LEG TURK SIX TPI 



Jaxuauy 5, 18G8. 



CIVILIZATION. 



My Loud ARcnBisiior, axd Gextlemex: The na- 

 tions constitute among themselves a higher common- 

 wealth so intimate and necessary, that Avar itself, with 

 all its discords and its horrors, does not suffice to de- 

 stroy it. But have they not also some work to do in 

 common, the fruit of tlie development of eacli, and the 

 mutual relations of all? To put this question is to 

 answer it; and that with the one word Civilization. 



It is a vague word, I know, like all words that denote 

 general ideas. It is subject, consequently, to the most 

 diverse interpretations ; often, alas ! to the most mis- 

 chievous perversions. But is this a reason why we 

 should give up using it? Because it is a pleasure to 

 feeble or perverse minds to wither everything they touch, 

 must we leave them free to deflower a language and 

 corrupt at will its noblest words and its most legitimate 

 ideas ? I think not. Gentlemen ; and that is the reason 

 why I mean to liold on by that word civilization, and 

 why I undertake to define it. 



Civilization seems to me to be in the body politic 

 what health is to the natural body— tlie result of a prac- 

 tical harmony between the organic functions and the 

 laws of life. For the same reason, barbarism seems 



