Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/204

nature and the function ascribed to him; because, however imperfect the constitution of man, if he is so formed that he can improve the work of his Creator to such a degree as to become his own saviour, far from being an imperfectly constituted creature, he is the most perfect of created beings; for, how can we imagine a higher perfection than that which consists in the faculty of blotting out all our sins, of correcting all our imperfections, and, to express all in one word, of redeeming ourselves? Now, if man, whatever his imperfections, is, by the very fact of his being his own redeemer, a perfect being, to affirm of him that he was created imperfect, and yet is his own redeemer, is equivalent to affirming what is denied, and to denying what is affirmed; because it is affirming at the same time that he has been created both perfect and imperfect. And, let it not be said that man's imperfection comes from God, and his highest perfection of self-redemption comes from himself; because to this we answer, that man could never become his own redeemer if he had not been created with the faculty of attaining so great an eminence, or at least with the power of acquiring this faculty in the course of time. It is necessary to admit one of these two things, and, in this matter, to yield a part is to concede all; because if man, from the period of his creation, was potentially his own redeemer, before being so actually, this power, in spite of all his imperfections, constituted him a perfect being. The Proudhonian theory is, therefore, but a contradiction of terms.

The conclusion to be drawn from all that has been said is, that there is no school whatever which does not recognize the simultaneous existence of good and evil, and that Catholicism alone satisfactorily explains the