Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/177

The socialist schools are greatly superior to the liberal school, both as to the nature of the problems which they propose to solve and in their mode of presenting and explaining them. Their masters evince a familiarity, up to a certain point, with those bold speculations which refer to God and his nature, man and his constitution, society and its institutions, the universe and its laws. This propensity to generalize everything, to consider things in their ensemble, and to observe general dissonances and harmonies, gives them a greater aptitude to enter and to escape from the intricate labyrinth of the rationalistic logic without losing themselves. If, in the great contest which holds the world as it were in suspense, there were no other disputants than the socialists and liberalists, the battle would not last long, nor would the victory be doubtful.

All the socialist schools are, in a philosophical point of view, rationalistic; under a political aspect, republican; and under a religious aspect, atheistical. They resemble the liberal school in their elements of rationalism, and differ from this school in so far as they are atheistical and republican. The question, then, consists in investigating whether rationalism logically ends where the liberal school does, or proceeds as far as the socialist school. We shall defer the examination of this ques-