these armies would labour only to destroy. In order to prevent such destruction, to establish the equilibrium of life and death, indifference suffices, with one single exception. This exception is found in the heart of woman; there only is maternal love a durable sentiment, because it is a moral sentiment; it participates in the infinity which gives wings to our soul; and thus it is, that it creates a family, nations, and the human race.

True maternal love, human love, begins then at the point where animal instinct terminates. It is certainly

not our intention to undervalue the maternal cares bestowed upon childhood; but women must know the fact, and how can they know it if no one dares to tell it them? They will be mothers, according to the moral law of nature, only when they shall labour to develope the soul of their children. Their mission upon earth is not merely to procreate an intelligent biped; it is a complete man which the world requires from them; a man whose passions shall partake of the great, the beautiful, and the infinite, who knows how to choose himself a companion, to inspire his children, and, if needs be, to die for the cause of virtue. There is then for the woman a double duty to perform, as there is for man a double birth. To be born into life, is but to be born to pleasure and pain, to be born in the love of God and of men, is to be truly born, and our mother owes us this second birth, if she would enjoy a greater happiness than that of seeing us breathe and digest food; the happiness which Shakspeare so well expresses, when he makes the mother of Coriolanus say, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child, than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man."

It is a fine thing to surprise, as Plutarch does, in the heart of the son the source of this joy of the mother.

"The reason which made him love glory," says he, in speaking of Coriolanus, "was the joy which he perceived it occasioned his mother."* These two souls understood each other for the good of their country and of humanity.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF SOME OTHER LAWS OF NATURE.

"Ce sont les hommes qui font leur propre malheur: les lois de la nature sont toutes fondées sur l'amour: les lois humaines le sont sur le besoin de punir le crime. Heureux ceux qui ne sont gouvernés que par les lois de la nature."

BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.

THE five preceding laws give rise to a multitude of secondary laws, which are equally applicable to man and to animals. Such is friendship, which among the Greeks became a political law; and paternal and filial affection, the only moral support of the legislation of the Chinese, and the chief cause of its long duration. We will not consider in this place these different modifications of the sentiment of love, our subject draws us towards laws of a higher order, and which place us directly beneath the direction of Providence. Such is the law which establishes the principle that no object contains within itself the first cause of its existence, and the three following laws.

Man always naturally inclines to that which is great and beautiful.

Truth is always found in that which is most great and beautiful.

Man is complete; he becomes all that which he may become; he produces all that which he can produce, only when he is in freedom.

* Plutarch. Life of Coriolanus.

Such, again, is the law of the partition of the earth between man and woman,- —a law which regulates the order of their occupations.

The law which establishes that moral re-action, is always equal to action.

Labour; a physical and moral law of nature; whence springs the principle of property.

Perfectibility; a moral law of nature, which reveals to us this great truth, viz. that the human race is constantly advancing towards an end, which is the fulfilment of a thought of God.

Lastly, death; a law of deliverance, which law, from being imperfectly known, frequently precipitates us into superstition and incredulity.

Men are, in the presence of death, like Columbus on the edge of the ocean's abyss. He may well be told, that this ocean has no shore: his eagle eye plunges into immensity: he penetrates into it through darkness and tempests, and sees a new world and an immortal glory, where stupid fear sees merely a void.

CHAPTER XIX.

NO OBJECT CONTAINS WITHIN ITSELF THE FIRST CAUSE OF ITS EXISTENCE;-A PHYSICAL AND MORAL LAW OF NATURE.

"Les sources forment des ruisseaux, et ceux-ci forment les rivières. Que le nocher les rémonte aussi loin qu'il pourra, encore n'atteindrat-il pas la dernière origine des fontaines."

LINNEE, Empire de la Nature.

In order to force mankind to turn their eyes towards him, God has willed that no object of nature should contain

within itself the first cause of its existence. He attaches all to himself by the unknown.

This will is stamped upon matter. This is the reason why the sciences explain nothing more than phenomena; the absolute cause always escapes them: how much so ever intellect may search, nature answers only by secondary causes; but when the soul unites itself to intellect, all the sciences are eclipsed, the absolute cause is unveiled, and God appears.

CHAPTER XX.

OF THE DIVISION OF EARTHLY DUTIES BETWEEN MAN

AND WOMAN ;-A MORAL AND PHYSICAL LAW OF
NATURE.

"Mais encore, quand l'homme aura porté du dehors en la maison ce qui est nécessaire, si est il besoign d'avoir quelqu'un qui le garde, et qui fasse les choses qui ne peuvent être faictes que dans le logis." DE LA BOETIE DE XENOPHON.

MARRIAGE gives to man a companion, and to woman a support. It unites beneath the same roof a strong and a feeble being; but, considering only society in its origin, a similar state of things must have been foreseen, and accordingly it was foreseen. In multiplying earthly goods, God has made of them two parts; or rather, he has doubled his gifts, as if to establish a double sovereignty. Man reigns over the earth; his power subjects the ox to the yoke, the horse to the bridle, and the reindeer to the sledge: he sends the falcon into the air, and makes it bring him its prey; he sends the cormorant to the bottom of the water,

and makes it bring him its fish; he sends the dog across the fields, and makes it bring the game. This is the power of strength; one would say that it could subject everything to it; and yet it suffices to contemplate nature in her most charming works, in order to perceive that after this lordly master, she looks for a more gentle master.

The woman comes and establishes her empire by caresses. All becomes tractable around her: the hen yields up her egg, and the cow her milk; she superintends the bees which yield their honey, and the worm which changes into silk the leaf of the mulberry-tree. There are even some animals which seem to be created expressly to suit her weakness and that of her children; such is the ass, a more patient animal than the horse; the goat, more easy to feed than the cow; and the sheep, of which she spins the fleece, which is warmer than the skins of wild beasts. If nature have attached to man the dog, which like him is unsettled and irascible, to defend him from carnivorous animals, she has subjected to woman the cat, which like herself is more sedentary and patient, to watch over the provisions collected in her store-rooms.

Man learns from animals several kinds of industry: the rabbit teaches him how to excavate subterranean passages; the beaver, to raise embankments; the swan, to navigate. But woman learns from them lessons very different though no less useful: the spider teaches her to spin; the butterfly, to imprint her dress with various colours; the bee, to extract the juice from the sweetest vegetables. It is not then without reason that the Greeks gave, not to the gods, but to a female, a goddess, to Ceres, to Minerva, the glory of these ingenious inventions. Man strives with nature, and each of his victories renders him more proud and unruly: woman, on the contrary, is softened and embellished by all her conquests; and the graces of our homes, and the