Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/52

 38 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of the local liberties which Joseph II. was largely instrumental in annihilating, and which the Liberal party, true to its traditional principles the world over, is bent upon combating to the bitter end. It must be observed, however, that those who in Austria are talking about going over to Protestantism are persons who are notoriously devoid of any personal religion, being infidels and worldlings who are Catholic only by baptism and a sort of legal fiction.

It will be instructive to give, before closing, a more definite view of the ideal constitution of society according to the Cath- olic philosophy. The Catholic sociologists {i. e., those of the Catholic school, of whatever personal creed, excluding Catholics who adhere to other schools, a distinction that it is essential to keep in mind) reject the theory of the social contract, as well as the theories of the positivist, ethnological, and historical schools, according to which all rights have their source in the good of the species, the natural social tendencies of man, or the decrees of governments. In the words of G. Rossignoli [Rivista Intemaziotmle, August, 1898, p. 509) :

Natural right, objectively considered, is either the Eternal Reason of God by which man is ruled, or it is only an idle breath ; and natural right, taken subjectively, either is the faculty, conceded to man by the Eternal Reason of God, of doing or requiring certain things, or it is only a physical power to coerce others ; nothing, in short, but force, brute force.

They hold that the ma7i of liberalism and socialism is a chimera; that the real man is a rational animal, destined to an eternity of weal or woe, according to the deeds done in the flesh, and existing in certain definite relations with his fellows, according to his position in the social organism, as a member of a certain family, profession, community, people, etc. The only actual or desirable or possible equality is an equal responsibility of all men before God and man for the performance of the duties, the fulfillment of the obligations, and the due use of the rights and privileges with which they are severally burdened or endowed. These duties, obligations, rights, and privileges, far from being equal, are as multifarious, diverse, and unequal as the possible conditions, situations, relationships, and environments of