherwise. After having given the Catholic solutions about these deep and dreadful problems, of which some relate to the universal order, and others to the human order, we proposed the solutions invented by the Liberal school and by modern Socialists, and we demonstrated, on one side, the sublime harmony, and consonance of the Catholic dogmas, and on the other the extravagant contradiction of the Rationalistic schools. The radical impotence ot reason to discover a suitable solution for these funda¬ mental problems, serves to explain the incoherence and the contradiction which are observed in human solutions ; and those incoherent contradictions serve in their turn to demonstrate how impossible it is for man, abandoned to himself, to mount on his own wings to those lofty and serene heights where God has placed the secret laws of all things. From this examination, to a certain ex- LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 3°9 tent prolix, if we consider the narrow limits of this work, it is evidently demonstrated—first, that all negation of a Catholic dogma carries with it the negation of all the other dogmas, and on the contrary, that the affirmation of one dogma carries with it the affirmation of all the Catholic dogmas, which is an invincible demonstration that Catholicism is an immense synthesis, placed beyond the laws of space and of time; second, that no Rational¬ istic school denies all the Catholic dogmas at once, from which it follows that they are all condemned to incon¬ sistency, and to the absurd ; and third, that it is not possible to escape from the absurd, and from inconsis¬ tency, without accepting all Catholic affirmations with an absolute acceptation, or denying them all with nega¬ tion so radical that it borders on Nihilism. In fine, after examining one by one those dogmas which refer to the universal order and to the human order, we considered their harmonious and magnificent aggregate in the institution of bloody sacrifices, which takes its origin from that primitive age which immedi¬ ately followed the great catastrophe of Eden. There we saw that that mysterious institution is, on one hand, the commemoration of that great tragedy, and of the promise of a Redeemer made by God to our first parents ; on the other, the incarnation of the dogmas of solidarity, of reversibility, of imputation, and of sub¬ stitution ; and finally, the perfect symbol of the future sacrifice, such as we were to see it realised in the pleni¬ tude of time. When the biblical traditions fell into oblivion amongst the nations, the world forgot the 3io ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , proper signification of that religious institution which was being corrupted in all parts ; by its corruption is explained the universal institution of human sacrifices, which bear testimony to the truth of the tradition, although they depart from it on these points in which it had fallen into oblivion with the nations. With this motive we pointed out the great error and the great teaching which are found in that institution, which at first sight appears inexplicable, inasmuch as it is pro¬ foundly mysterious. Its great error is in attributing to man the expiatory virtue of Him who was to be his substitute, when the proper time should come, according to the voice of the ancient prophecies and of the ancient traditions ; its great teaching is in attributing to blood the virtue of appeasing in a certain way, and to a certain de¬ gree, the divine wrath. By the concatination and connec¬ tion of these deductions, we came to the examination of punishment by death, universally instituted throughout the world as a profession of faith in the virtue which is in blood, made at all times by the whole human race. With this motive we interrogated the Rationalistic schools on this difficult subject; and on this point, as on all others, their answers and their solutions appeared to us contradic¬ tory and absurd. Following them from contradiction to contradiction, we gave them the alternative of selecting between the acceptation of punishment by death for political as well as for common crimes, or the radical and absolute negation of the crime and of the punishment. Having come to this point of the discussion, it only remains for us, in order to finish it, to approach with LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 311 holy terror, and mute and extatic reverence, the mystery of mysteries, the sacrifice of sacrifices, the dogma of dogmas. Up to this we have seen, on one hand, the marvels of the divine order, on the other, the harmony of universal order, and finally, the pro¬ found convenience of the human order; now we have to rise to a higher point still, which overlooks and com¬ mands all the Catholic heights. There is seated in all His majesty, merciful and tremendous, meek and terrible; He who was to come, and did come, and, coming, drew all things and united them to Himself, with strong and loving bond. He is the solution of all problems, the subject of all prophecies, the prefigured in all figures, the end of all dogmas, the confluence of the divine, the universal, and the human orders ; the key to all secrets, the light of all enigmas, the promised of God, the desired of the patriarchs, the expected of the nations, the father of the afflicted, the reverenced of the choirs of angels, the Alpha and Omega of all things. Universal order consists in all being harmoniously ordained to that supreme end which God imposed on the universality of things. The supreme end of things consists in the exterior manifestations of the divine per¬ fections. All creatures sing the goodness and magni¬ ficence and omnipotence of God. The just proclaim His mercy, the reprobate His justice. Every single creature of creation celebrates His love in some special manner, as the reprobate His justice and the just His mercy. And if this be so, is it not clearly of the highest convenience that there should be raised in the universe 312 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , formed to manifest His divine perfections, a universal voice, to proclaim the divine love, that finishing touch of the divine perfections ? The human order consists in the union of man with God : that union cannot be realised in our actual con¬ dition of separation, without a gigantic effort to raise us to Him. But who asks a great effort from the weak ? and who commands him who has fallen in the valley, and carries on his shoulders the weight of his sin, to rise and ascend the highest peak of a mountain ? I know that the heroic and voluntary acceptance of my pain and my cross would raise me above myself. But how am I voluntarily to love that which I naturally abhor, and abhor what I naturally love ? They tell me to love God, and I feel the corrosive love of 'the flesh careering through my veins. They tell me to walk, and I am a prisoner. With my sin on my head I cannot merit, and I cannot escape from my sin which clutches me, if they do not remove it from me. No one can remove it from me, if he do not entertain for me an infi¬ nite love anterior to all merit, and no one loves me with that infinite love. I am the laughing-stock of God, and the toy of the universe ; in vain shall I travel round the world, for whithersoever I go my misfortune goeth with me ; and in vain shall I raise my eyes to that metallic heaven which never yet illumined my brow with a ray of hope. If all this be so, it is clear the Catholic edifice we have been laboriously building up comes to the ground, for want of that splendid cupola which should serve as a LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 313 secure finish. New tower of Babel as it must be, fabricated by pride and built on faithless and moving quicksands, it will be the play-toy of the tempest and the laughing-stock of the winds. The human order, the divine order, are nothing but airy words; and all those fearful problems which make humanity pensive and sad, continue to exist involved in invincible obscurity, in spite of the vain