Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/71

argument which will disprove a mathematical truth, which will demonstrate that two and two do not make four, but five; that there is no God, or that man is God; that the world has until now been the slave of shameful superstitions; that the wisdom of ages is simply pure ignorance; that all revelation is an imposture; that all government is tyranny and all obedience slavery; that beauty is deformity and deformity most beautiful; that good is evil and evil is good; that the devil is God and God is the devil; that beyond this world there is neither hell nor heaven; that the world we inhabit is, and has been, a real hell, but that man can transform it into a true paradise, which it is destined to become; that liberty, equality, and fraternity are dogmas incompatible with the Christian superstition; that theft is an imprescriptible right, and that property is theft; that order does not exist except in anarchy, and that there is no anarchy without order. Announce these propositions, and you may rest assured that, at the mere assertion of such things, the world will wonder at your wisdom, and fascinated by such a display of science, will listen to your opinions with the greatest attention and respect. If, in addition to the good sense you will display in offering to prove these statements, you make no attempt to prove any one of them; or if, as the proof of these blasphemies and affirmations, you simply reiterate the very same things, then the world will praise you beyond measure, and raise you to the skies. If, after all this, you direct attention to your good faith, which does not fear to present things as they are, unaided by the vein show of futile reasons and useless historical antecedents or miracles, and thus give a public testimony of your belief that truth will triumph of itself; if, finally, you