Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/205

nature and origin of both, and also their various and complicated effects. Catholicism teaches us that there is no good whatever which does not come to us from God, and that all which comes from God is good. It teaches us in what manner evil commenced with the first aberration of the angelical and the human liberty; and how, from being obedient and submissive, they became rebellious and disloyal; and in what way and to what extent these two great prevarications change everything by their influence and ravages. Finally, it teaches us that good is in its nature eternal because it is essential, and that evil is transitory because it is accidental; from which it follows that good is neither subject to change nor decay, and that evil may be blotted out and the sinner redeemed. Reserving for future consideration the investigation of those great and supreme mysteries. whose wonderful virtue has extirpated evil in its source, we have limited ourselves in this book to exhibiting the sovereign art and consummate skill which God has displayed, in converting the effects of original sin into constituent elements of a higher good and a more perfect order. With this view we have explained in what manner good proceeds from evil through the power of God, after having explained in what manner evil proceeds from good through the fault of man; and this without the human action and divine reaction implying any rivalry whatever between beings who are separated by an infinite distance.

In regard to the rationalist schools, the examination of their various systems only serves to prove their profound ignorance in all that relates to these high questions. As to the liberal school, its ignorance is pro-