THE HIGIIEIl INTERCOUllSE BETWEEN NATIONS. 77 



1. Tlie township is the startiiig-poiiit of thut woiidcr- 

 ful organization which, together, makes u]) civil society. 

 If I except tluit ideal and miraculous peoi)le, that Israel 

 which has anticipated the progre.<s of the centuries, 

 I find civil society nowhere in all the East. I lind 

 there lurd.ships, i^rincipalities, potentates, swaying over 

 the multitudes a sceptre under which are mingled, in 

 disproportionate and fantastic fashion, the authority of 

 the father over his family and the authority of the 

 master over his slaves. But the community, the free 

 association of fiimilies, that glorious germ of genuine 

 civilization, we do not find till we set foot on the soil 

 of the West, its native soil, and pause before the creative 

 race of the children of Japheth. Such are the demo- 

 cratic cities of Greece; such, especially, is- the civitas 

 of the Romans. 



I am no panegyrist of the Roman law. On the con- 

 trary, I think that its excessive influence has been one 

 of the misfortunes of the Latin nations, and I prefer 

 to it, for more than one reason, the '' common law" of 

 the Germanic race. But no one can refuse to this legis- 

 lation the glory of having been the first to formulate 

 the principles of civil society ; and for my part, I sub- 

 scribe with all my heart to the eulogy pronounced on it 

 by the Apostolic Constitutions, that yenerable monu- 

 ment of the primitive Church : '* God has not chosen 

 that his justice should be manifested to us alone, but 

 that it should be resplendently 'displayed, also, in the 

 Roman laws."' For, as Saint Augustine adds : " In like 

 manner as God has spoken supernaturally by the pro- 

 phets, he has also spoken naturally by the Roman law- 

 givers. Lerfes Romanorum divinitus iky ora principum 

 emananint.'^ 



Civil society was so identified with Rome, that when 



