young; a blind instinct which belongs to the plant, to the insect, to the quadruped, to birds, as well as to woman; it is an immutable law of nature; a law of preservation; and that is all.

It is this law which prepares in the plant the juice which is to nourish the seed, the down which warms it, the folds which shelter it; it is this again which provides the seed with hooks, sails, shells, wings, tufts of feathers, according as it is required to be wafted to the mountains, or to abandon its vegetable fleets to the peaceful current of a rivulet.

In more perfect beings, this intelligent power is associated with the passions, increases their force, and trains them up to industry. The bird prepares its nest before knowing that it is about to produce a something of which it ought to take care, and lines it with a soft down, before knowing the delicacy of its brood; it hatches, that is to say, that the most restless of beings remains motionless during several weeks, seated on a cold and insensible shell, before knowing that it encloses a being similar to itself. At length, when the young ones are born, it brings them food; it defends them against enemies, it sings, it is anxious, or rejoices, and all these painful or joyful labours are destined to remain without any reward; no filial tenderness will ever respond to this maternal tenderness. Some day the young ones will try their wings; on another day they will take their flight and disappear in the regions of air. Animals have no family, they are truly neither father nor mother, nor related to each other; they are but the workmen of nature.

Thus, although organised beings are born weak and powerless, although they are surrounded with enemies, and as if on a battle-field, yet are they born in safety. Maternal love shields them by its foresight and its devoted

ness.

Like a vigilant sentinel it watches over each birth; not for the preservation of an isolated being; of a quadruped, a bird, a fly, or even of a child, but for the accomplishment of this great work of nature, which wills that all should die, and that nothing should perish; that all should be born, and that nothing should be immortal. Whatever, then, may be the wants of all beings, their ferocity or their destructiveness, whatever may be the exigencies of death, maternal love remains as a conqueror on the earth, which it re-peoples. By it, every plant is renewed in its seed, every insect in its egg, every animal in its young; it is at the same time the source of life, and the limit of destruction.

It is a fact worthy of observation, that maternal love lasts only in each animal the time necessary for the conservation of the species; as soon as the young no longer require their mother, she abandons them. This sentiment, so strong, so tender, so caressing, so sublime, which occasions so many privations and sacrifices, becomes all at once extinct, and is succeeded by the most complete indifference. In the morning a mother will fight with fury to defend her progeny, which in the evening she no longer knows. And this abandonment, which excites no regret, which leaves no remembrance, is effected at the moment when long habit, or gratitude, would seem to render it impossible. When we reflect that the harmony of the world depends upon this double law of love and indifference, we are surprised not to see it anywhere pointed out. Only let us conceive what a new power the durable affection of animals would introduce upon the earth. What strength would be added to their exterminating instinct. If a war-cry were raised, twenty generations would arise around a single female, families would be armies, and all

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