108 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE." 



to me like a morl)id stiite, in uhich the eoiistitutioiial 

 principles of tlie social system are habitually neglected 

 and violated. I will define civilization, then, as the 

 state of a nation whose activity, regulated by justice, is 

 developed in the direction of material and moral welfare ; 

 or, in other words, as the practice of virtuous and pros- 

 perous nations. 



Civilization is both complex and multiform — com- 

 plex, because it includes many elements ; multiform, 

 because it is realized in many different ways. So that, 

 from the start, we reject that invariable mould Avhicli a 

 certain school of publicists would fain impose on all the 

 races of mankind. One single form could not possibly 

 fit all lands and all ages, nor, in the same land and 

 age, all classes of society. In Europe, we have no ex- 

 clusive and inaccessible castes, but we have, and always 

 shall have, classes. 



Now I distinguish between two leading forms of civ- 

 ilization, which I shall take as the heads of this dis- 

 course — one answering to the wants of the great ma- 

 jority of men, embracing the primitive and indispen- 

 sable elements of public order, and forming the vast 

 basis of the social pyramid ; the other, concentrating in 

 the hands of the comparatively few what I shall speak of 

 as the accessory forces of civilization, and displaying at 

 the summit of the social edifice a magnificence which, 

 though the property of the few, redounds none the less 

 to the advantage and the honor of all. 



Part First. — TJic Essential Laws of Civilization 



[Father 113-ac.inlhc proves that, in its primitive and essential 

 form, civilization results from the fulfilment of three great laws : 

 the law of love in the family, the law of la1)or in the field, the 

 law of prayer in the temple.] 