apparatus of Catholic solutions. Though better linked together than the solutions of the Ration¬ alist schools, their connection, however, is not so perfect that it can resist the impulse of human reason. If Catholicity says, or teaches, or contains no more than is said, contained, and taught in those solutions, Catholicity is no more than a philosophical system, more perfect than past, but in all probability less than future systems. Even to-day she may be accused of notorious impotence to solve the great problems which refer to God, the universe, and to man. God is not perfect, if He do not love in an infinite manner ; order does not exist in the universe, if there is nothing in it to manifest that love ; and as regards man, the disorder in which he is placed is so invincible, that he cannot be saved unless infinitely loved. And don’t tell me that God is infinitely good and in¬ finitely merciful, and that love is supposed, and as it were hidden, in His infinite goodness and mercy; for love is of itself a thing so important, that when it exists, it rules and lords it over all. Love is not the contained, but the container; it does not hide, but manifest itself; it is of such a nature that it cannot exist in any part 3H ESS A VS ON CA THOLICTSM , without appearing to be alone, and to rule all. It is not naturally ordained to any end, but ordains all things to itself. He who loves, if he love properly, must appear mad ; and love, to be infinite, must appear an infinite madness. There is a voice in my heart, and it is my heart itself, which is within me and is my very self, and which says to me, If you want to know the true God, look for Him who loves you to madness, and helps you to love Him to madness, and that is the true God ; for in God is blessedness, and blessedness is nothing else but to love and to suffer swoons of love, and to swoon thus per¬ petually. Let no one call me to him who does not love me, for I will not answer his call. But if the voice I hear is the voice of love, Here I am, I shall say at once, and I will follow my beloved, without asking Him whither He goes, nor to what part He is taking me; for whithersoever Hetaketh me, and whithersoever Hegoeth, He and I and our love must be there ; and our love, He, and I are heaven. I would wish to love thus, and I know I cannot thus love, and have no one to love in this manner, and on this account torment myself to no pur¬ pose. Who will withdraw me from this narrow circle in which I am suffocated, and give me wings of the dove to ascend to higher and more sublime regions? LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 315 CHAPTER VIII. The Incarnation of the Son of God , and the redemption of the human race. We said these were two problems which should be solved before order, either universal or human, could be properly constituted. God drew good from the primi¬ tive prevarication, which served as occasion for the manifestation of two of His greatest perfections—His infinite justice and mercy. This, however, was not enough : it was requisite besides, for the existence in the things of creation, and particularly human things, of that order and concert which witness the presence of God in all His works, that the sin of the prevarication itself should be blotted out ; as, no matter what good God drew from it, as long as it subsisted, the evil par excel¬ lence existed, and defied, as it were, the divine power. Besides, nothing so becomes the infinite mercy of God, as to assist with strong but clement hand the invincible weakness of man, that he might rise above his miserable condition, so that the consequences of his sin might be converted into an instrument of his salvation. To blot out sin, and fortify the sinner, so that when fallen he might rise freely and meritoriously—this is the great problem which must be solved, even when all others are disposed of, if Catholicity is to be anything more than one of the laboriously imperfect systems which testify to the profound and radical impotence of human reason. 3 r 6 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , Catholicity solves these two great problems by the highest, most ineffable, most incomprehensible and glorious of all her mysteries: in that great mystery are united all the divine perfections. God is in it with His astounding omnipotence, His perfect wisdom, His mar¬ vellous goodness, His terrible justice, His sublime mercy, and above all, with that ineffable love which crowns all His other perfections, which authoritatively commands His mercy to be merciful, His justice to be just, His goodness good, His wisdom wise, and His omnipotence omnipotent ; for God is not omnipotence, nor wisdom, nor goodness, nor justice, nor mercy : God is love, and nothing but love ; but that love is of itself omnipotent, wise, good, just, and merciful. It was love commanded His mercy to give hope to prevaricating and fallen man, with that divine promise of a future Redeemer, who should come to the world to take on Himself and conquer sin. It was love promised in paradise, love which sent Him to earth, and love which came; it was love took human flesh and lived a mortal life, and died on the cross, and rose again in the flesh and in glory. It was by love we sinners were saved. The glorious mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, is the only title of nobility the human race possesses. Far from wondering at the contempt modern Rationalists display for man, if there be anything I cannot explain nor conceive, it is the guarded prudence and the timid conduct thev manifest in this matter. * Taking man fallen from that primitive state of original LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM, 3 17 justice and sanctifying grace in which God placed him, examining his imperfect and contradictory interior organic constitution, and considering the blindness of his understanding, the weakness of his will, the gross inclinations of his flesh, the ardour of his concupis¬ cence, and the perversity of his inclinations, I cannot conceive nor explain that parsimony of epithets and that measured contempt. If God has not taken human nature, and, taking, raised it to Himself, and raising it, has not impressed on it a ray of His divine nobility, we must confess that to express human vileness words cannot be found in the tongues of all nations. I can say for myself, that if my God had not taken flesh in the womb of a woman, nor died on the cross for the whole human race, the reptile I tread on would be less despicable in my eyes than man. Even as it is, the point of faith which weighs heaviest on my reason is that of the nobility and dignity of the human species, a dignity and nobility I wish to understand, and cannot— I desire to fathom, and cannot. In vain do I turn my eyes, filled with sickening horror, from the annals of crime, to raise them to higher spheres and more serene regions. In vain do I bring to mind the lofty virtues of those whom men call heroes, and who fill history with their names ; for my conscience raises its voice, and tells me those heroic virtues are resolved into heroic vices, which in their turn are resolved into blind pride or mad ambition. The human race appears to me like an immense crowd lying under the feet of its heroes, who are its idols; and the heroes, like idols, who adore ESS A VS ON CATHOLICISM , 3i* themselves. To believe in the nobility of those stupid crowds, it was necessary for God to reveal it to me. No one can deny that revelation, and believe in his own nobility. How does he know he is noble, if God has not told him ? There is one thing exceeds my reason, and confounds me—that there should be any one who thinks it requires less faith to believe in the incompre¬ hensible mystery of human dignity, than in the adorable mystery of a God-Made Man, by virtue of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of a virgin. This proves that man always lives subject to faith ; and when he thinks he abandons faith for his own reason, he only abandons faith in the divinely