Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/126

the intricate and gloomy labyrinths of human solutions; then follows, what we have just demonstrated, that his solution is partial, and as such incomplete, and therefore false. At first view, his solution may seem to explain something, but upon investigation it will be seen that it really fails to give an explanation of what it appears to solve, and reason, which begins by accepting it as plausible, finally rejects it as insufficient, contradictory, and absurd. This has been completely proved in the preceding chapter, with regard to the question which we are now considering; and, having shown the manifest deficiency of the human solution, it only remains for us to demonstrate the adequacy and entire consistency of the Catholic solution.

God, who is the absolute good, is the supreme creator of all good; and all that he creates is good. But as God cannot give the creature all that He possesses, nor give him that which He himself has not, it follows that it is altogether impossible either that God should communicate evil, which dwells not in Him, to any creature, or that He should communicate absolute good; both are manifest impossibilities, because we cannot conceive the imparting of that which one does not possess, nor can we conceive that the creator should remain absorbed by the creature. Not being able to communicate absolute goodness, which would be to make of the creature another God like himself, nor to impart evil, which dwells not in him in any manner, he therefore bestows a relative goodness, whereby he imparts all that it is in his power to give, namely, something of that which is in him, but which is not himself; thus producing between him and the creature a likeness which attests the derivation, and at the same time showing a difference which attests the