Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/111

asks for anything, he blasphemes, unless the same God who is to grant his request teaches him what to ask, and how to ask it. Man neither knew how to pray nor what to ask for, until God, made man, taught him the Our Father, so that he might commit it to memory like a child.

What does man mean, when he says, it would be better for me never to have been born? Did he by chance exist before he was created? And what signifies his question, if, previous to his existence, he never existed? Man can form some idea of all that exists, even when it surpasses his reason, and therefore he can have some conception of all the mysteries; but he cannot form any idea whatever of non-existence, of nothingness. He who commits suicide does not wish to blot himself out of existence; he only wishes, by existing in a different way, to end his suffering. Man, then, expresses no idea whatever when he says, why do I exist? He can only express an idea when he asks, why am I what I am? This question resolves itself into another—why have I the power to lose myself? This is an absurd question, in whatever light you view it. In effect, if every created being is imperfect simply because he is a creature, and if the power to lose one's self constitutes the especial imperfection of man, he therefore who asks. this question, asks in substance why he is a creature, or, what is its equivalent, why the creature is not the Creator, why man is not the God who created man? Quod absurdum.

And if this question simply means, why we are not saved in spite of the power to lose ourselves, the absurdity is still greater; because, why should the power to lose one's self be given, if no one can be lost? If man