the whole duty of man." (Eccles. i. and xii.)

[24] Apology.

[25]

Si mon coeur, fatigué du rêve qui l'obsède,
A la réalité revient pour s'assouvir,
Au fond des vains plaisirs que j'appelle à mon aide,
Je trouve un tel dégoût que je me sens mourir.




PART II.

_SOCIETY._


We have just studied what life without God would be for the individual.
Let us now direct our attention to those collections of human beings
which form societies. We shall not speak here of the relations of civil
with ecclesiastical authorities,--a complex question, the solution of
which must vary with times, places, and circumstances. Let us only
remark that the distinction between the temporal and spiritual order of
things is one of the foundations of modern civilization. This
distinction is based upon those great words which, eighteen hundred
years ago, separated the domain of God from the domain of Cæsar.
Religion considered as a function of civil life; dogma supported by the
word of a monarch or the vote of a body politic; the formula of that