religions interwoven with social, national, and local elements. This circumstance accounts for the incongruity that the supernatural treasures, which should be transmitted by the whole race as such, are intermingled with the elements of one nation and subject, therefore, to successive changes. That one nation should preserve intact these supernatural treasures, was possible with the Chosen People alone, for here the supernatural impulses not only continued to be active, but were continually renewed. It was soley through this supernatural intervention that the Jews preserved inviolate the treasures of religion until the "Fullness of Time," when they were committed to the hands of a divinely organized institution: the Church.

In Christian society the Church represents the spiritual treasures, and her clergy constitute a special profession and one that belongs to the teaching class. The Church shares the organic character with society and expresses this character most perfectly: "There are diversities of graces, but the one Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the one Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but the one God, who worketh all in all." No other social union can compare with the Church in respect to the influence exerted by her central principle. In society, for instance, there are different principles at work; and in the smaller social unions the effects from within are frequently thwarted by the effects from without. The State, too, presupposes the community of life, and the principle of the State takes definite shape only after it has become operative. The Church, however, forms and shapes herself in all points from within and from the head downwards. She assimilates elements of all kinds, and uses them either as building materials or as building forces, and does all this according to the preordained ends and the ground plans as sketched by her divine Founder. Hence the Church is a "societas perfecta" and the social organization that brings out most perfectly the nature of society. The Church demonstrated her power for organization when she placed the decomposing society of antiquity upon new foundations; and again in the Middle Ages, when she set free the social forces of the barbarian nations and trained them to law and order; and she will again show her ancient strength and will again be a saviour and an organizer when the destructive forces, active in modern society, will have done away with the palliative cures from which shortsighted men still expect

1 I. Cor., XII, 4-6.

salvation-as well as with the impotent hybrids of negation and height of place, of anarchy and the all-powerful State.

5. A community of life that included only families, a nationality, and society would, indeed, call forth certain human activities, but could assure neither to their results nor to itself any degree of permanency. To obtain permanency, it is necessary that the will of a great number be united so as to present a strong front for defence as well as a strong force for action; and the institution that embodies this collective will is the State. A people lacking statehood resembles the organisms of vegetative life, while the independent State has the strength and the free movement that is characteristic of the animal organism. The State is a product of history, and gives the respective people a place in history. Though a dependent people may love its country, it will never glow with the pride that the people of an independent State, rich in a glorious past, can feel. The State, however, must be endowed with the authority to concentrate the will of the many and to defend the country as well as to take the initiative in national affairs. The authority is the more evident here, since its rigor is not softened, as in the family, by other relations. Indeed, the functioning of the political organism depends on the proper interrelation between the commanding and the obeying ἄρχειν and ἄρχεσθαι). The State, however, is in need also of traditions, and that not only in respect to government maxims and political principles, for the concept of the State is incomplete without a whole sphere of views, memories, and evaluations. Furthermore, a language is required to express these traditions and to formulate the laws for the body politic.

The State, too, is largely governed by its end; but with it the end does not operate in so pure a form as with the Church, for the State derives most (itself producing only a small portion) of the intellectual content required from the community of life out of which it develops. Though the State is independent of the nation, it still needs the latter's assistance in the first stages of its growth. The military profession and the body of civil officers are established to meet the needs of the State and constitute distinct social classes.

It is the tendency of the State to fix the community of life. Out of the order and habits of life, established by custom and natural law, it establishes the legal system. This legal system supplements the social order in as far as it adds to the principle of the latter, "Let each man do his duty," this further principle,

"Let each man possess his own"; and by determining the rights and duties of all it prevents the stronger from taking advantage of the weaker. Justice must guide the State in regulating the community of life. Justice is the foundation of all governments, and St. Augustine was right in saying that a government without justice is naught but a great band of robbers.1

6. With a healthy development the legal system is only the expression of the general consciousness of what is right. The living custom is intermediate between the legal system and the individual life; and, similarly, social organisms of various kinds occupy a middle position between the State and the individual. The State, if wise, will incorporate into its own organism these units representative of the community of life, without, however, depriving them of their specific activity. It is a shallow view that recognizes only the one contrast between the State and the individual; and a legal system based on this view will scrupulously and jealously define the limits of the public and private fields.

