by the majority of men, such as the service of science, art, or humanity; and in the name of this imaginary good work they liberate themselves from the consecutive attainment of the qualities necessary for a good life, and are satisfied, like men on the stage, with pretending to live a good life.
Those who fell away from paganism without embracing Christianity in its true significance, began to preach love for God and man apart from self-renunciation, and justice without self-control; that is to say, they preached the higher virtues omitting the lower ones: i.e., not the virtues themselves, but the semblance.
Some preach love to God and man without self-renunciation, and others humaneness, the service of humanity, without self-control. And as this teaching, while pretending to introduce man into higher moral regions, encourages his animal nature by liberating him from the most elementary demands of morality—long ago acknowledged by the heathens, and not only not rejected but strengthened by true Christianity—it was readily accepted both by believers and unbelievers.
Only the other day the Pope's Encyclical[1] on Socialism was published, in which, after a pretended refutation of the Socialist view of the wrongfulness of private property, it was plainly said: 'No one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his own necessities and those of his household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life; for no one ought to live unbecomingly.' (This is from St. Thomas Aquinas, who says, Nullus enim inconvenienter vivere debet.) 'But when necessity has been fairly supplied, and one's position fairly considered, it is a duty to give to the indigent out of that which is over. That which remaineth give alms.'
Thus now preaches the head of the most wide-spread Church. Thus have preached all the Church teachers,
- ↑ This refers to the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. In the passage quoted the official English translation of the Encyclical has been followed. See the Tablet, 1891.
