Rousseau_contrat-social
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of sacrilege, and not the conquest of unbelievers.<br />
44. It should be noted that the clergy find their bond of union not so<br />
much in formal assemblies, as in the communion of Churches. Communion<br />
and excommunication are the <strong>social</strong> compact of the clergy, a compact<br />
which will always make them masters of peoples and kings. All priests<br />
who communicate together are fellow-citizens, even if they come from<br />
opposite ends of the earth. This invention is a masterpiece of<br />
statesmanship: there is nothing like it among pagan priests; who have<br />
therefore never formed a clerical corporate body.<br />
45. See, for instance, in a letter from Grotius to his brother (April<br />
11, 1643), what that learned man found to praise and to blame in the De<br />
Cive. It is true that, with a bent for indulgence, he seems to pardon<br />
the writer the good for the sake of the bad; but all men are not so<br />
forgiving.<br />
46. "In the republic," says the Marquis d’Argenson, "each man is<br />
perfectly free in what does not harm others." This is the invariable<br />
limitation, which it is impossible to define more exactly. I have not<br />
been able to deny myself the pleasure of occasionally quoting from this<br />
manuscript, though it is unknown to the public, in order to do honour to<br />
the memory of a good and illustrious man, who had kept even in the<br />
Ministry the heart of a good citizen, and views on the government of his<br />
country that were sane and right.<br />
47. Cæsar, pleading for Catiline, tried to establish the dogma that the<br />
soul is mortal: Cato and Cicero, in refutation, did not waste time in<br />
philosophising. They were content to show that Cæsar spoke like a bad<br />
citizen, and brought forward a doctrine that would have a bad effect on<br />
the State. This, in fact, and not a problem of theology, was what the<br />
Roman senate had to judge.<br />
48. Marriage, for instance, being a civil contract, has civil effects<br />
without which society cannot even subsist. Suppose a body of clergy<br />
should claim the sole right of permitting this act, a right which every<br />
intolerant religion must of necessity claim, is it not clear that in<br />
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