mysterious, for faith in the myste¬ riously absurd. The incarnation of the Son of God was most conve¬ nient, not only in quality of sovereign manifestation of His infinite love, in which, if we may say so, lies the perfection of the divine perfections, but also in virtue of other profound and sublime consequences. The supreme order of things cannot be conceived, if all things are not resolved in absolute unity. Well, now, without that prodigious mystery creation was double, and the universe a dualism, symbol of perpetual antagonism, contradictory of order. On one side was God, universal thesis; and on the other creatures, His universal anti¬ thesis. Supreme order required a synthesis so powerful and broad, that it would be capable of reconciling, by means of union, the thesis and antithesis of the Creator and creatures. That this is one of the fundamental laws of universal order, is seen clearly when we consider LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. D9 t that this very mystery which we wonder at in God, is evident in man without causing any astonishment. Man, considered in this point of view, is nothing but a synthesis composed of an incorporeal essence, which is the thesis, and of a corporeal substance, which is the antithesis. The very being, which, considered as a compound of spirit and matter, is a synthesis, is no more than an antithesis, which it is necessary to reduce to unity by means of a superior synthesis, together with the thesis which contradicts it, when considered in quality of creature. The law of the reduction of variety to unity, or what is the same, of all theses with their antitheses, to a supreme synthesis, is a visible and im¬ mutable law. The only difficulty here is in finding that supreme synthesis. God being on one side, and all things created on the other, it is evident the reconciling synthesis cannot be sought outside these terms, beyond which there is nothing imaginable, being, as they are, universal and absolute. The synthesis, then, must be found either in creatures or in God, in the antithesis or the thesis, or rather in one and the other simultaneously or successively. If man had quietly persevered in that excellent state and noble condition in which he was placed by God, variety would have been lost in unity, and the created antithesis would have been united to the creative thesis in supreme synthesis, by the deification of man. He was disposed by God for this deification, when He adorned him with original justice and sanctifying grace. Man, in use of his sovereign liberty, was despoiled of 320 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , that grace, and renounced that j ustice, and, deprived of both, raised an impediment to the divine will by volun¬ tarily renouncing his deification. But human liberty, though capable of impeding the fulfilment of the will of God relatively, cannot impede its realisation abso¬ lutely. The reduction of variety to unity was what was absolute in the divine will ; its reduction exclusively through the deification of man, was what was relative ad contingent ; which means that God willed the end /Gth an absolute, and the means of attaining that end with a relative, will ; and in this, as in all things, the wisdom of God shines forth with ineffable splendour. In fact, without what was absolute in His divine will, God would not have been sovereign, and without what was relative in it, human liberty would not have been possible ; on the contrary, through what was absolute and relative, contingent and necessary, in His will, the sovereignty of God and the liberty of man could and did exist. In quality of sovereign God decreed what was to be ; in virtue of His freedom, that what was to be, should be in a certain way. Then it happened that the universal order desired by God with an absolute will should be realised by the immediate humanisation of God, since it could not be i realised by the immediate deification of man, which was totally impossible, with a relative impossibility on account of his will, and afterwards with an absolute impossibility on account of his sin. On another occasion I demonstrated the great reach and universality of the divine solutions, which, contrary LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 3 2i to what we observe in human ones, do not suppress one obstacle to create a greater, nor solve one difficulty to fall into another, nor a problem in one point of view, to make it more obscure than ever in another; but on the contrary, surmount all obstacles at once, and solve all difficulties and problems at one simple stroke. And this peculiarity which belongs to all divine solutions, is more particularly observed in this adorable mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God; for it was at once the sovereign means of reducing all to unity, divine condition of order in the universe, and the marvellous one of restoring order in fallen humanity. The radical impossibility of man of returning by himself, to the friendship and grace of God after sin, is confessed ever, by those who deny the greater part of the dogmas of Catholicity. M. Proudhon, the most learned of the Socialists, does not hesitate to say, that supposing sin. the redemption of man, by the labours and merits of God, was absolutely necessary, because sinful man could not be otherwise redeemed. We Catholics do not go so far: we only say that this manner of redemption, without being either absolutely necessary, nor the only one possible, is nevertheless adorable and convenient. We see from all this that God laboured to surmount, by one sole act of His industry, the obstacle opposed to the realisation of universal order, and that which impeded human order. By becoming man without ceasing to be God, He synthetically united God and man; and as spiritual essence and corporeal substance were already synthetically united in man, it results that God Made 322 ASSAYS ON CATHOLICISM, Man united in Himself, through sublime process, on one side corporeal substances and spiritual essences, and on the other the Creator of all with all His creatures. At the same time, by voluntarily suffering and dying for man, He took on Himself, removing it from man, that primitive sin, through which his whole race in Adam fell into corruption, and was condemned to death. No matter in what point of view this grand mystery may be viewed, it presents to the eye of the attentive observer the same marvellous conveniences. If the whole human race suffered condemnation in Adam, it was reasonable and just it should be saved in another more perfect Adam. As we had been condemned by the law of solidarity, which was the law of justice, it was right and proper we should be saved by the law of reversibility, which is a law of mercy. To suffer for the sins of a representative would not be just and conve¬ nient, if we had not been allowed to merit through the # merits of a substitute. Nothing was more conformable to reason than that, as the sins of the former were im¬ putable, the merits of the latter should be reversible to us. And this we can answer those who, full of arrogant pride, blame God for the condemnation of all in the person of our first parent; for even supposing we had not been all sinners in our first parents, with what right can we complain of being condemned in a representative, who were saved in a substitute? To rise against God on account of the law of the imputa¬ tion of sin, without remembering that other which com¬ pletes and explains it, through which another’s merits LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 323 are reversible to us, is great timerity, for it is bad faith or gross ignorance, and in any case unqualified madness. Order being established in the universe by the union of all things in God, and in humanity as far as it was impeded by sin, it only remains to completely re-estab¬ lish the latter, on one hand, to place man in the capacity of rising above himself to the degree of accepting tribu¬ lations with a voluntary acceptance, and on the other, to