JACQUES MARITAIN
among men. It is not to the dynamism or the imperialism
of a race, or of a class, or of a nation, that it asks men to
sacrifice themselves: it is for the sake of a better.life for
their fellows and for the concrete good of the community
of human individuals....
(True Humanism,
p. xvii)*
207
Nor is M. Maritain frightened by the revolutionary elements
in
Marxist thought, if only the revolution, harsh as may be its
means, will uproot the "bourgeois man" whom M. Maritain loathes
with an almost unchristian contempt. For M. Maritain, the social
ideals of Marxism are not objectionable. The Marxian critique of
capitalist economy and of the consequences of the operation of that
economy upon human freedom and culture is described as a "great
lightning-Bash of truth." · It is only the "metaphysical" basis of
Marxism, its atheism, which M. Maritain deplores because it results
in
the apotheosis of collective man, in the conception of the abso–
lute sovereignty of the collectivity, and negation of true personality
whose ends are not all historical, social, or natural. That "Marx–
ism" has a dogmatic metaphysics, false though it is, makes it supe–
rior to bourgeois nominalism which has no metaphysics.** Substi–
tute the true metaphysics for the false, the religion of Catholicism
for the "religion" of Socialism, then the social revolution of the
Marxists, without abating one jot of its fiery opposition to capi–
talism and bourgeois humanism, can more surely move towards its
legitimate objectives-without of course ever achieving the King–
dom of Heaven upon earth. M. Maritain is profoundly indifferent
to
the fate of bourgeois property. Nor does the church's real estate
seem to concern him overmuch, for once the Marxist heresy is sup–
planted by the true doctrine, there will be no reaSon to be sus–
picious of the corporate property of God's shepherds which, after
all, is held in trust for the Bock.
The assumption that Marxism is a Christian heresy seems to
·New York: Chas. Scribners Sons,
1938.
I have centred the argument around this
book
because it is the latest available to me.
.
"This
is also the judgment of the eminent Catholic historian, E. Gilson. "Against
1M crude, yet fundamentally sound craving of Marxism [Stalinism] for positive and
..tic truth, the skepticism of our decadent philosophy [all non.Thomistic phi108'
.....,] bas not a chance. It deserves to be destroyed as it actually is in the minds of
_y
of our contemporaries who embrace Marxism because it is the only dogmatism
., mow."
The Unity
0/
Philosophical Experience,
p.
294.
