Man is naturally a social being.  Good and evil have their primitive seat in the heart of individuals, but good and evil are transferred into institutions of which the influence is morally beneficial or pernicious.  If socialism consists in recognizing the importance of social institutions, in cherishing ideas of progress and hopes of reform, I trust that we are all socialists.  Do we desire progress by the ever wider diffusion of justice and love?  From the moment that, across the conscience whereon divine rays are falling, we have descried the eternal centre of light, we understand that God is the most implacable enemy of abuses.  How is it then that atheism sometimes manifests itself in attempts at social reform?  We may explain it, without so much as pointing out the influence, but too real, of the faults committed by the representatives of religion.  Faith is a principle of action; it is, as history testifies, the grand source of the progress of human society; but faith is also a principle of patience.  The brow of every believer is more or less illumined by the rays of His peace who is patient because He is eternal.  Eager to effect good to the utmost extent of his ability, he accomplishes his work with that calm activity to which are reserved durable victories.  In the impossible (for if the word impossible is not French, it is human) the believer recognizes one of the manifestations of the supreme Will, and immortal hope enables him to support the evils which he does not succeed in destroying.  But this is not enough for impatient reformers.  Ignorant of the profound sources of evil, they think that institutions can do everything, and that a change of laws would suffice to reform men’s hearts; they believe that the organization of society alone hinders the realization of good and of happiness.  The resignation of believers appears to them a stupid lethargy, and in their patient expectation of a judgment to come they see only an obstacle to the immediate triumph of justice on the earth.  What if the nations were persuaded that there is nothing to be looked for beyond the present life, so that all that is to be done is to make to ourselves a paradise as soon as may be here below!  If they were persuaded that all appeal to the Judge in heaven is a chimerical hope, with what ardor would they throw themselves into schemes of revolution!  Thus it is that certain political innovators are led to seek in the negation of God one of their means of action.

Two views, therefore, essentially diverse, govern the labors of the renovators of society.  The one class desire to realize, in an ever larger measure, justice and love; religious convictions are the strongest support of their work.  The other class would uproot from men’s minds every principle of faith, in order the more readily to obtain the realization of their theories.  These two classes of men seem at times to be fighting all together in the melee of opinions.  They meet, as, in the doubtful glimmer of the dawn, might meet together laborious workmen who are anticipating the daylight, and evil-doers who are fleeing from the sun.