ons; hence arise quarrels, scandal, lawsuits, the neglect
of their children and servants, and at last the plundering and ruin of
the whole family; without reckoning that the adulterous woman commits
a most grievous theft, in giving to her husband heirs of foreign blood,
who deprive his real children of their legitimate portion.

Q. What is filial love?

A. It is, on the side of children, the practice of those actions useful
to themselves and to their parents.

Q. How does the law of nature prescribe filial love?

A. By three principal motives:

1. By sentiment; for the affectionate care of parents inspires, from the
most tender age, mild habits of attachment.

2. By justice; for children owe to their parents a return and indemnity
for the cares, and even for the expenses, they have caused them.

3. By personal interest; for, if they use them ill, they give to their
own children examples of revolt and ingratitude, which authorize them,
at a future day, to behave to themselves in a similar manner.

Q. Are we to understand by filial love a passive and blind submission?

A. No; but a reasonable submission, founded on the knowledge of the
mutual rights and duties of parents and children; rights and duties,
without the observance of which their mutual conduct is nothing but
disorder.

Q. Why is fraternal love a virtue?

A. Because the concord and union, which result from the love of
brothers, establish the strength, security, and conservation of the
family: brothers united defend themselves against all oppression,
they aid one another in their wants, they help one another in their
misfortunes, and thus secure their common existence; while brothers
disunited, abandoned each to his own personal strength, fall into
all the inconveniences attendant on an insulated state and individual
weakness. This is what a certain Scythian king ingeniously expressed
when, on his death-bed, calling his children to him, he ordered them to
break a bundle of arrows. The young men, though strong, being unable to
effect it, he took them in his turn, and untieing them, broke each of
the arrows separately with his fingers. "Behold," said he, "the effects
of union; united together, you will be invincible; taken separately, you
will be broken like reeds."

Q. What are the reciprocal duties of masters and of servants?

A. They consist in the practice of the actions which are respectively
and justly useful to them; and here begin the relati