Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/176

the other divine—there is no doubt that this doctrine, even before investigation, is satisfactory to reason, because 1t proportions the grandeur of the causes to that of the effects, and proposes an explanation equal to the question that is to be explained. When socialism affirms that man’s nature is perfect, and that society is sick ; when 1t places the former in open conflict with the latter, in order that the good which is iIn man may extirpate the evil that is in society; when it calls upon humanity to rise in rebellion against all social institutions, there is undoubtedly in this mode of presenting and explaining a question, false as it 1s, much that in dignity and grandeur is worthy of the terrible majesty of the subject. But when liberalism explains good and evil, order and disorder, by the diversity of governmental forms, which are all ephemeral and transitory; when, setting aside all social and religious problems, 1t discusses its political problems as alone worthy the serious consideration of a statesman, truly words fail to express our sentiments of the profound incapacity and radical incompetency of this school, we will not say to solve, but even to present these formidable questions.

The liberal school, fearing at the same time both light and darkness, has chosen an uncertain twilight between the luminous and opaque regions, between eternal shade and heavenly light. Placed in this nameless region, 1t has undertaken to govern without a people and without God; an extravagant and impossible attempt. Its days are numbered, because we see God appearing at one point of the horizon, and at the other the people. On the terrible day of battle, when the entire field will be covered with Catholic and socialist combatants, no one will know where to find this school of liberalism.