e of the social body
decaying and diminishing. On the nature of the Family; on its profound
physiological origins; on its necessary role in the prolongation and
"perpetuation of the individual" by affording him "the sole remedy for
death"; on its primitive constitution among men of our own race; on its
historic organization and development "around the family home"; on the
necessity of its subsistence and continuance in order to insure the
duration of this home; on its other needs, M. Taine, with his knowledge
of man and of his history, had given a good deal of thought to
fundamental ideas analogous to those which he has consecrated to the
classic spirit, to the origin of honor and conscience, to the essence
of local society, so many stones, as it were, shaped by him from time
to time and deeply implanted as the foundations of his criticism of
institutions. Having set forth the proper character and permanent wants
of the Family he was able to study the legislation affecting it, and,
first, "the Jacobin laws on marriage, divorce, paternal authority and on
the compulsory public education of children; next, the Napoleonic laws,
those which still govern us, the Civil Code" with that portion of it
in which the equality and leveling spirit is preserved, along with "its
tendency to regard property as a means of enjoyment" instead of the
starting-point and support of "an enduring institution."--Having exposed
the system, M. Taine meant to consider its effects, those of surrounding
institutions, and to describe the French family as it now exists. He had
first studied the "tendency to marriage"; he had considered the motives
which, in general, weaken or fortify it, and appreciated those now
absent and now active in France. According to him, "the healthy ideal of
every young man is to found a family, a house of infinite duration, to
create and to rule." Why in modern France does he give his thoughts to
"pleasure and of excelling in his career"? Why does he regard marriage
"without enthusiasm, as a last measure, as a 'settling-down,' and not as
a beginning, the commencement of a veritable career, subordinating
all others to it and regarding these, pecuniary and professional, as
auxiliary and as means?"--After the tendency to marriage, "the tendency
to paternity." How does the shrunken family come to live only for
itself? In what way, in default of other interests,--homestead, domain,
workshop, lasting local undertakings,--how does the