118 DISCOUESES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



this positive civilization -wliicli controls and operates 

 material forces, lo ! Art draAVS nigh to tling its starry 

 and imperial robe — all the glories of painting, sculp- 

 ture, and architecture— all the harmonies of music and 

 of poetry, falling from heaven, like a transfiguration, 

 upon tlie stir and din of human toil. 



II. The BifjM of the Higher Civilization to Exist. 



[This civilization is not only a foot, but a right and a duty— 

 the right of man's royalty over nature — the duty of God's vice- 

 gerent over the creation. It is the fulfilment of the primitive 

 command, " Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and 

 subdue it." * 



Father Hyacinthe remarked that in order to facilitate the fulfil- 

 ment of this command by Christian nations, divine Providence 

 has developed in them the faculty of production and that of ab- 

 straction to a degree utterly unknown to pagan societ}^ 



That civilization which is founded on self-denial and renunci- 

 ation of the world, has achieved the highest success, in private 

 and public fortune. It is by seeking, first and exclusively, the 

 kingdom of God and his righteousness, that man has been 

 brought into possession of the world. 



As to the faculty of abstraction, in which science properly so 

 called originates, it is undoubtedly an appanage of the European 

 race. But it has received its full development only under the in- 

 fluence of Christianity. IIow vast the difi'erence between the 

 heathen and the Christian reason! — between the scientific genius 

 of ancient Greece, and that of the doctors of the Church, and of 

 the Cîhristian philosophers !] 



III. The Dangers of the Higher Cirilization. 



[The experience of every age assures us that nations are but too 

 easily drawn into the abuse of wealth and science; or rather 

 that such abuses are inevitable, in the absence of an energetic and 

 sustained struggle against the ctfects of original sin. From these 

 abuses, when they become multiplied, results that twofold cor- 



♦ Clencai»», i. 28. 