The State is a powerful factor in life. It has great ends and great resources. It exerts a deep influence upon the life of the individual and shapes, to a large extent, the forms of the community of life. Only independent nations can play a rôle in history, and the nations possessed of special political gifts have ever been the leaders of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that ancient thinkers regarded the State as being man on a large scale, and that modern thinkers' designate it as "the realization of the moral idea" and "God's course in history" (Hegel), and that not a few schools of law declare it to be the source of all right and the highest authority in everything.

Yet history must warn us against regarding the State as the highest social organism. The ancient State culminated in the Empire that subjugated the civilized world, and then turned about and worshipped the Cæsars. It was left to the Church to found a family of States, which, with all their differences and conflicts, had in common the forms of religious worship. And the Church alone can supply the basis for a brotherhood of independent nations and a system of international law. The Church assists the State in the work of morality, but reminds it withal that society is the complement of the State. Grant the Church her proper place, and the relation between the State

1 De civitate Dei, IV, 4: "Remota justitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi parva regna?"

and society will also be satisfactory. The Church preserved the organization of medieval society, and the principle of her Canon Law corresponds admirably to the Germanic tendency toward social grouping. But the secularization of the Church introduces the system of politics which identifies all community of life with the State.

The Church is the depository of authority and tradition. Society may, when pursuing a phantom of liberty, reject the claims of authority, and the State may, in an exaggerated notion of its own prerogatives, override tradition. But the Church has both formative forces joined in an inner union and she can not be deprived of them. She consecrates all tradition and derives all authority from its last divine cause.

CHAPTER LXIV.

The Social Unions as Representatives of the
System of Education.

1. For characterizing the social unions we had to select such of their functions as are peculiar to each, and thus we found the distinctive function of the family to be the reconstruction of life; of society, the reproduction of temporal goods; of the Church, the administration of the religious treasures; and of the State, the protection and safeguarding of rights. But beside these functions there are others, common either to several or to all social unions. Thus the State and the Church join hands in upholding public morals, and the State and society co-operate in the production and transmission of material goods and intellectual treasures. All social unions exert a certain disciplinary influence by reason of the close connection between discipline and authority. And because of the connection between tradition and teaching they are related to the educative process. Both the family and society educate, and the State and the Church have educational systems of their own. Hence the social unions are the constituent factors or the representatives of the system of education; and the system of education depends. in its fully developed form on their mutual co-operation; and its dependence is such that the successive entrance of the different factors into the co-operation marks the successive stages of development in the system of education.

The function of the family is the reconstruction of life. Its task consists in engendering, rearing, and educating. It imparts to the child the first gifts of society, and among these are the first elements of education. What the family can offer to the child, is in extent less than the gifts of the larger social unions, but it makes up for this defect by the kindliness of spirit with which it provides for its members, and which is like the humid warmth that causes the seed in the ground to germinate and spring open.

In the East we find interesting examples of courses of instruction that are confined to the family circle. Such were among the Israelites the instruction of the young in the Law' and among the Chaldeans the method, so much admired by the Greeks, of transmitting knowledge solely by having the father instruct his boys from their earliest years.2 In India the Veda instruction is even to-day confined to the family circle, and the students are admitted into the teacher's family and are treated more like apprentices than like pupils. This family instruction is, beside the caste system, the distinctive feature of the eastern educational systems, which are the oldest known to us. But we find that the family co-operated also in later ages with the educational work of the schools. Thus the needs of home instruction prompted Cato to translate and adapt the educational writings of the Greeks, and Cicero dedicated his work Of Duties to his son. The earlier Roman orators were praised for having learned the first principles of their art at their mother's knee. As late as the eighteenth century rural pastors frequently fitted their sons for the university examinations. In the case of girls, though not in the case of boys, the home may still take the place of the school. The whole system of apprenticeship was originally confined to the family circle, the apprentice living under his master's roof; and agriculture is still universally taught by the parents to their children.

When the school undertakes the work of education, the family has still an important function. The family must not only attend to the moral and religious formation, but is also better able than any other agency to assist in other educational functions. For example, the family can best meet the spontaneous impulses toward knowledge and self-expression. Thus

1 Vol. I, ch. VII, 1. 2 Vol. I, ch. VI, 1. 3 Vol. I, ch. IV, 4.