Price.] 296 [January. 



what is all this self-sacrificing patience of intellectual labor? Chiefly 

 but to gratify a scientific curiosity, and to penetrate into the intents 

 and wisdom of the Creator, as displayed in his works. It is but to 

 elevate and advance our views in the same course of study, to con- 

 sider man in his domestic, social, and political relations; but with 

 this higher interest, that it is to study our own nature and highest 

 welfare. 



It is when legislation grows out of human wants, and accords most 

 closely with nature, that it is most useful and enduring. We begin, 

 therefore, at the right point, when we study the nature and needs of 

 man, with purpose to legislate for his welfare. I propose, in this dis- 

 course, that we shall consider the human family, that we may duly 

 estimate its importance as an element of government, and consider 

 how much it should be favored by our personal influences, by judi- 

 cial decision, by legislation, and in all our social regulations. 



To sketch the history and formation of the family, is to go back to 

 the origin of all society, and see it in its inception. "Male and fe- 

 male," God created the first parents ; and these becoming the parents 

 of children, the family is formed and bound together by ties inherent 

 in our nature, and the strongest in nature. These partake of the 

 character of an instinct, but are more than the instinct that rules 

 inferior beings, for the parental and filial aff"ections endure beyond 

 any physical necessity, and end only with life, and not then without 

 the earnest hope and passionate desire of the family reunion. 



As the family increases, and the descendants multiply and marry, 

 and again increase, the grandfather becomes the patriarch of a tribe. 

 Tribes grow to be a people. In the lowest stage of society they live 

 by hunting, fishing, and upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth; 

 thence rise to be shepherds, and to feed their flocks, move from place 

 to place. In pursuit of game and pasturage they come into contact, 

 and contesting for the territory that yields the needed supplies, they 

 make war, and the men become warriors, and then the chief burden 

 is cast upon women to support the family. The American Indians, 

 when found in the north, were in this hunter state; Abraham and 

 Lot were in the pastoral stage; and the Germans, in the time of 

 Caesar and Tacitus, were in the same stage, only cultivating the soil 

 where the nation rested for a season, without any permanent division 

 or ownership in it. In this condition families followed their military 

 leaders; and as war was the principal business of each people, there 

 was but slight development of the family institution, as we see it in 

 civilized society. The separate home, with its sacred seclusion, ex- 



