CIVIL socnyi'Y and christianity. 19 



"svitliin lin", the ]);issi()ii oC love to l-'raiicc, Avliicli lias 

 always been, and .^liall ever he her eldest daughter. 



I am not, then, out of my ])lacc in discussing soeial 

 questions in their n'lations ^vith the gospel, Avith mo- 

 rality and religion. I am in my phice, because 1 am a 

 })riest, and because 1 am a citizen ; because I have not 

 abdicated for the heavenly country the interests and the 

 love of my earthly country ; because, my Lord Arch- 

 bishop, I rememlx'r that what has been the motto of 

 your "whole life, has been in recent days one of your 

 most eloquent inspirations at St. Genevieve, at that fes- 

 tival which I might call the Avedding of science and 

 faith, when you saluted, in the name both of the one 

 and of the other, " those tAVo things Avhich ought to 

 control the Avhole of human life— country and religion." 



Part First. — The Origiii and End of Civil Society in 

 its Relation to Domestic Society. 



[Having to define Civil Society in this first Lecture, Fatliei 

 Hyacinthe considered that he could not better do this tliau by 

 comparins: it with Domestic Society, which precedes it in the 

 world both in the order of history and in the order of reason, and 

 is consequently a natural limit to its rights. He would treat, 

 then, successively, of the origin and end of Civil Society in its re- 

 lation to the Family.] 



I. At the outset, I find myself face to face Avith an 

 immense error bequeathed to us by the ancients, by the 

 philosophy and jurisprudence of Greece and Rome. It 

 consists in confounding the social order in general, 

 Avhicli is essential to the existence of mankind on the 

 earth, Avith civil society, Avliicli is only a particular form 

 of the social order; and, coming nearer to our present 

 subject, it supposes that the family did not exist before 



