which would be powerful enough to influence a man's conduct.
It might be imagined that the University had arranged its present programme in the hope of imposing moral conduct on its pupils by means of the repetition of precepts; moral courses are multiplied to such an extent that one might ask oneself if (with a slight difference) the well-known verse of Boileau might not be applied:
Aimez-vous la muscade? On en a mis partout.[1]
I do not think that there are many people who share the naive confidence of F. Buisson and the members of the University in this ethic. Exactly like Combes, G. de Molinari believes that it is necessary to have recourse to religion, which promises men a reward in the other world, and which is thus, "the surety of justice. … It is religion which in the infancy of humanity, raised the edifice of morality; it is religion which supports and which alone can support it. Such are the functions which religion has filled and which it continues to fill and which, unpleasant as it may be to the apostles of independent morality, constitute its usefulness."[2] "We must look for help to a more powerful and more active instrument than the interests of society, to effect those reforms demonstrated by political economy to be necessary, and this instrument can only be found in the religious sentiment associated with the sentiment of justice."[3]
G. de Molinari expresses himself in intentionally vague terms; he seems to regard religion as do many modern Catholics (of the Brunetière type); that is, as a means of social Government, which must be suited to the needs of the different classes; people of the higher classes have always considered that they had less need of moral discipline than their subordinates, and it is by making this
