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766. Is social life founded in nature?
"Certainly; God has made man for living in society. It is not without a purpose that God has given to man the faculty of speech and the other faculties necessary to the life of relation."
767. Is absolute isolation contrary to the law of nature?
"Yes, since man instinctively seeks society, and since all men are intended to help forward the work of progress by aiding one another."
768. Does man, in seeking society, only yield to a personal feeling, or is there, in this feeling, a wider providential end?
"Man must progress; he cannot do so alone, because, as he does not possess all faculties, he needs the contact of other men. In isolation he becomes brutified and etiolated."
No man possesses the complete range of faculties. Through social union men complete one another, and thus mutually secure their well-being and progress. It is because they need each other's help that they have been formed for living In society, and not in isolation.
769. We can understand that the taste for social life, as a general principle, should be founded in nature, as are all other tastes; but why should a taste for absolute isolation be regarded as blameable, if a man finds satisfaction in it?
"Such satisfaction can only be a selfish one. There are also men who find satisfaction in getting drunk; do you approve of them? A mode of life, by the adoption of which you condemn yourselves not to be useful to any one, cannot be pleasing to God."
770. What is to be thought of those who live in absolute seclusion in order to escape the pernicious contact of the world?
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"The life of such persons is doubly selfish. In avoiding one evil, they fall into another, since they forget the jaw of love and charity."
- But if such seclusion is undergone as an expiation, through the imposing on one's self of a painful privation, is it not meritorious?
"The best of all expiations is to do a greater amount of good than you have done of evil."
771. What is to be thought of those who renounce the world in order to devote themselves to the relief of the unfortunate?
"They raise themselves by their voluntary abasement. They have the double merit of placing themselves above material enjoyments, and of doing good by fulfilling the law of labour."
- And those who seek in retirement the tranquillity required for certain kinds of labour?
"Those who live in retirement from such a motive are not selfish; they do not separate themselves from society, since their labours are for the general good."
772. What is to be thought of the vow of silence prescribed by certain sects from the very earliest times?
"You should rather ask yourselves whether speech is in nature, and why God has given it?
God condemns the abuse, but not the use, of the faculties He has given. Silence, however, is useful; for, in silence you have fuller possession of yourself; your spirit is freer, and can then enter into more intimate communication with us; but a vow of silence is an absurdity. Those who regard the undergoing of such voluntary privations as acts of virtue are prompted, undoubtedly, by a good intention in submitting to them; but they make a mistake in so doing, because they do not sufficiently understand the true laws of God."
The vow of silence, like the vow of isolation, deprives man of the social relations which alone can furnish him with the opportunities of doing good, and of fulfilling the law of progress.
773. Why is it that, among the animals, parents and children forget each other, when the latter no longer need the care of the former?
"The life of the animals is material life, but not moral life. The tenderness of the dam for her young is prompted by the instinct
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of preservation in regard to the beings born of her. When these beings are able to take care of themselves, her task is done; nature asks no more of her, and she therefore abandons them in order to busy herself with those that come afterwards."
774. Some persons have inferred, from the abandonment of the young of animals by their parents, that the ties of family, among mankind, are merely a result of social customs, and not a law of nature; what is to be thought of this inference?
"Man has another destiny than of the animals; why, then, should you always be trying to assimilate him to them? There is, in man, something more than physical wants; there is the necessity of progressing. Social ties are necessary to progress; and social ties are drawn closer by family-ties. For this reason, family-ties are a law of nature. God has willed that men should learn, through them, to love one another as brothers." (205)
775. What would be the effect upon society of the relaxation of family-ties?
"A relapse into selfishness."