The true reason for paternal or maternal authority lies in the feebleness of the child, in its physical, intellectual, and moral incapacity. The child in coming into the world is utterly incapable of doing for itself. Supposing even that it could satisfy its physical wants, experience shows that it could not give itself an education, without which it cannot be truly a man. This state of feebleness requires, then, indispensable assistance, and an assistance of long duration. It needs a hand to support and feed it, a heart to love it, an intelligence to enlighten it. To whom belongs this _rôle_ of educator, protector, sustainer? "There have been some who have wished to take the child from the family to give it to the State; this is a great error; for the child should evidently belong to those without whom he would have no existence. In the first place, it were burdening society with a thing it is not responsible for; moreover, it has no right upon the child, no particular tie existing between them; finally, it offers no sufficient guaranty, and there can be at best expected of it but a vague and general solicitude, if, indeed, the same is not a partial one, and in favor of those from whom it may derive most advantages; whilst parents should unquestionably have charge of the child, since it is through them it exists; and having charge of it, gives them a right to it: and how could they be responsible for this being they have given life to, if they could not in some measure dispose of it? There are three ties between the parents and the child: a physical bond, a heart-bond, a reason-bond: no other authority rests on more natural principles; none is more necessary, none is protected by greater guarantees."[76] Not only would the State, in taking possession of the child, encumber itself with functions for the performance of which it is unfitted, but it would also violate the natural rights of the human heart. Parents are, then, invested by nature herself, with the duty of supporting and educating their children. But this duty calls for authority. How could a father and mother direct the child in the path of right and justice; how could they impart to it their wisdom and experience; how could they prepare the way for its becoming in its turn a moral agent--one, namely, that acts and governs himself of his own accord--if they are not at the same time invested with the authority that commands obedience? Paternal authority, as we see by this, has no other origin than the actual interest of the child: the mission of the parents is to represent it; they have in some respect the government of its life. The whole authority of the father upon the child is, then, limited by the interests and the rights of the child itself. Beyond what may be useful to its physical and moral existence, the father can do nothing. Such are the extent and limits of his authority. From these principles we deduce: