dogma imposed forcibly by a government on the lips of the
governed--these are _débris_ of paganism which have been struggling for
centuries against the restraints of Christian thought.[26] The
religious convictions of individuals do not belong to the State;
religious sentiments are not amenable to human tribunals; and it would
be hard to say whether it is the spiritual or the temporal order of
things which suffers most from the confusion of these distinct domains.
Religion should have its own proper life, and its special
representatives; civil life ought to be set free from all tyranny
exercised in the name of dogma; but religion is not the less on that
account, by the influence which it exerts over the consciences of men,
the necessary bond and strength of human society.

"You would sooner build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "than cause a
State to subsist without religion." Some have contested in modern times
this opinion of ancient wisdom. The philosophy of the last century, as
we have said already, wished to separate duty from the idea of God. It
pretended to give as the only foundation for society a civil morality,
the rules and sanction of which were to be found upon earth. The men of
blood who for a short time governed France, gave once as the order of
the day--_Terror and all the virtues_: this was a terrible application
of this theory. Virtue rested on a decree of political power, and, for
want of the judgment of God, the guillotine was the sanction of its
precepts. Healthier views begin now to prevail in the schools of
philosophy. One of the members of the _Institut de France_, M. Franck,
has lately published a volume on the history of ancient
civilization,[27] with the express intention of showing that the
conception which a people has of God is the true root of its social
organization. According to the worth of the religious idea is that of
the civil constitution. Before M. Franck, twenty years ago, a man of the