give to that acceptance a meritorious virtue. To both things God attended in this divine mystery, fruitful in consequences and admirable in itself. The precious blood shed on Calvary not only blotted out our sin and satisfied the penalty, but through its inestimable value placed us in the capacity, when applied to us, of meriting crowns ; in it were given us two joint graces— that which consists in accepting tribulation, and that in virtue of which this acceptance, gladly effected in the Lord and through Him, acquires meritorious virtue. In this lies the sum of the Catholic religion—in believing with firm faith that we can naturally do nothing, but can do all in Him and through Him who strengthens us. All other dogmas without this are pure abstractions, denuded of all virtue and efficacy. The Catholic God is not an abstract nor dead God; He is a living and per¬ sonal God, who perpetually operates within and with¬ out us ; who, while contained within us, surrounds and contains us. The mystery which merited grace for us, without which we walked in error and darkness, is the mystery par excellence ; all others are adorable, elevated, 324 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM , and sublime; this one alone the sublime, because beyond it there is no more sublimity ; the elevated, because beyond it there are no more heights ; and the adorable, because beyond it there is nothing worthy of adoration. The day, eternally joyous and sad, the Son of God Made Man was placed on a cross, all things at once were restored to order, and in that divine order the cross was raised above all things created. Some of these mani¬ fested the goodness of God, some His mercy, others His justice. The cross alone was the symbol of His love and the pledge of His grace. Through it the confessors confessed, and the virgins were chaste, and the fathers of the desert led angelic lives, and the martyrs were firm witnesses who laid down their lives with manly and unshaken constancy. From the sacrifice of the cross proceeded that marvellous energy with which the weak astounded the strong, the proscribed and disarmed ascended the Capitol, and some poor fishermen con¬ quered the world. Through the cross all who conquer gain victory ; all who combat, strength ; all who seek it, mercy ; the unprotected, protection ; those who are sad, joy ; and consolation, all who weep. Since the cross was raised in the air there is no man who cannot live in heaven before his mortal remains are consigned to the earth ; for if he live here in tribulation, he lives there in hope. LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 325 CHAPTER IX. Continuation of the same subject—Conclusion of this book. This is that singular sacrifice of inestimable value, to which all others mentioned in history and fable are referred. This was the sacrifice the Jewish people and the Gentiles desired to signify in their bloody holocausts, and Abel represented in a perfect and acceptable form, when he offered to God the first-born and purest of his lambs. The true altar was to be a cross, and the true victim a God, and the true priest that same God, at once God and man, august pontiff, everlasting priest, perpetual and holy, who came to fulfil in the plenitude of time the promise made to Adam in paradise, the faith¬ ful fulfiller of His promise, and keeper of His word; for as He does not threaten in vain, neither does He promise vainly. He threatened to disinherit free man, and He did disinherit free and culpable man ; He then promised him a redeemer, and He himself came to redeem him. With His presence all mysteries are cleared, all dogmas explained, and all laws fulfilled. That the law of solidarity might be fulfilled, He takes on Himself all human pains ; to fulfil the law of reversibility, He showers on the world copious floods of the divine graces won by His passion and death. In Him God becomes man in so perfect a manner, that all the impetuous anger of God fell on Him ; and man becomes in Him so perfect and divine, that all the divine mercies, like a 726 ESS A YS ON CA THOLTCISM , soft and gentle shower, fall on him. That pain might become holy, by suffering He sanctified pain ; and that its acceptance might be meritorious, He accepted it with a voluntary acceptance. Who would dare to offer to God his will in holocaust, if He had not first laid aside his own to perform that of his heavenly Father ? Who could have mounted to the summit of humility, if the patient and humble Lamb had not first trod the secret paths of that thorny summit ? And who with more daring flight could have ascended rugged moun¬ tains on rugged mountains, till he reached the pinnacle of divine love, if He had not first ascended them one by one, reddening their sides with His purple blood, and lacerating on their thorns His pure flesh, whiter than the snow? Who but Him could have told men that on the other side of those abrupt and giant mountains lay bright and cheerful meadows, where the air is benign, the heavens serene, the waters pure and limpid, the harmony ineffable, and the freshness perpetual; where life is true life, which never ends, and pleasure true pleasure, which never ceases, and love true love, which is never extinguished; where there is perpetual rest without idleness, everlasting repose without fatigue, and where are sublimely confounded the sweetness of possession and the beauty of hope ? The Son of God, Made Man, and placed on the cross by man, is at once the realisation of all things perfect, represented in all symbols, and typified in all figures, .and the universal figure and symbol of all perfections. The Son of God, Made Man, as He is at once God and man, is ideality and reality united. Natural reason LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 327 tells us, and daily experience proves, that man cannot attain in any act, or in anything whatever, that relative perfection it is possible for him to reach, if he have not before his eyes a finished model of still higher perfection. For the people of Athens to acquire that admirable instinct, of discovering with a single glance what was beautiful in literature, or artistically sublime, or what was heroic in the actions of men, it was abso¬ lutely necessary they should have before their eyes the statues of their wonderful artists, the verses of their sub¬ lime poets, and the heroic actions of their great captains. The people of Athens, as we find it, necessarily supposes its artists, poets, and captains, as we find them ; and these in their turn did not reach such daring heights without fixing their eyes on something still higher. All the Greek captains attained their great eminence because they fixed their eyes on Achilles, who reached the highest pinnacle of glory. All those great artists and eminent poets became great and eminent because they fixed their eyes on the “ Iliad ” and the “ Odyssey,” immortal type 0 of artistic and literary beauty. The one and the othe would never have existed if they had not fixed theii gaze on Homer, magnificent personification of artistic, literary, and heroic grace. This law, by virtue of which all that is in the multi¬ tude is in a more perfect manner in an aristocracy, and in an incomparably higher and more perfect manner still in one person, is so universal, that it might be reasonably considered the law of history. This law is in its turn subject to certain conditions as necessary as I 328 ESS A YS ON CATHOLICISM, itself. Thus, for example, it is a necessary condition of all those heroic personifications, that they belong at the same time to the special association they personify, and to another more general and superior personified in them. Achilles, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Homer, Virgil, and Dante, are all at the same time citizens of two different cities, one of which is local, the other general, one inferior, the other superior : in the superior they live together with a certain equality, in the inferior each one rules with absolute sway; in the superior