confusion of these distinct domains.
Religion should have its own proper life, and its special
representatives; civil life ought to be set free from all tyranny
exercised in the name of dogma; but religion is not the less on that
account, by the influence which it exerts over the consciences of men,
the necessary bond and strength of human society.

"You would sooner build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "than cause a
State to subsist without religion." Some have contested in modern times
this opinion of ancient wisdom. The philosophy of the last century, as
we have said already, wished to separate duty from the idea of God. It
pretended to give as the only foundation for society a civil morality,
the rules and sanction of which were to be found upon earth. The men of
blood who for a short time governed France, gave once as the order of
the day--_Terror and all the virtues_: this was a terrible application
of this theory. Virtue rested on a decree of political power, and, for
want of the judgment of God, the guillotine was the sanction of its
precepts. Healthier views begin now to prevail in the schools of
philosophy. One of the members of the _Institut de France_, M. Franck,
has lately published a volume on the history of ancient
civilization,[27] with the express intention of showing that the
conception which a people has of God is the true root of its social
organization. According to the worth of the religious idea is that of
the civil constitution. Before M. Franck, twenty years ago, a man of the
very highest distinction as a public lecturer, indicated this movement
of modern thought. M. Edgard Quinet, in his Lyons course, taught that
the religious idea is the very substance of civilization, and the
generating principle of political constitutions. He announced "a history
of civilization by the monuments of human thought," and added: "Religion
above all is the pillar of fire which goes before the nations in their
march across the ages; it shall serve us as a guide."[28] Benjamin
Constant exhibits in the variation of his opinions the transition from
the stand-point of the last century to that of the present. He had at
first conceived of his work upon religion as a monument raised to
atheism, he ends by seeking in religious sentiments the condition
necessary to the existence of civilized societies.[29] Here is a real
progress; and this progress brings us back to the thought above quoted
from Plutarch. In fact, tak