Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/25

social and religious affirmations; while in God there is but one affirmation, indivisible and supreme. He who speaks explicitly of what thing soever, and is ignorant that he implicitly speaks of God; and who does not know when he discusses explicitly any science whatever, that he implicitly illustrates theology, has received from God simply the necessary amount of intelligence to constitute him a man. Theology, then, considered in its highest acceptation, is the perpetual object of all the sciences, even as God is the perpetual object of human speculations.

Every word that a man utters is a recognition of the Deity, even that which curses or denies God. He who rebels against God, and frantically exclaims, "I abhor thee; thou art not!" illustrates a complete system of theology; as he does who raises to Him a contrite heart, and says, "Lord, have mercy on thy servant, who adores thee." The first blasphemes Him to His face, the second prays at His feet, yet both acknowledge Him, each in his own way; for both pronounce His incommunicable name.

In the manner of pronouncing this name rests the solution of the most profound enigmas; the vocation of races, the providential mission of nations, the great vicissitudes of history, the rise and fall of the most famous empires, their wars and their conquests, the different character of peoples, the physiognomy of nations, and their various fortunes. Where God is considered as the all-pervading essence, man, abandoned to silent contemplation, shuts out the senses and lives as it were in a dream, fanned by fragrant and enervating breezes. The adorer of the infinite substance is condemned to a perpetual slavery and unlimited indolence. For him the