they are citizens, in the inferior emperors. That superior city, in which all have equal rights of citizenship, is called humanity; and the inferior, in which they rule, is called here Paris, there Athens, elsewhere Rome. Well now, as like peoples, those inferior cities are condensed in one person, in whom their perfections and virtues stand out in relief, so it was right that the universal law of typical personification should be fulfilled with respect to the superior city, which bears the name of the human race. The excellences of this city, ex¬ cellent above all, had the advantage of a personification superior to all others, as it was superior to all other cities, and should consequently be sublime and perfect. Nor was this enough ; for, that the law might be fulfilled in every iota, it was right that the person in whom humanity were condensed, should unite two different natures in his personal unity—by the one he should be God, by the other man, for God alone is superior to man. And don’t tell me that for the fulfilment of this law the incarnation of an angel were sufficient; as man, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 3 2 & considered as a compound of a spiritual soul and a cor¬ poreal body, participated at once in the physical and angelic natures, and was, as it were, the confluence of all things created ; whence it follows, that being, inas¬ much as he was man, all creation, he must be God to be at the same time something beyond the created. Finally, that the law we are explaining might be fulfilled in all, it was necessary for the person who ruled with authority in the inferior city to be a citizen, and nothing more in the superior ; hence God, Made Man, is single in the empire of all things created, whilst in the tabernacle inhabited by the divine essence is the person of the Son, in all things equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost. Great would be the error of those who should believe that I look on this line of argument as invincible, and these analogies as perfect. To suppose that man can see clearly through these deep mysteries would be unmiti¬ gated blindness; and the mere endeavour to remove the divine veils which cover them appears to me foolish arrogance and madness. No ray of light is capable of illumining what God has hidden in the impenetrable tabernacle defended by divine obscurity. My only design here is to demonstrate, with a vigorous demonstration, that far from what God commands us to believe being incredible, it is not only credible but reasonable. I believe the demonstration may be carried to the limits of evidence, as long as it is confined to proving the following truth—that he who abandons faith falls into the absurd, and the divine is less obscure than human darkness. There is no Catholic dogma nor mystery 330 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, which does not comply with these two conditions, necessary for rendering a belief reasonable—first, to explain everything satisfactorily when it is once ad¬ mitted ; second, to be itself capable to a certain degree of explanation and comprehension. There is no man of sound sense and straightforward mind, who does not feel satisfied, on the one hand, of his radical incapacity to discover revealed truths, and on the other, of his marvellous aptitude to explain them all satisfactorily in a relative way. This would show that reason was given to man, not to discover the truth, but to see. and explain it when placed before him. So great his misery, and so lamentable is his intellectual indigence, that up to the present day he is not certain of the first thing he should have investigated, if it had entered iiito the divine plan to allow him to investigate anything. Tell me, if not, if there be one man who has discovered with certainty what his reason is, why he received it, for what it serves, and how far it reaches. And when I see, on one hand, that this is the A of this alphabet, and on the other, that six thousand years has passed since it was first lisped, and it has not yet been properly pro¬ nounced, I feel authorised to say that this alphabet was not made for man to pronounce, nor man, to pro¬ nounce it. Taking up the thread of this discourse, I will say it was an excellent and convenient thing, for humanity to have before it a universal model of universal and in¬ finite perfection, as the various political associations have ever had one, from which they drew, as from their LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 33i proper source, these special gifts and excellences in which they surpassed in the glorious periods of their history. In the absence of other reasons, this would be sufficient of itself to explain the great mystery we are treating, as God alone could serve as the finished exemplar and perfect model for all tribes and nations. His presence among men, His marvellous doctrine, His life of holiness, His tribulations without number, His passion, full of opprobrium and ignominy, and His cruel death, which perfects and crowns all, are the only things can explain the prodigious height and sublime level reached by human virtues. In the societies lying on the other side of the cross, there were heroes, in the great Catholic society, saints; and the pagan heroes are to the saints of Catholicity, of course in the proper proportion, and with the necessary reservations, what the various personifications of nations are to the absolute personifi¬ cation of humanity, in the person of a God, Made Man, through love of men. Between those various personifi¬ cations and this absolute one there is an immense, between the heroes and the saints an immeasurable, distance; nothing more natural than when the first was infinite, the second should be immeasurable. The heroes were men who, through the aid of a carnal passion excited to its utmost, did extraordinary things. The saints are men who, subduing all carnal passions, courageously stem, unaided by any carnal asssistance, the tide of all sorrows. The heroes, exciting to feverish ebullition their own powers, attacked all who opposed them. The saints always began by distrusting their own powers, and, unaided by, and deprived of, all 332 ESS A YS ON CA THOLTCTSM, help from them, entered on the contest at once with themselves, and all the powers of earth and hell. The heroes proposed to attain high glory and great renown among nations. The saints regarded the vain talk of human generations as nothing, cared not for renown and glory, and leaving aside their own will, as something vile, placed themselves and their all in the hands of God, regarding it as excellent and glorious to put on the livery of His servants. This is what the heroes and saints were: the one and the other attained the opposite of what they intended; for the heroes, who thought to fill the earth with the glory of their name, have fallen into profound oblivion among all peoples, whilst the saints, who only fixed their eyes on heaven, are honoured and reverenced here below by peoples, emperors, pontiffs, and kings. How great is God in His works, and how marvellous in His designs ! Man thinks it is himself goes, and it is only God that bears him. He thinks he is descending into a valley, and without knowing how, he finds himself on a mountain. This one thinks he is gaining glory, and he falls into oblivion; that one seeks refuge and rest in oblivion, and he is suddenly deafened by the clamour of nations proclaiming his glory. The one sacrificed everything to their name, and no one is called after them : their name ended with themselves. Their names were the first thing the others offered on the altar of their sacrifice, so far even as to blot them from their own memory. Well, those names they forgot and despised, are handed down from father to son, from generation to generation, as a glorious relic and a rich inheritance : there is no Catholic who is not called LIBERALISM,AND SOCIALISM, 333 after a saint. Thus is daily fulfilled that divine expres¬ sion which announced the humiliation of