modern civilization are great and sacred realities. What are these
conquests? Let us not stay at the surface of things, but go to the
foundation. Societies fallen into a condition of barbarism have for
their motto the famous saying of a Gallic chief: Woe to the vanquished!
In institutions, as in manners, the triumph of force characterizes
barbarous times. The right of the strongest is the twofold negation of
justice and of love; and what characterizes civilization, issuing from
the barbarous condition, the fragments of which it so long trails after
it, is the establishment of that justice which founds States, and, upon
the basis of justice, the development of the benevolence which renders
communities happy. These are the two essential conditions of social
progress. These conditions are necessary even to the progress of
industry and of material welfare.

Modern civilization,--that, namely, which we so designate, while we
relegate, so to speak, into the past the contemporaneous societies of
the vast East,--modern civilization possesses a power unknown to
antiquity. Justice has a foundation in the conscience, benevolence has
natural roots in the heart; but a moment has been when justice and love
appeared in the world with new brightness, like rays disengaged from
clouds. Modern civilization was then deposited on the earth in a
powerful germ, of which nothing was any more to arrest the growth. That
moment was when the idea of God appeared in its fulness: modern
civilization was born of the Gospel. The knowledge of God strengthens
justice, and the thought of the common Father develops benevolence.
These theses are well known; let us confine ourselves to a few rapid
illustrations.

There exists an institution in which has been embodied the negation of
social justice--Slavery. Slavery is at length disappearing before our