THE PARENTAL RELATION. 113 economy of the human family could never be inverted without an entire change in our cerebral organism, and the only possible result of a resistance to natural laws would be to deprive Woman of the enjoyment of her proper welfare by disturbing the family and society. Again, we have seen that, in the affective life of Man, the personal instincts overrule the sympathetic or social, which last can, and do, only modify the direction decided by the first, without becoming the habitual moving powers of practical existence. Here again, by a comparative examination, we can estimate the happy social position appropriated to the female sex. It is indisputable that women are, in general, as superior to men in a spontaneous expansion of sympathy and sociality, as they are inferior to men in understanding and reason. Their function in the economy of the family, and consequently of society, must therefore be to modify by the excitement of the social instinct the general direction necessarily originated by the cold and rough reason which is distinctive of Man. Apart from all consideration of material differences, and contemplating exclusively the noblest properties of our cerebral nature, we see that, of the two attributes which separate the human race from the brutes, the primary one indicates the necessary and invariable preponderance of the male sex, while the other points out the moderating function which is appropriate to Woman, even independently of maternal cares, which evidently constitute her most important special destination, but which are usually too exclusively insisted on, so as to disguise the direct social and personal vocation of the female sex. The other great element of the human family is the relation between parents and children, which, spread abroad The Parental through the whole of society, produces the natural relation. subordination of ages. The discipline prescribed by nature in this relation is too unquestionable to admit of the same attacks of the revolutionary spirit which have been directed towards the preceding relation. The ardent champions of the political rights of women have not yet offered an analogous doctrine in regard to children, who are less able to stimulate the zeal of their special champions. Wild as are the eccentricities of our social anarchy, popular good sense, however imperfect it may still be, imposes some restraint on individual absurdities when they go so far as to shock a primary instinct. There is certainly no natural economy more worthy of admiration. than that spontaneous subordination which, first constituting the human family, then becomes the type of all wise social co-ordination. The testimony of ages has done honour to this type; and when Man has formed his conception of providential government on the most perfect direction of events that he could conceive, he has taken this institution for his model. There is no other case which offers, H VOL. II. in the same degree, the most respectful spontaneous obedience, on the part of the inferior, without the least degradation; an obedience. imposed by necessity first, and then by gratitude; and nowhere else do we see in the superior party the most absolute authority united to entire devotedness, too natural and too genial to be regarded as duty. These characteristics must become weakened in the case of wider and less intimate relations; the submission cannot be so complete and spontaneous, nor the protection so affectionate and devoted. But family life will, nevertheless, be eternally the school of social life, both for obedience and for command, which will be excellent in proportion to their approach to this model; and in the future, as in the past, the modifications of society will correspond with those which human progression must occasion in the domestic constitution. In all critical periods, however, there have been false reasoners who have argued from the inconveniences which attend this institution, like every other, against the organization itself, and who would mend it by means of a total inversion,-proposing to make society the model of the family; at a time, too, when society is in no condition to serve as a type for any kind of orderly arrangement. All domestic discipline would be impossible under a system which would take from parents the guidance and almost the acquaintance of their children, through a monstrous exaggeration of the influence of society on the education of youth; and children, of the hereditary transmission of their parents' property, accumulated on their behalf,-obedience and authority being thus successively destroyed. This work is not the place in which to examine such extravagances; but it was necessary to refer to this particular delusion in order to show the fitness of the positive polity to consolidate all the primary ideas of social order, amidst the confusion attending the decline of the theological philosophy. Here, as everywhere else, we shall find the positive philosophy subordinating all schemes of artificial order to the observation of natural order: and we shall perceive that the modifications wrought out by the social evolution are superior to any that the most eminent reformers would have ventured to conceived of beforehand, a fact which should teach us not to interfere with the succession of different portions of the reorganization by attempting to renovate everything at once, down to the smallest details, according to the routine of modern constitutions. We must not omit the striking property of domestic organization, that it establishes the elementary idea of social perpetuity, by directly and irresistibly connecting the future with the past. When duly generalized, the idea and the feeling pass on from the immediate parents to ancestors, and issue in that universal respect for our predecessors which is an indispensable condition of all social economy. There is no social state which does not present evidences of it. The diminishing influence of traditions as human develop THE FRATERNAL RELATION. 115 ment proceeds, and the growing preference of written to oral transmission, must modify the expression of the sentiment among the moderns, if not the sentiment itself; but whatever point social progression may attain, it will always be supremely important that Man should not regard himself as a being of yesterday, and that the whole of his institutions and customs should connect, by a system of intellectual and material tokens, his remembrances of the entire past with his hopes for the future. The tendency of the revolutionary philosophy is to foster a disdain of the past, on account of its polities; and I need not add that the positive philosophy, which takes history for its scientific basis, which represents all the men of all times as co-operating in the same evolution, and which perseveringly connects all existing progress with the whole of antecedent human action, is thoroughly adapted to confirm the idea and sentiment of social continuity. In fact, we see that the region of the positive sciences is the only one in which this reverent co-ordination of the present with the past, has withstood the encroachments of the revolutionary philosophy, which, in every other connection, would almost have us believe that reason and justice are creations of our own day. It is not necessary to enlarge here on the fraternal relation, though it would obtain its share of attention if we were engaged in forming a constitution of society. For our purposes here, the brotherly relation offers little subject of remark, interesting as it is from the sweetness or the bitterness which it sheds over private life. If the brothers are nearly of the same age, there is little subordination in the case: and if the difference in age is sufficient to admit of that subordination, the relation becomes, for analytical purposes, like that of parent and child. All that it is in our way to remark here is that true social science will never fail, either in studying the past, or speculating on the future, to assign the rank of absolute requisites to all elements which have, through all time, constituted an essential part of the domestic hierarchy. Discarding all Utopian fancies, and proposing to observe the economy of real society, we must bring into our scientific analysis all the arrangements which, by their steady permanence, indicate their grave importance. The third head of our statical analysis brings us to the consideration of society, as composed of families and not of individuals, and from a point of view which commands all times and places. 