Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/135
surd, because victory would be an impossibility in such a contest. The Catholic system does not suppose a contest, because there cannot be a conflict between parties, where one side must necessarily be victorious and the other necessarily vanquished. Two conditions are requisite for the existence of a contest: one, that victory is possible; and the other, that it should be uncertain. Every struggle is useless when the victory is certain, or when it is impossible; from which it follows that, in whatever way we consider it, the hypothesis of these great battles fought for universal domination and supreme sway is absurd. And the inconsistency is equally great, whether one sovereign or two are supposed: in the first case, because he who is one will always be alone; and secondly, because the two would never be one, but perpetually two. These gigantic contests are such, that they are either decided before they commence, or will never be decided.
CHAPTER V.
Secret analogies between the physical and moral perturbations, caused by human liberty.
How far the lamentable fall of man changed the aspect of all creation, and up to what point the ruin it involved extended, is beyond the power of human investigation. But that which is established beyond all dispute is that the spirit and flesh both suffered a degradation in Adam; the former by pride, and the latter by concupiscence.