Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/138

that the judgments of God are as secret as his works are marvelous, it nevertheless is evident that if we once admit in theory the mysterious relation that God has placed between the moral and the physical and also admit it to be actually and in a certain degree visible in man, even if it is in some measure inexplicable, then all the rest is subordinate in this profound mystery. For the mystery lies in the law of relation, rather than in the applications which may be made of this law by way of inference.

It is proper to mention here, in order to throw light upon this difficult subject, and as a full proof of what we have stated, that physical things cannot be considered as possessing an independent existence; that is, as existing in themselves, by themselves, and for themselves; but they must rather be regarded as manifestations of spiritual things, which alone possess in themselves the reason of their existence. God, a pure spirit, being the beginning and end of all things, it is clear that all things, in their beginning and end, must be spiritual. This being the case, material things are either mere phantoms, that have no existence, or, if they really exist, they must have their being through God and for God, which means that they exist through the spirit and for the spirit. From which we infer that any perturbation, whatever it may be, in the spiritual world, must necessarily produce another analogous to it in the material world; as we cannot conceive that things themselves should remain in their proper order and agreement when there exists a perturbation in the superior order from which they have their beginning and their end.

The disorder, then, produced by sin was necessarily