Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/255

LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM

pose; and because this very proposition is made by those who reject faith, and proclaim the imprescriptible right of reason to an entire independence and a sover- eign rule. The socialist schools would, I think, be greatly embarrassed if their dogmas were subjected to a rigorous examination, and a categorical answer exacted from them, of the following direct question: From what do you infer that there exists a solidarity among men, and that they are brothers, equal and free? This same difficulty also arises for a Catholic solution, and receives one, for Catholicism admits the obligation of answering. all questions propounded to it; but socialism, the most rationalistic of all the schools, does not acknowledge the same obligation, and it leaves the objection unanswered, although it is especially directed against its doctrine. These abstract formulas have certainly not found their solution in history. If history sustains any philosophical system, it is not, assuredly, that which proclaims the solidarity, liberty, equality, and fraternity of mankind, but rather that formula so forcibly expressed by Hobbes, which declares universal, incessant, and simultaneous war to be the natural and primitive state of man. Man would seem to be, from his birth, under the mysterious power of some malefic influence, and destined to endure an inexorable condemnation; all that surrounds him appears to oppose him, and he is in antagonism with all things. The first breath of air which blows upon him, the first rays of the sun which strike him, are but the beginning of the war waged against him by exterior forces. All his vital energies rebel against their distressing pressure, and his whole existence is filled with