Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/195

olic school. For this reason, St. Simonism and Fourrierism do not admit that man is so constituted that the understanding and will are antagonistic; nor do they concede that there is any opposition whatever between the spirit and the flesh. The chief object of St. Simonism is to practically prove the reconciliation and unity of these two powerful energies. This perfect agreement was symbolized in the St. Simonian priesthood, whose office it was to satisfy the spirit by the gratification of the flesh, and the flesh by the gratification of the spirit.

The principle common to all the socialists, which consists in replacing the vicious construction of society with an organization similar to that of man, who is, according to them, properly constituted, leads the St. Simonians to deny every kind of political, scientific, and social dualism. And this is a necessary negation, if we suppose the denial of the antithetical nature of man. Having proclaimed the reconciliation between the flesh and the spirit, they then announce the universal agreement and reconciliation of all things; and as there can be no agreement and reconciliation except in unity, therefore universal unity becomes a consequence of human unity, from which results a political, social, and religious pantheism; and this constitutes the ideal despotism, which all the socialist schools ardently desire. The common father of the school of St. Simon, and the high priest of the school of Fourrier, are its most august and glorious personifications.

Returning to the contemplation of the nature of man, which is our special study for the present, we find that the socialists, affirming man's unity on one side, and on the other his absolute goodness, proceed to proclaim man holy and divine; and this not only in his unity, but like-