The error of Rousseau is, to have confounded the wild state with the state of nature. He did not perceive that the natural state in animals which have no soul is an instinct; that is to say, a life already marked out: whereas the natural state for man who has not merely instinct is the development of the faculties of the soul and of the intellect; that is to say, a life not yet marked out, and which may be varied in an infinite manner in each individual. The more, therefore, man shall be enlightened, the nearer will he approach to the state of nature, or rather to the state of his nature which is the development of all his faculties. What is there, in fact, between civilised man and nature? ignorance and prejudices, which civilisation tends to destroy. What is there between nature and man in the savage state? a still greater mass of errors and misery, which the savage state tends to perpetuate. That which separates the civilised from the savage man are the sciences, without which we should know nothing of the work of God, or of the love of our neighbour; without which we should again fall into a state of war between man and man, tribe and tribe, nation and nation; and lastly, the knowledge of an only God, which establishes the human confraternity, and without which we should die in the superstitions of the worshippers of idols, and amidst the horrors of cannibalism.

Do you not perceive that in the savage the best qualities of the soul remain dormant, while his most terrible animal faculties are developed with a frightful energy? The savage man requires the qualities of the wolf, of the tiger, the lion, the serpent; all the ferocity, all the instinct of the brute ; and without these he is in danger of perishing. The social man requires, on the contrary, pity, humanity, charity, all the faculties of the intellectual and religious being, and without which he would again fall into the savage

state. Would you dare to say, that those are not the nearest to a state of nature, who are nearest to God and man?

not as a mere traveller, these deserts, where he This life, to which poets

The savage state is not then the state of nature, but rather a state opposed to nature. In the absence of other proofs, it will suffice to refer to the horrible misery which decimates the wandering tribes of North America. John Tanner has drawn a picture of it, but after thirty years sojourn in himself lived the life of a savage. and philosophers have ascribed so many charms, is the life of the brute, softened only by some sentiments of pity and hospitality. Beyond this there is nothing else that is worthy of man. The day of the savage is passed like that of the animal, in seeking his prey, without any other thought. Intelligence seems to have been bestowed upon him only in order to provide for the wants of his stomach; and yet a time always arrives, a fatal hour, when his strength becomes exhausted, his cunning is at fault, and after unheard-of fatigues, he dies of hunger, with all his family, amidst the forests which refuse him food. The life of the savage is but the punishment of Ugolino transported into the desert, and interrupted from time to time by hunting or by human sacrifices. At these periods the forests re-echo with cries of joy or the songs of death: the hunger of the savage, the hunger of the man is appeased, amidst the horrible delirium of a feast of cannibals.

Such are the memoirs of Tanner;* such are the virtues and delights of savage life. And after this picture one would, I should think, be but little moved by the declamation of Rousseau, on that which it has pleased him to call the state of nature; the plain truth destroys the eloquent paradox.

* Thirty Years in the Deserts of America. New York, 2 vols.

Sociability is then imposed upon the human race: it is a condition of man's life, a second creation, which imparts to him all his value; for not only does it snatch him from these barbarities, but it discovers in him virtues and sentiments which would die without it. The savage state, like the barbarous state, may produce a Jenghis Khan; but it could not produce an Alexander; it could not produce a Plato, a Socrates, a Galileo, or a Newton; neither could it produce the apostles of Christ. Man appears complete only at the summit of civilisation.

God has bestowed a light upon society, and this light adapts itself to all the degrees of civilisation. According as the society is more or less extensive, our mind enjoys a greater or less scope. We develope just sufficient for the size of our locality. This is the origin of the petty passions which afflict little towns, and also of the narrow views of our deputies at each integral renovation of the Chamber. Those who are newly-elected bring us, for the most part, but the petty ambitions or interests of their localities, ideas as enlarged as their department. How many degrees must they pass through, before comprehending, I do not say the universality, but the nationality of their mission! Paris appears to them a gulf as long as they escape from its thinking influence; at last they yield to this influence, then the social admixture takes place, the narrow provincial ideas are extended to the whole country, and they revive as Frenchmen. During fourteen years I have narrowly observed this phenomenon, and I have blessed a form of government which, by forcing minds to expand themselves, must necessarily contribute to their morality.

And yet this is only a first step in the fulfilment of the social law. In proportion as the soul expands, it embraces the whole world, and wishes to subject it to unity. Ancient legislators appear to have mistaken this sentiment in giving

it for its invariable limits the love of country. Jesus Christ alone thought of directing it according to the voice of nature without overthrowing local legislations, he included. them all in the moral code of his universal legislation. It is the Gospel which opens out to us the world, by showing us everywhere brethren. The limits of an empire only mark the extent of a power, and not the extent of humanity. Thus society, beginning in the family, is completed in the human race. One God in heaven-one people on the earth. Such is true religion and true sociability.

The sentiment of the Divinity.-The sociability of the human race.

These two laws, engraven in our souls as in a sacred temple, form the basis of the whole code of nature. They substitute for all theological violence this axiom,-Love God. For all social tyranny they substitute the law,-Love men. They tell us that it is the will of God that men should be free, that they should be happy; and in order that this will should always be present before us, they impart to it the attractions of a reward and the seductions of a sentiment. All human tongues express it in one word— Love! And every people among whom the Gospel is preached comprise it in one single maxim,-Love God and

men.

This, then, is the second article of our code—the sociability of the human race.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LOVE OF COUNTRY AND OF

HUMANITY-A PHY

SICAL AND MORAL LAW OF NATURE.

"Tout l'amour qu'on a pour soi-même, pour sa famille, pour ses amis se reunit dans l'amour qu'on a pour la patrie."

BOSSUET.

SOMETHING of this appears in plants and animals. Plants have their geography, and fix themselves on the earth in varied but constant zones. Animals have their favourite localities and climates. And further, we see them attaching themselves to the house of man, and making of it a country in which they live and die. Every spring the swallow returns from across the seas to the nest in which it had burst its shell. Every evening the ass, the horse, and the ox stop before the door of the farmhouse where the hardest labour awaits them. The dove travels five hundred leagues in three days to return to its dove-cote; and the faithful dog breaks the chain which retains him at a distance from the habitation of his master, to which he joyfully returns after some years of absence.

It is then impossible not to admit in animals at least the instinct of localities. In man this instinct becomes the love of country. Man attaches himself from habit to the spot in which he was born: he loves everything about it— even the stones. It may be but a town, of which the dirty streets and the obscure houses are scarcely habitable; it may be a village built over a precipice and amidst perpetual snows; but it is the home of our childhood;