Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/142



136 HUMAN LIBERTY.

We have on other occasions, and especially in Our Encyclical Letter Immortale Dei, in treating of the so- called modern liberties, distinguished between their good and evil elements; and We have shown that whatsoever is good in those hberties is as ancient as truth itself, and that the Church has always most wilhngly approved and practised that good: but whatsoever has been added as new is, to tell the plain truth, of a vitiated kind, the fruit of the disorders of the age, and of an insatiate long- ing after novelties. Seeing, however, that many cling so obstinately to their own opinion in this matter as to imagine these modern liberties, cankered as they are, to be the greatest glory of our ago, and the very basis of civil life, without which no perfect government can be conceived. We feel it a pressing duty, for the sake of the common good, to treat separately of this subject.

It is with 7noral liberty, whether in individuals or in communities, that We proceed at once to deal. But, first of all, it will be vvell to speak briefly of natural liberty; for, though it is distinct and separate from moral hberty, natural freedom is the fountain-head from which liberty or whatsoever kthd flows, sua ~m~Min;qim~'sponte. The" unanimous consent and judgment of men, which is the trusty voice of nature, recognizes this natural hberty in those only who are endowed with intelligence or reason; and it is by his use of this that man is rightly regarded as responsible for his actions. For, while other animate creatures follow their senses, seeking good and avoTdihg evil only by instinct, man has reason to guide hini m~each" and every act of his life. Reason sees that whatever things that are held to be good upon earth, may exist or may not, and discerning that none of them are of necessity for us, it leaves the will free to choose what it pleases. But man can judge of this contingency, as We say, only because he has a soul that is simple, spiritual, and in- tellectual â€” a soul, therefore, which is not produced by matter, and does not depend on matter for its existence;