Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/254

they are enemies; to believe that there is a common inheritance of misfortune and glory for all men, when I can discover only individual misfortune and glory; to believe that I only exist for humanity, when I have the inherent consciousness that I refer humanity to my- self; to believe that this same humanity is the center toward which I refer all my actions, when I make myself my own center; and finally, to believe that I ought to believe all these things, when those who propose them to me as the objects of belief assert that I should only believe in my reason, which rejects them all, there is in all this so great a disproportion, and so inconceivable an aberration, that I am overwhelmed, and as it were stupefied with amazement. And my astonishment increases when I perceive, that the very men who affirm the solidarity of humanity reject the solidarity of the family, which is equivalent to asserting that enemies are brothers, and that brothers ought not to be united in a fraternal bond. When the same men who affirm the solidarity of humanity deny a political solidarity, they affirm that we hold nothing in common with our fellow citizens, and everything in common with strangers. When these men who affirm the solidarity of humanity deny the solidarity of religion, they affirm the effect and deny the cause. From all this results the logical deduction, that the socialist schools are both illogical and absurd. They are illogical because, after having demonstrated, in opposition to the liberal school, that one cannot reject certain solidarities and admit others, they yet fall into this very error when they accept one alone and reject all the others. They are absurd, because the very dogma which they admit is precisely one of those dogmas which surpasses reason, and which faith alone can