independently by its own peculiar energy, that is capable of modifying
itself without the concurrence of exterior causes, and which is
distinguished from all material or physical beings. _Agriculture_ is
founded upon the assurance afforded by experience, that the earth,
cultivated and sown in a certain manner, when it has otherwise the
requisite qualities, will furnish grain, fruit, and flowers, either
necessary for subsistence or pleasing to the senses. If things were
considered without prejudice, it would be perceived, that in morals
education is nothing more than _the agriculture of the mind_; that like
the earth, by reason of its natural disposition, of the culture bestowed
upon it, of the seeds with which it is sown, of the seasons, more or
less favorable, that conduct it to maturity, we may be assured that the
soul will produce either virtue or vice; _moral fruit_ that will be
either salubrious for man or baneful to society. _Morals_ is the science
of the relations that subsist between the minds, the wills, and the
actions of men; in the same manner that _geometry_ is the science of the
relations that are found between bodies. Morals would be a chimera, it
would have no certain principles, if it was not founded upon the
knowledge of the motives which must necessarily have an influence upon
the human will, and which must necessarily determine the actions of
human beings.

If in the moral as well as in the physical world, a cause of which the
action is not interrupted be necessarily followed by a given effect, it
flows consecutively that a _reasonable education_, grafted upon truth,
founded upon wise laws,--that honest principles instilled during youth,
virtuous examples continually held forth, esteem attached solely to
merit, recompense awarded to none but good actions, contempt regularly
visiting vice, shame following falsehood as its shadow, rigorous
chastisements applied without distinction to crime, are causes that