Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/137

Death is only the same disunion, the same disorder, the same disequilibrium, carried to its extreme point. Therefore, the physical and moral disorder, ignorance, and weakness of will on the one side, and sickness and death on the other, are the same thing. This will be seen more clearly when we consider that all these disorders, physical as well as moral, come under the same denomination in their beginning and in their end. The concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of the spirit, bear the same name-sin; and the definitive disunion of the soul from God, and of the body from the soul, bear the same name-death. By which we see that the connection between the physical and the moral is so close that we can alone perceive the difference at an intermediate point, inasmuch as the beginning and end are the same. And how could it be otherwise, if the physical and the moral alike come from God and end in God, if God exists before sin and after death? This intimate connection between the moral and the physical might be unknown to the earth, which is purely material, and to the angels, who are purely spiritual; but how could it be hidden from man, who is composed of an immortal soul united to a corporeal substance, and placed by God at the confluence of the two worlds? The great perturbation produced by sin did not stop here. Not only did Adam become subject to sickness and death, but likewise all the earth was cursed on his account and in his name. As regards this tremendous, and, in a certain measure, incomprehensible curse, without daring to penetrate into a question so obscure, and acknowledging as we do