Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/190

By what subterraneous paths, by what concatenation of subtile and labored deductions has the world, in the face of the glaring inconsistency of Mr. Proudhon, agreed to call his contradictions by a term which is their very opposite, consistency? Here is a great problem to be solved and a great mystery to be unraveled.

The explanation of this problem, and the solving of this mystery, are found in the fact that the theories of Mr. Proudhon imply at the same time contradiction and consistency; the first being apparent and the second real. If we examine in succession the fragments that we have just quoted from his works, and consider them in themselves, and without taking a more general view, each one of them is the contradiction of that which precedes and follows it, and all are in opposition to each other. But if we consider the rationalist theory, from which all have their origin, it will be seen that rationalism is the sin that most resembles original sin, being, like it, an actual error, and the productive cause of all error. Consequently it embraces and comprehends in its vast unity all errors; and contradictions form no impediment to this union, for even these antagonisms are susceptible of a certain kind of harmony and union, where there exists a supreme contradiction which involves them all. In the case in question, rationalism is this contradiction, which comprises all the others in its supreme unity. In fact, rationalism is at once deism, pantheism, humanism, manicheism, fatalism, skepticism, and atheism; and, among the rationalists, he who 1s at the same time deist, pantheist, humanist, manicheist, fatalist, skeptic, and atheist, is regarded as the most consistent.

These considerations serve to explain the facts which