Catholic socialism, in fact, aids in the propagation of socialist ideas, especially in the rural districts where religious faith and practices are still very vigorous, but it will not win and wear the palm of victory ad majorem dei gloriam. As I have shown, there is a growing antagonism between science and religion, and the socialist varnish cannot preserve Catholicism. The "earthly" socialism has, moreover, a much greater attractive power.
When the peasants shall have become familiar with the views of Catholic socialism, it will be very easy for democratic socialism to rally them under its own flag—they will, indeed, convert themselves.
Socialism occupies an analogous position with regard to republicanism. Just as atheism is a private affair which concerns the individual conscience, so a republican form of government is a private affair which interests only a part of the bourgeoisie. Certainly, by the time that socialism draws near to its day of triumph, atheism will have made immense progress, and a republican form of government will have been established in many countries which to-day submit to a monarchical regime. But it is not socialism which develops atheism, any more than it is socialism which will establish republicanism. Atheism is a product of the theories of Darwin and Spencer in the present bourgeois civilization, and republicanism has been and will be, in the various countries, the work of a portion of the capitalist bourgeoisie, as was recently said in some of the conservative newspapers of Milan (Corriere della sera and Idea liberale), when "the monarchy shall no longer serve the interests of the country," that is to say of the class in power.
The evolution from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy and to republicanism is an obvious historical law; in the present phase of civilization the only difference between the two latter is in the elective or hereditary character of the head of the State. In the various countries of Europe, the bourgeoisie themselves Hill demand the transition from monarchy to republicanism, in order to put off as long as possible the triumph of socialism. In Italy as in France, in England as in Spain, we see only too many republicans or "radicals" whose attitude with regard to social questions is more bourgeois and more conservative than that of the intelligent conservatives. At Montecitorio, for example, there is Imbriani whose opinions on religious and social matters are more conservative than those of M. di Rudini. Imbriani, whose personality is moreover very attractive, has never attacked the priests or monks—this man who attacks the entire universe and very often with good reason, although without much success on account of mistaken methods—and he was the only one to oppose even the consideration of a law proposed by the Député Ferrari, which increased the tax on estates inherited by collateral heirs!
Socialism then has no more interest in preaching republicanism than it has in preaching atheism. To each his role (or task), is the law of division of labor. The struggle for atheism is the business of science; the establishment of republicanism in the various countries of Europe has been and will be the work of the bourgeoisie themselves—whether they be conservative or radical. All this constitutes the historical progress toward socialism, and individuals are powerless to prevent or delay the succession of the phases of the moral, political and social evolution.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Darwin never made a declaration of atheism, but that was in fact his way of looking at the problem ("sa manière de voir.").
While Haeckel, concerned solely with triumphing over the opposition, said at the Congress of Eisenach (1882) that Darwin was not an atheist, Büchner, on the contrary, published shortly afterward a letter which Darwin had written him, and in which he avowed that "since the age of forty years, his scientific studies had led him to atheism."
(See also, "Charles Darwin and Karl Marx: A Comparison," by Ed. Aveling. Published by the Twentieth Century Press, London.—Translator.)
In the same way, John Stuart Mill never declared himself a Socialist, but that, nevertheless, in opinion he was one, is made evident by his autobiography and his posthumous fragments on Socialism. (See "The Socialism of John Stuart Mill." Humboldt Pub. Co., New York.—Tr.)