Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/269

the declared enemy of all literary, as of all moral excellence; and yet without either knowing or desiring it, he attains both a literary and moral beauty in the few pages which he consecrates to the modest graces of chastity, to artless and pure love, and to the harmony and magnificence of Catholicism. His style then rises. to the dignity and majesty of his subject, or breathes the graceful delicacy of the most refreshing idyl. If we consider Mr. Proudhon in himself, and separated from others, he is inexplicable and inconceivable. He is not a person, although he appears to be so, but he is a personification. Although he is in the highest degree contradictory and illogical, the world calls him logical because he is himself a consequence. He is the consequence of all the extravagant ideas, all the con- tradictory principles, all the absurd premises advanced during the past three centuries by modern rationalism. Thus, as the consequence supposes its premises, and the premises include their consequence, these three centuries ought necessarily to produce Mr. Proudhon, and Mr. Proudhon necessarily represents them. This is why the examination of either the ages or the man must give the same result. All the Proudhonian contradictions are found in the three last centuries, and Mr. Proudhon is the embodiment of all these antagonisms, and both are condensed in a book which, under this aspect, is the most remarkable work of the present age the "System of Economick Contradictions." There is an absolute identity between this book, its author, and the rationalist ages. The only difference that exists between them is in name and form. That which they all represent is alternately expressed under the form of a book, a man, or an age. This explains why Mr. Proudhon never is,