Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/134

tions are suppressed. By this system, the creation is one, and God is one; and, in setting aside a divine dualism, we put an end to the war of the gods. Evil exists, because without it we cannot imagine human liberty. But the evil that exists is accidental and not essential, because, if it were essential and not accidental, it would be a work of God, the creator of all things. This would involve a contradiction, repugnant both to divine and human reason. Evil comes from man, and is in man, and, coming from and dwelling in him, there is in it a great agreement, and no contradiction whatever. There is agreement, because inasmuch as evil cannot be the work of God, man could not choose it, if he could not create it; and he would not be free, if he could not choose it. There is no contradiction in this, because Catholicism, in affirming of man that he is good in his essence, and evil, by accident, does not assert of him the same that it denies, nor does it deny what it affirms, because, to affirm of man that the evil in his nature is accidental and not essential, is not to affirm contradictory things, but only two different things.

Finally, the Catholic system subverts that blasphemous and impious system which supposes a perpetual antagonism between God and man, between the creator and the creature. Man, the author of evil, which is of itself accidental and transitory, cannot be compared with God, the creator, supporter, and regulator of all beings and all things. Nor can there exist any conceivable rivalry or possible competition between these two existences, which are separated by an infinite distance. The battle between the creator of essential good and the creator of essential evil, as asserted by the Manichean and Proudhonian systems, is inconceivable and ab-