Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/122

plication of the final victory; because a definitive victory of evil over good, or of good over evil, implies the entire suppression of the one or of the other, while that which has a real and necessary existence cannot be definitively suppressed. According to the principles of manicheism, therefore, the combat which seemed to be sufficiently explained remains inexplicable; because a combat is unintelligible where victory is forever impossible.

If we pass from the investigation of the general absurdity of every manichean explanation to the especial inconsistency of the explanation of Proudhon, we shall clearly see that it implies every possible absurdity, and that there are even things in this explication unworthy of the majesty of the absurd. In effect, when Mr. Proudhon calls evil good, and good evil, he is not guilty of an absurdity; for the absurd supposes greater genius; but this is mere buffoonery. The peculiar absurdity is not simply in making this assertion, but in having no object whatever in doing so. From the moment that it is affirmed that good and evil coexist in man and in God, locally and substantially, the question which consisted in establishing from whence proceeds evil, and from whence good, becomes useless. Man will attribute evil to God and good to himself, and God will assert that in him is all good, and in man evil. Therefore, evil and good will exist everywhere and nowhere. The question will then reduce itself to this: which side will be victorious? As this hypothesis makes no distinction between good and evil, it falls into the ridiculous puerility of contradicting the common sentiment of mankind. The absurdity which is peculiar to Mr. Proudhon is, that his dualism