a considerable burden on articles of great expense, which will not, within reasonable limits of taxation, be reduced in demand. Those who want silks and costly wines will not fall off much in number, if the duty rises one-quarter; while an equal increase of duty on articles in general use might greatly diminish the call for them. Or, if they should fall off to such an extent that the raised tariff occasioned no increase of revenue, no harm would be done. 2. On the other hand, the use of a tariff for moral purposes directly is exceedingly questionable. There are immoral books and pictures. Shall these be prohibited? If so, we must have a new kind of inquisitors in the world, or the state itself must make an index librorum prohibitorum. The books and pictures, moreover, would acquire a new value from the very prohibition. shall we have regulations tending to decrease expense and increase frugality? Here new difficulties arise which will require that the private affairs of every individual shall be scrutinized, and a limit set to consumption, as, for instance, by a tax on consumption, which no dealer or producer would bear. 3. All, then, that can be done to put an end to "luxury" with any success, must be done by private persons who are wealthy, or by some change in public taste and morals.

Or

7. In closing these remarks on legislation for the promotion of morality, we may ask whether there are any cases where the state can enforce moral duties, and whether its whole action under this head is not limited to the prevention and punishment of immoral acts. I believe that this is all the state can do; it being understood, however, that in the term immoral acts is included negligence, or failure to do what morality demands, such as thoughtless exposure of the person. It may be that in some small states, where the community was little more than a large family, the laws undertook to go quite beyond this; but certainly, in large communities, more than this would be nearly impracticable. Ingratitude towards parents, we are expressly informed, was actionable at Athens, and it also exposed a man who was drawn to hold office, to be rejected when his qualifications were examined

(Xen., Mem., ii., 2, 13), which, however, was merely an act of self-defence on the part of the people. The action referred to by Xenophon can be no other than the public suit of illusage towards parents (κάκωσις γονέων). This could be brought against children who abused their parents by word or deed, when they refused them food, being able to provide it, and when they refused to bury them. The first of these acts implies more than immorality; the second, on account of the close family tie, may be looked on as almost a violation of right; the third was not only ungrateful, but irreligious. It is said also that in the mutual aid societies at Athens this action of ingratitude could be brought against a member. This kind of suits is a very obscure subject; but, if there were a suit answering to this title, it could be explained on the ground that the mutuality in those clubs conferred an obligation upon each of the persons benefited. The only thing that I know of in Roman law which looks like the treatment of ingratitude as a wrong to be estimated or punished, is a provision of the lex Ælia Sentia, passed in A.D. 3, which gave the patron the right-besides that of relegating the freedman beyond the hundredth mile from Rome Tac., Annal., xiii., 26), of accusing him ut ingratum. This law then qualified mamumission, and the duties owed to the patron almost turned into claims.†

* Comp. Meier u. Schoem., Att. Proc., pp. 448, 449; and for the suits against members of the same pavos, K. F. Hermann, Gr. Staatsalt., § 146, 9.

+ Com. Dig., xl., 9, 30. For ingratitude as a ground of public prosecution among the Persians, comp. Xen. Cyrop., i., 2, 7. laws of Manu lay a fine on one who forsakes father, mother, wife, er son, viii., 388 (p. 281 of Houghton's ed. of Jones's transl.). The te officiosum testamentum (§ 48), as defined by J. Paulus, Sentent.. iv., 5 (in Huschke's Jurispr. Antejustin.), is that which, "frustra bers ex heredatis, non ex officio pietatis videtur esse conscriptum." It is the want of pietas, as in the case of a freedman, which constitutes the injury to the natural heir.

CHAPTER XII.

THE STATE'S RELATIONS TO RELIGION.

$ 251.