3. Society. The main cause of the superiority of the social to the individual organism is, according to an established law, the more marked speciality of the various functions fulfilled by organs more and more distinct, but interconnected; so that unity of aim is more and more combined with diversity of means. We cannot, of course, fully appreciate a phenomenon which is for ever proceeding before our eyes, and in which we bear a part; but if we withdraw ourselves in thought from the social system, and contemplate it as from afar, can we conceive of a more marvellous spectacle, in the whole range of natural phenomena, than the regular and constant convergence of an innumerable multitude of human beings, each possessing a distinct and, in a certain degree, independent existence, and yet incessantly disposed, amidst all their discordance of talent and character, to concur in many ways in the same general development, without concert, and even consciousness on the part of most of them, who believe that they are merely following their personal impulses? This is the scientific picture of the phenomenon and no temporary disturbances can prevent its being, under all circumstances, essentially true. This reconciliation of the individuality of labour with co-operation of endeavours, which becomes more remarkable as society grows more complex and extended, constitutes the radical character of human operations when we rise from the domestic to the social point of view. The degree of association that we observe among the superior animals has something voluntary in it, but there is no organization which can make it resemble the human: and the first individual specializing of common functions is seen in our simple domestic life, which is thus a type of the social organization. The division of labour can never, however, be very marked in the family, because the members are few; and yet more because such a division would soon show itself to be hostile to the spirit of the institution; for domestic training, being founded on imitation, must dispose the children to follow parental employments, instead of undertaking new ones: and again, any very marked separation in the employments of the members must impair the domestic unity which is the aim of the association. The more we look into the subject, the more we shall see that the appropriation of employments, which is the elementary principle of general society, cannot hold anything like so important a place in the family. In fact, the domestic relations do not constitute an association, but a union, in the full force of the term; and, on account of this close intimacy, the domestic connection is of a totally different nature from the social. Its character is essentially moral, and only incidentally intellectual; or, in anatomical language, it corresponds more to the middle than to the anterior part of the brain. Founded chiefly upon attachment and gratitude, the domestic union satisfies, by its mere existence, all our sympathetic instincts, quite apart from all idea of active and continuous co-operation towards any end, unless it be that of its own institution. Though more or less co-ordination of different employments must exist, it is so secondary an affair that when, unhappily, it remains the only principle of connection, the domestic union degenerates into mere association, and is even too likely to dissolve altogether. In society the elementary economy presents an inverse character, the sentiment of co-operation becoming preponderant, DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYMENTS. 117 and the sympathetic instinct, without losing its steadiness, becoming secondary. No doubt there are a multitude of men well enough organized to love their fellow-labourers, however numerous or remote they may be, and however indirect may be their co-operation; but such a sentiment, arising from the reaction of the reason upon the social feelings, could never be strong enough to guide social life. Even under the best circumstances the intellectual mediocrity of the majority of men does not allow them to form any distinct idea of relations which are too extensive, too indirect, and too foreign to their own occupations to impart any sympathetic stimulus which could be of permanent use. It is only in domestic life that Man can habitually seek the full and free expansion of his social affections; and perhaps this is the chief reason why it is the last indispensable preparation for social life; for concentration is as necessary to the feelings as generalization to the thoughts. Even the most eminent men, who direct their sympathetic instincts upon their race at large or the society in which they live, are usually impelled to this by the moral disappointments of a domestic life which has failed in some of its conditions; and however genial the imperfect compensation may be to them, this abstract love of their species admits of nothing like that satisfaction of the affections which arises from a very limited, and especially an individual attachment. However this may be, such cases are besides too evidently exceptional to affect any inquiry into the social economy. Thus, though the sympathetic instinct exists wherever there is association, more or less, the principle of co-operation is that which must prevail, when we pass on from the consideration of the family to the general co-ordination of families. To attribute to it the formation of the social state, as it was the fashion of the last century to do, is a capital error; but, when the association has once begun, there is nothing like this principle of co-operation for giving consistency and character to the combination. In the lower stages of savage life we see families combining for a temporary purpose, and then returning, almost like the brutes, to their isolated independence, as soon as the expedition, which is usually one of war or the chase, is ended, though already some common opinions, expressed in a certain uniform language, are preparing them for permanent union in tribes, more or less numerous. It is upon the principle of cooperation, then, spontaneous or concerted, that we must found our analysis of the last division of social statics. Distribution of employments. We must include in our view of the division of employments something much more extensive than the material arrangements which the expression is usually understood to convey. We must include under it all human operations whatever, regarding not only individuals and classes, but also, in many ways, different nations, as participating, in a special mode and degree, in a vast common work, the gradual |