affection, an
uncontrollable passion. Now, so long as that feeling does not pass into
an act of appropriating the thing desired, human law cannot deal with
it; but Divine law, which has for its object the internal perfection of
man, steps in to regulate the movements of the heart, when they are
accompanied by a deliberate will of possessing. Therefore, the tenth and
last commandment of the Decalogue, which refers to man's duties towards
himself, aims at the human will, and prescribes limits, within which the
desires, tending to procure possession, should be confined, forbidding
specially to covet that which belongs to others. It is not thereby
intended to absolutely prevent the formation of a natural wish, but it
is directed to confine it within just limits, that it may not expand and
be transformed into a usurpation.

CHAPTER XI.

LXXIV. THE succeeding revelations, which were made to the blessed
legislator Moses, and by him collected into a body of statutes and
rules, known under the title of Pentateuch, bear the same relation to
the Decalogue as that of a finished edifice to the first outline which
traced its limits and compartments--they are the elaboration of it, they
branch into the same triple classification of duties which we have
remarked in it, and present its development and completion. What in the
Decalogue appeared, as in nucleus, under the form of duties of man
towards God, towards his fellow-man, and towards himself, is developed
by those laws into detailed instructions, through which the people of
Israel was to learn the knowledge of God, to practise justice and
charity, and to effect its own sanctification; three cardinal points,
corresponding to the three classes of duties above mentioned, which
embrace the whole sum and substance of revealed religion. We shall not,
therefore, proceed to enumerate here, one by one, those multifarious
laws,--a great part of which, being contingent on the existence of the
temple and the possession of Palestine, have now no practical
application,--but we shall only treat of the three principles which form
the bases of them all, viz., God, Justice, and Sanctification, leaving
to the intelligence of those who sedulously investigate the single
precepts, the easy task of tracing them to one or other of the said
three categories.

LXXV. To the elucidation of these three principles we must, however,
premise two observations. In the first place, it is to be remarked,