the proud and the exaltation of the humble. As between God, Made Man, and the rulers of the human intelligence there is an infinite, and between the heroes and saints an immeasurable, distance, so between the Catholic and Gentile multitudes, and those who lead and guide them, there is an immense distance, as all copies are moulded on their originals. The Divinity, by His presence, produces sanctity ; the sanctity of the most exalted, in its turn, is the cause, on one hand, of the virtue of the less, and on the other, the common sense of the least exalted. Hence we observe that there is no people which has not common sense, if Catholic, nor Gentile people which has what is called common sense, and consists in that sound reason which with a simple glance sees everything in its own place. This will cause him no surprise who considers that Catholicity being the absolute brder, the infinite truth and the finished perfection, it is only in it and through it things are seen in their intimate essence, in their proper place, in the importance they have, and in the marvellous order in which they are placed. Without Catholicity there is no common sense in the least exalted, nor virtue in the less, nor sanctity in the most exalted \ for common sense, virtue, and sanctity on earth suppose a God, Made Man, occupied in teaching sanctity to heroic souls, virtue to the firm, and in direct¬ ing the reason of the wandering multitudes involved in the darkness and shadows of death. 334 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM ,, That Divine Master is the universal ordainerwho acts as the centre of all things ; for this reason, no matter what side you view Him, nor in what aspect you con¬ sider Him, you always find Him in the centre. Con¬ sidered as God and man at the same time, He is that centre-point in which are united the creative essence and the created substances. Considered solely as God the Son of God is the second person, that is, the centre of the three divine Persons. Considered solely as man, He is that centre-point in which human nature is con¬ densed with mysterious condensation. Considered as Redeemer, He is that central person on whom fall at once all the divine graces and rigours. The redemp¬ tion is the grand synthesis in which are united and reconciled the divine justice and mercy. Considered at once as the Lord of heaven and earth, and as born in a stable, and living a hidden life, and suffering death on a cross, He is that centre-point in which all theses and antitheses, with their perpetual contradiction and infinite variety, are united and reconciled in a superior syn¬ thesis. He is the poorest of the poor, and the richest of the rich; the slave and the king, the servant and the lord ; He is naked, and clothed with resplendent robes ; He obeys man, and commands the heavens; He has not wherewith to satisfy Plis hunger nor assuage His thirst, and He commands the rocks to distil water and the loaves to multiply, that the people might live and the crowds have plenty. Men insult and the seraphim adore Him; at the same moment obedient and in¬ vested with power, He dies because ordered to die, and LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM. 335 He commands the veil of the temple to be rent, the sepulchres to open, the dead to rise, the good thief to follow Him, all nature to be disturbed, and the sun to hide his rays. He comes in the middle of time, He walks amid His disciples, He is born in the centre-point of two great seas and three immense continents. He is citizen of a nation which observes the just medium between those which are entirely independent and thoroughly enslaved ; He calls Himself the Way, and every way is a centre; the Truth, and truth is in the middle ; the Life, and life, which is the present, is between the past and the future ; He spends His life amid applause and insult, and He dies between two thieves. And hence He was at once a scandal to the Jews and a madness to the Gentiles. The one and the other had naturally an idea of the divine thesis and the human antithesis; they imagined, however, and in this, humanly speaking, they were not far astray, that this thesis and antithesis were totally irreconcilable and contradictory; human intelligence could not rise to their reconciliation by means of a supreme synthesis. The world had ever seen rich and poor; but it could not conceive the union in one person of the greatest indigence and opulence. But this very thing, which appears absurd to reason, is not so when the person in whom these things are united, is divine, who either had not to be or to come, or had to be or to come in that manner. His coming was the sign for the universal reconciliation of all things, and f or universal peace among men ; the poor and the rich, 33 6 ASSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , the humble, and the powerful, the happy and the afflicted—all were one in Him, and in Him alone; for only He was at once opulent and indigent, power¬ ful and humble, happy and afflicted. This is that pacific fraternity He taught all those who opened their understandings and ears to His divine word. This is that evangelical fraternity preached with per¬ petual and unwearied preaching by all Catholic doctors, one after another. Deny our Lord Jesus Christ, and immediately partisanship and partialities, and great tumults and proud rebellions, and sinister cries and mad discords and implacable rancours, and endless wars and bloody battles, begin. The poor raise their standard against the rich, the unfortunate against the fortunate, aristocracies against kings, the multitudes against the aristocracy, and one against the other, the disturbed and barbarous multitudes, like two immense oceans which meet at the mouth of the abyss. True humanity is in no man : it was in the Son of God, and it is there is revealed to us the secret of its contradictory nature, for on one side it is sublime and excellent, and on the other the sum of all indignity and baseness. On one side it is so excellent, that God made it His own by uniting it with the Word ; and so sublime, that it was from the beginning, and before He came, promised by God, silently adored by the patriarchs, announced from time to time by the prophets, revealed to the world even by false oracles, and represented in all the sacrifices and figures. An angel announced it to a virgin, and the Holy Ghost formed it by His virtue in LIBERALISM , SOCIALISM. 337 her virginal womb, and God entered into, and united it to Himself for ever ; and thus perpetually united to God, that sacred humanity was celebrated in its birth by the voice of angels, proclaimed by the stars, visited by shepherds, and adored by kings; and when God, united to this humanity, desired to be baptized, the heavens opened, and the Holy Ghost was seen to descend on Him in figure of a dove, and a voice was heard on high, which said :—This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And then when He com¬ menced to preach, He wrought such wonders, curing the sick, consoling the afflicted, raising the dead to life, commanding the winds and the waves, revealing hidden and announcing future things, that He caused wonder and astonishment to heaven and earth, angels and men. Nor did the prodigies cease here, for that humanity was to-day seen dead by all, and in three days resuscitated and glorious, victor over time and death; and silently cleaving the air, was seen to ascend on high like a divine aurora. And this same humanity, on one side so glorious, was on the other, exemplar of all baseness, predestined by God, without itself being culpable, to suffer as a sub¬ stitute the penalty of sin. Hence He, on whose divine countenance the angels loved to look, went through the world so lowly; hence is so sad and sorrowful He in whose eyes the heavens find their delight; hence is naked in this valley He who on the hills of heaven is clothed with a garment of stars ; hence walks like a sinner, among sinners, He who is the saint of saints ; Y 338 ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM , here He converses with a blasphemer, there talks with an adulteress, or discourses with a miser. To Judas He gives a kiss of peace, and to a robber offers His paradise; and when He converses with sinners, He speaks with such love, that tears fill their eyes. This man should be profoundly acquainted with sorrow, when He thus pities the miserable, and with suffering, when He thus melts for the afflicted. Under the sun there never was man so unblessed with orphanage and want of protection. An entire people curse Him ; one of His disciples betrays, another denies, and all abandon Him; nor has He a drop of water to moisten His lips, nor a mouthful of bread to satisfy His hunger, nor a pillow on which to rest His head. No agony was ever equal to what He suffered in the Garden, when all His pores sweated blood ; then His face was stricken with blows, His body covered with a purple garment in mockery, and His brow crowned with thorns; He bore the weight of His cross, and fell to the ground many times, and ascended the side of Golgotha, followed by maddened crowds, who filled the air with their sinister vocifera¬ tions ; when He was raised on high, His abandonment so increased that His very Father turned His eyes from Him, and the angels who obeyed Him, shaded their alarmed faces with their wings, that they might not be¬ hold Him ; even the superior part of His soul aban¬ doned His humanity in that terrible moment of death, remaining serene and indifferent to all. And the crowds shook their heads, and said : If Thou be the Son of God, come down from that cross. LIBERA LIS My AND SOCIALISM. 339 How could they believe, without a special grace of God, in the divinity of Him who is nailed to the cross in that state ? How not look on His words as a scandal and madness ? And yet that man, suffering mortal agony without alleviation, subjected the world to His law, carrying it as it were by storm, through the efforts of some poor fishermen, like Him, abandoned by all, and miserable strangers in the land. Through Him men changed their course of life, for Him they abandoned their property, for His love they took up their cross, and left the city, and peopled the deserts, and rejected sensual pleasures, and believed in the sanctifying virtue of suffering, and led a pure, spiritual life, and chastised their flesh without mercy,'subjecting it for ever; and besides all this, believed soon after His death stupendous and incredible things; for they believed that He who had been crucified was the only Son of God, and God Himself; that He had been conceived in the womb of a virgin by the operation of the Holy Ghost; that He who had been born in a stable and wrapped in swad¬ dling clothes, was the Lord of heaven and earth ; that when He died, He descended to hell, and released the pure and upright souls of the ancient patriarchs; that He afterwards resumed His body, and raised it glorious from the grave, and bore it through the air, transfigured and resplendent; that the woman, who had borne Him in her womb, was at once loving mother and immaculate virgin; that she was carried by angels to heaven, and there proclaimed by the angelic choirs and a sovereign edict, queen of creation, mother of the afflicted, inter- 340 ESS A YS ON 'CA THOLICISM , cessor of the just, refuge of sinners, mother of the Son and spouse of the Holy Ghost; that all things visible are of less value than the secret and invisible, and onlv worthy to be despised when compared with them ; that there is no other good but that which consists in under¬ going labour, accepting sorrow, tolerating afflictions, and living in perpetual tribulation ; nor other evil but sin and pleasure; that the waters of baptism purify, confes¬ sion cleanses from sin, bread and wine are converted into God, and God is within and without us in all direc¬ tions ; that He has counted all the hairs of our head, and none grows without His ordination nor falls without His permission or command; that if man thinks, it is He puts the thoughts before him ; that if his will incline, it is He moves it; that it is He who fortifies him when he is strong, and that he stumbles and falls if His aid is removed from him ; that the dead shall rise and come to judgment; that there are a heaven and a hell, eternal punishment and everlasting glory; that all this was to be believed by the world in opposition to all the powers of the world, and this marvellous doctrine was to invincibly open a way for itself against the will and in spite of the power of princes, kings and emperors ; that innumerable crowds of illus¬ trious confessors, eminent doctors, delicate and bashful virgins and glorious martyrs were to give their lives for it; and that the madness of Calvary was to be so contagious, as to turn the heads of people as far as the sun’s rays reach and the earth extends. All these incredible things were believed by men, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 34i when that grand tragedy of the three hours represented on Calvary to the dread of the sun and the shaking of the earth in all her members, came to an end. Thus was fulfilled the word pronounced by God in Osee :—I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bands of love (chap, xi., ver. 4). Man is of such condition, that he rebels against omnipotence and justice and resists mercy ; but he is softened and filled with love to the very marrow of his bones, if he hear the sad and afflicted voice of Him who dies for him, and in dying, proves His love for him. Why persecutest thou me ? This is that fearful but loving voice, which continually sounds in the ears of sinners ; and that loving and soft accent of gentle complaint is what goes straight to the soul, and transforms and changes and converts it all to God, and obliges it to seek Him in the city and the desert, in the rugged mountain and in the plains, by the high roads and by-paths. It is that voice which inflames the soul with the chaste love of the Spouse, and carries it, almost beside itself, in pursuit of His intoxicating per¬ fumes, as thirst brings the stag to the beautiful springs of living waters. God came to the world to cast fire on the earth, and immediately the earth began to smoke and burn in all its four quarters, and the powerful flames of those divine conflagrations are daily extended through all regions. Love explains the inexplicable, and man believes through love what appears incredible, and does what appears impossible to do, for love smoothes and makes everything possible. When those apostles who saw the Lord, before His 342 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , passion, transfigured and clothed in white garments, more shining than the sun, and purer than the snow, said in ecstasy, Let us remain here, they had not yet any idea of divine love, nor its ineffable delights ; hence the great apostle, master of the art of love, afterwards said :—One thing alone I desire to understand, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified ; which was the same as:—I want to know all, and to know all, I want only to know Jesus Christ; for in Him are united all knowledge and all things; and then he added :—And Him crucified : he did not say, transfigured nor glorious; for it avails little to know Him in His omnipotence, assisting in thought at the marvellous work of universal creation, nor does it suffice to know Him in His glory when His countenance glitters with uncreated light, and the powers of heaven are absorbed in admiration before the divine throne ; nor is it enough to see Him pronounce the unappealable decrees of His justice, surrounded by angels and seraphim. Nor is the soul completely satis¬ fied when it witnesses the profound wonders of His infinite mercy. The apostle with an unassuagable thirst, unsatisfied hunger, and invincible desire, longs and asks for more, and mounts higher in daring thought; for he is only content with knowing Christ crucified, that is, as He prefers to be known ; in the highest and most excellent manner