Man is, in his heart, a beast. He rapes, he kills, he pillages, he destroys for gain, and he destroys for pleasure. He spends hours, planning, plotting, ready at the right moment to take his chance. His passions overflowing, without rhyme, reason, he strikes, brutally, even at those he claims to love. These are not the characteristics of a few, some misguided souls, this is in the hearts of all, inexplicable, yet the source of all crimes and wickedness in the world.
Because man is a beast, a rational beast, he does what all rational people would do: he places himself in a cage. First, the Nation: he places himself subject to law, and to the duties of citizenship. Second, the Church: he places not only his body, but his soul in the care of a higher law, and a higher set of duties demanded by God. Third, work, marriage and the family: he places a bound on his fecundity, and its directionality, to cultivate and redeem. Man cannot be brought to love, but he can be brought to a cage, and perhaps, by grace, he can begin to walk in love, to love his cage, his limitations, his obligations, and he has the possibility of transforming this beast that rages in his heart into something gentle, compassionate, just. Our cage makes it possible to become bigger than what we are on our own. Alone, we are savage beasts, but together, bound in mutual obedience, we can become civilized, compassionate, cultured, wise, and loving.
This is the true corruption of modernity, the belief that man can be something higher than man in the cage, that he can throw off his cage and find his true self. Man's true self, his true image, comes in his acceptance of his limits. To pretend he can transcend these limits invariably renders him bestial. He invokes the good, the right, and the true to dispel the idea he can and should be limited. Not only a beast, but a foolish one by all accounts.
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