Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/70

is presented to him, he immediately denies it, and in so doing asserts his own absolute sovereignty. If he cannot deny it, he combats it, and in so doing strives to assert his own supremacy. If he conquers truth, he crucifies it; if he is conquered by it, he flies, and by flight he believes that he escapes from servitude; and in crucifying truth, he believes that he crucifies his tyrant.

There is, on the contrary, a secret and close affinity between human reason and absurdity. Sin has united them by the bonds of an indissoluble alliance. Absurdity triumphs over man, precisely because it possesses no right anterior and superior to human reason; man accepts it precisely on that account, because, having no right, it makes no pretensions. His will accepts it, because it is the child of his understanding; and his reason delights in it, because it is its own offspring, its own creation, and the living testimony of its creative power. In the act of its creation man resembles God, and he calls himself God; and if he is God after the manner of God, all the rest is but of little consequence to him. What matters it that the other be the God of truth, if he himself be the God of absurdity? At least he will be independent and sovereign like God. In worshiping his own work he will adore himself; and in exalting it he will exalt himself. You who aspire to subjugate people, to rule nations, and to control human reason, proclaim not that you are the depositaries of clear and evident truths; above all, beware of producing your proofs, if you have them, because the world will never acknowledge your authority, but will rather rebel against the rude yoke, which such evidence would impose upon them. Proclaim, on the contrary, that you possess an