Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/199

accidental, then you must do what you have not done, what you do not nor cannot do; you must explain when and how, in what manner, and under what form this accident has occurred; and then you must show through what series of deductions you can succeed in converting man into the redeemer of society, and in investing him with power to wash away its corruption and sin. With this view, it will be well to remind the incautious, who may be attracted by these declamatory assertions, that the rationalism which attacks with fury all the Catholic mysteries, afterwards proclaims these very mysteries in a different manner and with another design. Catholicism affirms two things-the existence of evil and the redemption. These affirmations are also equally included in the symbol of social rationalism. There is on this point only this difference between socialists and Catholics: the Catholics affirm that evil comes from man, and redemption from God; the socialists affirm that evil comes from society, and redemption from man. The two affirmations of Catholicism are sensible and natural, namely, that man is man, and performs human works, and that God is God, and performs divine acts. The two affirmations of socialism assert that man understands and executes the designs of God, and that society performs the works proper to man. What, then, does human reason gain when it rejects Catholicism for socialism? Does it not refuse to receive that which is evident and mysterious, in order to accept that which is at once mysterious and absurd?

Our refutation of socialist theories would not be complete if we did not allude to the attacks of Mr. Proudhon upon his opponents, which are alternately replete with argument, sarcasm, and eloquence.