So  long  ago  as  the  first  rise  of  the  revolutionary  state,  this  delete-
rious influence  on  morality,  properly  so  called,  began  with  a  serious
innovation  on  the  institution  of  Marriage,  which  would  have  been,
radically  changed,  by  the  permission  of  divorce  in  Protestant  coun-
tries, if  public  decency  and  private  good  sense  had  not,  up  to  this
time,  weakened  the  pernicious  effects  of  theologico-metaphysicat
extravagances.  Still,  private  morality  could  be  reached  only
through  the  destruction  of  political  morals ;  and  now,  that  barrier
being  broken  through,  the  dissolving  action  threatens  domestic,  and
even  personal  morality,  which  is  the  necessary  foundation  of  every
gther.  Whichever  way  we  look  at  it,  whether  as  to  the  relations
of  the  sexes,  to  those  of  ages,  or  of  conditions,  it  is  clear  that  the
elements  of  all  social  life  are  directly  compromised  by  a  coprosive
discussion  which  is  not  directed  by  true  principles,  and  which
brings  into  question,  without  the  possibility  of  solution,  even  the
least  important  ideas  of  duty.  Even  the  Family,  which,  amidst  the
fiercest  revolutionary  tumults,  had  been,  on  the  whole  respected,  has
been  assailed  in  our  day  in  its  very  foundations,  by  attacks  on  the
hqj-editary  principle  and  on  marriage.  We  have  even  seen  the
commonest  principle  of  personal  morality,  the  subjection  of  the


124  POSITIVE  PHILOSOPHY.
