Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/101

follows, that the imperfection of his liberty consists in his power of choosing evil and embracing error, that is to say, the imperfection of human liberty lies in precisely that faculty of choice which, according to the vulgar opinion, constitutes its absolute perfection.

Man at his creation knew good, and because he perceived it he sought it, and because he sought it he practiced it; and in the possession of that good which he sought with his will and understanding, he was free. That this is the signification of Christian liberty, we clearly see in the following words: "Cognoscetis veritatem et veritas liberabit vos."^[1] Between the liberty of man and that of God there is, then, no other difference than that which exists between anything that can undergo diminution and loss, and that which cannot; the same difference that must exist between that which is limited and that which is essentially infinite.

When the woman listened to the voice of the fallen angel, her will immediately began to be obscured and weakened; she ceased to rest on God, who had hitherto been her stay, and she experienced in consequence a speedy downfall. It was then that her freedom, which consisted in the exercise of will and understanding, was enfeebled. When she passed from the thought to the commission of sin, her understanding became obscured and her will weakened. The woman involved man in her ruin, and human liberty fell into a state of deep abasement.

Some persons who confound the idea of liberty with that of absolute independence, ask why man became enslaved so soon as he fell under the power of the devil,