I COME now to an important and difficult subject, on which the opinions of almost the whole past, since states were founded, differ from those which are entertained at the present time by large numbers of thinking persons, and by nearly everybody in this country. In another part of this work (§ 76, § 78, a) I have tried to show that, for the same reason for which the state furnishes education to children and seeks to promote morality, not only the protection of religion, but even the establishment of a state church can be defended, provided, however, all the people be allowed the free exercise of their worship, according to their preferences. Yet I added that while a state can get along very well with such a national church when all are of one way of thinking, dissent will inevitably creep in, if an age ensues when men speculate and debate on religion, and then the religious establishment may struggle for its life, and the struggle may imperil the interests of the state or of religion itself. The safest way, therefore, of dealing with religion at such a time, is to leave it entirely to itself, and in some few countries no other adjustment of relations is possible.

That which gives this question its great weight among questions touching the dity and policy of the state, is the importance of religion as a power in the state and in the life of man, and the attachment which multitudes of persons feel for their religion. It was no overestimate of the Romans, which in the phrase pro aris et focis, made religion and the family stand for the objects that are most worth defending. The heathen valued their religions because the stability of earthly interests was found in the protection of spiritual

powers; state, family, and individual alike, feeling need of such protection. Nor was it divine power to protect, and fear of divine wrath, if unpropitiated, that alone led to worship; but worship was natural, a natural want, as necessary as human society. To this the Christian religion adds the conviction that it reveals the perfection of character, and the means for attaining at once to a perfect character and a harmony with God; and that the state perceives such a character, formed by religion, and by religion only, to be as necessary to make the citizen a perfect citizen, as the man a perfect man. The state reaches its highest aims only by something that lies out of itself, and thus seeks to get all the aid possible for itself from this source.

In considering the relations of religion to the state, we shall divide the religions into three classes. The first class may comprise those which were made up chiefly of worship, external forms, and mythology, which had no vital connection with political institutions, and expressed a part of the truths of natural religion in a polytheistic form. Most of the heathen religions belong here. Another class of natural religions consist of such as are organically connected with the state by means of institutions of sacred origin. Here belong the religions of caste and hereditary classes-the Brahminical and Egyptian-the religion of Iran, and perhaps that of the Druids in the Celtic race, with the Mexican and Peruvian. In the third class may be included Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, the three monotheistic systems of the world. The first class of polytheistic religions, apart from some hoary myths, took their form in the mythological age in the countries where they grew up, or else were borrowed in part from surrounding nations. These mythologies contain in themselves very little of which the state could make use for its purposes of political training. The second class consists of those which moulded or transformed the states where they flourished by means of religious institutions. These have the most intimate connection with the state, but were on that account essentially local. Brahminism, for instance, could not

spread much beyond India, because, to introduce its institutions, would require a complete remodelling of society, which existing interests would oppose; while Buddhism, having no such fixed institutions, was able to spread over various races. In the third class are embraced three religions which spread chiefly by ideas of the spiritual world, and could be combined with any political forms; thus, Judaism in the course of time had several political forms, and could propagate itself in various parts of the earth. But they differ greatly in their diffusive nature and power of associating with different. political ideas. Judaism kept the descendants of Jacob together by its faith, its rites, and the religious centre which its rites required, but has kept its ground in the world as much by the hardening influence of persecution, and the brotherly feeling between its members, as by its own vital power. Mohammedanism has something of the same character. It is somewhat diffusive and somewhat capable of combining with various polities, yet has had an inclination towards des potical government, and thrives best not far from the place where it had its origin, and where its pilgrims turn their steps. Christianity, throwing off the fetters of place by its sublime doctrines of a universal Father, and a Saviour for all mankind, can subsist under every form of government. Overturning nothing, it transforms everything. Hence its infinite richness of manifestation. With almost no philosophy, it gives birth to manifold philosophies and theologies. With the simplest possible institutions, it can enter into union with at great variety of institutions. With a certain number of fixed moral and religious verities, it gives birth, in connection with human reason, to a large number of sects, which, as men are, have been unable to subsist side by side in peace. These sects are multiplied by the claim of possessing the only true Christian faith or institutions. Thus, under Christianity, the problems which the state has to solve, according to the principles on which states have acted, have become more complicated than those of any other religion, owing to the freeness of its development.