rted by a preceding story. But
what does the common cement consist of, and where is the basic
foundation?--Who sanctions all these civil regulations which control
marriages, testaments, inheritances, contracts, property and persons,
these fanciful and often contradictory regulations? In the first place
immemorial custom, varying according to the province, according to the
title to the soil, according to the quality and condition of the person;
and next, the will of the king who caused the custom to be inscribed and
who sanctioned it.--Who authorizes this will, this sovereignty of the
prince, this first of public obligations? In the first place, eight
centuries of possession, a hereditary right similar to that by which
each one enjoys his own field and domain, a property established in a
family and transmitted from one eldest son to another, from the first
founder of the State to his last living successor; and, in addition to
this, a religion directing men to submit to the constituted powers.--And
who, finally, authorizes this religion? At first, eighteen centuries
of tradition, the immense series of anterior and concordant proofs, the
steady belief of sixty preceding generations; and after this, at the
beginning of it, the presence and teachings of Christ, then, farther
back, the creation of the world, the command and the voice of
God.--Thus, throughout the moral and social order of things the past
justifies the present; antiquity provides its title, and if beneath all
these supports which age has consolidated, the deep primitive rock
is sought for in subterranean depths, we find it in the divine
will.--During the whole of the seventeenth century this theory still
absorbs all souls in the shape of a fixed habit and of inward respect;
it is not open to question. It is regarded in the same light as the
heart of the living body; whoever would lay his hand upon it would
instantly draw back, moved by a vague sentiment of its ceasing to beat
in case it were touched. The most independent, with Descartes at the
head, "would be grieved" at being confounded with those chimerical
speculators who, instead of pursuing the beaten track of custom, dart
blindly forward "in a direct line across mountains and over precipices."
In subjecting their belief to systematic investigation not only do they
leave out and set apart "the truths of faith,"[3301] but again the dogma
they think they have thrown out remains in their mind latent and active