in which reason can conceive, or imagination imagine, or the will desire ; for it is to know Him in the act of His incomprehensible and infinite love. That is what the apostle wishes to signify, when he says: —I only want to know Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Him only did those privileged men want to know, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 343 who took up their cross, and marched on, carefully lay¬ ing down their foot whenever they saw the bloody and glorious track of His footsteps, Him only those fathers who converted the desert wastes into gardens of para¬ dise, wanted to know. Him only did those chaste vir¬ gins, miracles of fortitude, want to know, who laying all concupiscence at His feet, took Him for spouse, and consecrated their pure and virginal thoughts to Him, Him alone all those want to know who, turning their eyes into fountains, have received tribulations with heart-felt joy, and have firmly ascended the rugged mount of penance. Among the wonders of creation, a soul in charity is the most marvellously wonderful, not only because its state is the highest and most excellent that can be imagined on this earth below, but because it proclaims with loud voice, the prodigies wrought by divine love, which was capable not only of blotting out our sin, and thereby disorder and the cause of all disorder, but also of inclining us to voluntarily desire the deification we formerly rejected, and rendering us capable of attaining what we desired, by accepting the assistance of the grace we merited in the Lord and through the Lord, when He shed His blood on Calvary to merit it for us, and that we might merit it. All these things are signified by those memorable words pronounced by Jesus Christ, when about expiring :—It is consummated : which was equal to saying, I effected with my love what I could not with my justice, nor my mercy, nor my wisdom, nor my omnipotence ; for I blotted out sin which obscured the divine majesty and human beauty, freed humanity 344 ESS A VS ON CA THOLICISM, from its shameful captivity, and restored to man the power of being saved, which he had lost through sin. Now my spirit can descend to fortify, embellish, and deify man, for I have drawn him and united him to me with a powerful and loving bond. When those memorable words were pronounced by the Son of God on expiring on the cross, all things became marvellously ordained and perfect in order. Every one of the dogmas contained as well in this as in the former book, is a law of the moral world ; every one of those laws is of itself permanent and perpetual : all together compose the code of laws which constitute moral order in humanity and the universe ; and united to the physical, to which the material are subject, form the supreme law of order, which directs and governs all things created. To such a degree is it necessary that all things be in perfect order, that man, though turning everything into disorder, cannot conceive disorder; hence every revolu¬ tion, when destroying ancient institutions, rejects them as absurd and injurious; and when substituting others of individual invention, says they constitute excellent order. This is the signification of the phrase conse¬ crated among revolutionists of all times, when they call the perturbation they sanctify, a new order of things. Even M. Proudhon, the most daring of all, only defends his anarchy in quality of the rational expression of per¬ fect, that is, absolute order. From the perpetual necessity of order, flows the per¬ petual necessity of the physical and moral laws which LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM. 345 constitute it; for this reason they were all created and proclaimed by God alone from the beginning of time. When He drew the world from nothingness, formed man from the slime of the earth, made the woman from his rib, and constituted the first family, God established once for ever the physical and moral laws which consti¬ tute order in humanity and the universe, withdrawing them from the jurisdiction of man, and placing them beyond the reach of his mad speculations and vain caprices. Even the dogmas of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of the redemption of the human race, were revealed by God in paradise, when He made that merciful promise to our first parents, with which He tempered the rigour of His justice. In vain has the world denied those laws: aspiring to emancipate itself from their yoke by denying them, it has done nothing but increase its burden by means of catastrophes ever proportioned to the negations, this law of proportion being one of the constitutives of order. God left a free and wide field to human opinions; broad were the dominions He left to the empire of the free will of man, to whom was given authority over sea and land, the right of rebelling against his Creator, making war on heaven, entering into treaties and alliances with the infernal spirits, deafening the world with the noise of battle, burning cities with conflagra¬ tions and discords, astounding them with the tremendous shocks of revolutions, closing his understanding to the truth, and his eyes to the light, and opening them 346 ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM , to error and darkness with delight; of founding and raising empires, establishing and destroying republics, and of tiring of republics, empires and monarchies; of rejecting what he before desired, returning to what he abandoned, of affirming everything, even the absurd: of denying everything, even evidence ; of saying there is no God , and lam God; of proclaiming his independence of all powers, and of adoring the sun which gives him light, the tyrant who oppresses him, the reptile that creeps on the ground, the hurricane which roars, the lightning which flashes, the rumbling thunder, and the passing cloud. All this and much more was given to man; but notwithstanding his possession of all this, the stars perpetually pursue their course, in regulated rotation, and the seasons succeed each other in harmonious circle, without ever overtaking or becoming confounded one with the other, and the earth is clothed with grass and trees and bending harvests, as it ever was from the day it received from on high the virtue of fructifying; and all things physical fulfil to-day as they did yesterday and shall to-morrow, the divine commands, moving in perpetual peace and harmony, without infringing in the slightest the laws of their powerful Maker, who with sovereign hand, regulates their steps, restrains their impetuosity, or gives them loose rein. All that and much more was given to man; but not¬ withstanding he could not prevent punishment following on the heels of his sin, chastisement on his crime, death on his first transgression, damnation on his obstinacy, LIBERALISM ,, AND SOCIALISM. 347 justice on his liberty, mercy on his repentance, separa¬ tion on his scandals, and catastrophes on his rebellions. To man it has been given to bring society lacerated by discords to his feet, to level the strongest walls, sack opulent cities, destroy extensive and renowned empires, bury in fearful ruin the highest civilizations, enveloping their splendours in the dense cloud of barbarism ; what has not been given him is, to suspend for one day, for a single hour, for one sole instant, the infallible fulfilment of the fundamental laws of the physical and moral world, constitutives of order in humanity and the universe : what the world has never and shall never see is, that the man who flies from order by the door of sin, returns not by the door of penalty, that herald of God who bears His messages to all. THE END. i M. H. Gill & Son, Printers, Dublin ' •s. L 16787 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless re¬ served. \ ; -''V * if Two cents a day is charged for each book kept overtime. If you cannot find what you want, ask the Librarian who will be glad to help you. S The borrower is responsible for books drawn on his card and for all fines accruing on the same.