CIVILIZATION. Ill 



am speakin,2,\ a national ceivniuny is taking place in 

 honor of it,* I mtiy ])C allowed to insist upon its impor- 

 tance, so ot'Lcn overlooked. I Avonld never separate the 

 interests of religion from those of my own country. I 

 know there are those who consider this combination 

 dangerous, or at least unsuitaljle. To me, it is tiie sim- 

 ple duty of a Christian and a citizen. 



Agriculture, I say, is the chief and primitive element 

 of civilization ; and this for three reasons. First, be- 

 cause by cftecting the transition from nomadic to settled 

 life, it becomes the starting-point of civil society. Sec- 

 ondly, because it yields the great product of civilization 

 in the material order, the necessary basis of the spirit- 

 ual order — bread. Finally, because it holds the popula- 

 tion to their most appropriate residence, out of the city, 

 and in tlie country. 



1. Agriculture the starting-point of civil society. 



Before the tillage of the earth commences, men live in 

 wandering tribes of hunters, or more commonly shep- 

 herds. These are not savages, as I have already shown. 

 We have dwelt with admiration on their way of living 

 on the lofty table-lands of Asia, the region of rich pas- 

 turage, as if we looked upon it in the pages of Genesis, 

 under the tents of Abraham and Isaac and Jacol). But 

 neither are they civilized, in the sense in which we are 

 now^ using the word, for they have no civil organization. 

 It is the tillage of the earth which halts the wanderer, 

 and holds him to the meadow, the wood, the valley, by 

 whose riches or beauty he has been charmed. He 

 pitches his tent, plants his landmarks, and establishes 

 between himself and the soil that settled alliance of 

 which are born at once two great, and in their turn pro- 



* The distribution of prizes for agriculture at the Universal Exposition 

 of 1S67. 



