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On the basis of widespread evidence one can deduce that the arguments that are put forward to sustain the indissolubility of marriage on the basis of a purely civil legislation are not conclusive. In other words, although on the natural plane one must attribute to marriage a marked stability because of the ends of the institution, the absolute indissolubility of the conjugal bond springs only from its value as a sacramento The present study, however, in keeping with the constant teaching of the Church, wishes to demonstrate that the stability and the indissolubility of the union form part of the very logic of the institution that we call marriage, and are sine qua non conditions in order to realize its ends. To this purpose the author examines the Thomistic doctrine of marriage and, among other things, draws attention to its extraordinary present-day relevance: leaving aside arguments or a dogmatic or theological nature, the indissolubility of the conjugal bond can be demonstrated by pure reason. Such a rational process is a fundamental characteristic of the Natural Law, which includes the norm that prohibits the dissolution of marriage. The author starts from the position that marriage is a society, voluntary in its origin but natural in its ends; firstly he demonstrates that marriage has an institutional nature which gives rise to an immunity from changes made by the contracting parties in the fundamental norms that enable it to achieve its aims; and secondly he examines these ends in detail. The pro-creation of the children, together with their rearing and education, is the principal end of marriage and presupposes a stable permanent union, because it cannot be achieved in the space of a few years. The same can be said of the other end, that which has to do with the other partner: the mutual help and reciprocal love between husband and wife, and which once promised cannot be revoked, in the same way as the full gift of self which the partners made to each other on their wedding day cannot be withdrawn, as it is contrary to the very nature of the gift. And also the good of society demands the stability and permanence of the bond, over and above those examples that, in the many phenomena drawn from social circumstances, represent individual cases and special personal conditions. The indissolubility derives from the very internal logic of marriage and not from external sources; for this reason, therefore, one speaks of intrinsic indissolubility. And from its rational nature it follows that this norm can be known to all men quite apart from being a revealed truth. It is also worth while pointing out that the natural law that prescribes the indissolubility of marriage should not be considered primary, but rather secondary, natural law. This explains why this law has not always been observed in many cases in the history of mankind (quite apart from considerations of the ontological and psychological insufficiencies of the natural law that weaken its rationality). And it also explains why the natural law needs to be expounded by the Church in the Iight of revealed truth. One may conclude, with Maritain, that the natural law, nowadays under study again after the excesses of juridical positivism, will not achieve full relevance until the Gospel has penetrated the deepest recesses of the human spirit.

In agreement with the title of this article, the essay is divided into two basic parts: one which is historical and the other philosophical. In the first part, the author examines at the beginning the classical latin etyma of the term uiolentia (uis, uiolare, uiolator, etc . . ). After that comes the acclaration of the philosophical concept of «violence» in Aristotle and Saint Thomas, and in continuation an indication of the application of the same concept to the field of ethics, and finally to the juridical field within classical roman law. In another sphere of considerations -ethical and political- the author points out the opinions of some characters which Plato introduces in his dialogues Gorgias and The Republic, due aboye all to the resonance which these works hace had in the history of the Western World until the present time. The subject of bloody violence, which is inherent to the action of the tyrannicide, is treated here briefly with references to the works of Cicero, John of Salisbury, Saint Thomas, Marsilius of Padua, Coluccio Salutati, Juan de Mariana, etc. Phenomena of midieval history suchaas the Crusades and the trials of the Inquisition could not be silenced in this case because both phenomena legitimized morally the use of violence directed towards infidels and heretics. The historical excursus on the topic of the legitimacy of violence in the hands of those who govern passes in successive orden, through Machiavelli, to the political literature on the areasson of state», jusnaturalism, etc . To be underlined is the fact that since the end of the Eighteenth Century -and in an even much more important way in the realm of hegelian Idealism- the concept of violence has undergone a process of amplification as much within the field of Philosophy as within the experimental sciences: Darwin, Malthus and Hegel form the framework. This concept, which in Hegel's dialectic transformed itself into the dynamic principie of the antithesis, and which, therefore, affirmed the structure of the metaphysical movement of history, was passed on as a legacy to the successive hegelian trend, which was in itself so complex and so full of ramifications. The figure of Marx stands out in these pages not so much for his ties with the hegelian left, and with Feuerbach in particular, but rather because of one of the basic concepts of historical materialism -the struggle of the classes- which Marx underlined in his Communist Manifesto as the motivating force of history. The author then considers on the one hand the relationships which exist between the different european nationalisms of the last Century and the ones actually existing today, and, on the other, the Marxist ideology; he analyzes in passing the profound influence exercised by the Aufk/arung of the Eighteenth Century upon the deChristianization of man wrapped up first in his rationalism, and, later on, as a compensation, in new forms of religion and the cult of the world. From here on several names appear: Lenin, Stalin, Sorel, Mussolini, Hitler, etc., men who were very different one from the other and even opposed with regard to their respective political philosophies , but who set the pace for violence of a revolutionary and counter-revolutionary nature during short years or lasting decades. After a few more considerations, the first part of this essay ends with the author underlining the interest which experimental psychology and psycho-analysis have dedicated to the study of human aggressiveness and its mechanisms. In the second part of this work the author tries to establish gUidelines for the study of the relationships between the multiple phenomena of individual and collective violence in the present, and the mass civilization of our time. In the first place, the author makes a series of admonitions with relation to the words used: «violence-, .mass civilization- instead of «tnass society-, «civilization- instead ot «culture-, etc. He also recommends the need for not classifying en masse as a result of a reactionary mentality, the discontent which the intellectual contemplation of the present times produces in the observer, because if our state of animation could be termed as nothing else but «reactionary», then the same could be said to define a great part of the best literature of this Century, as well as the figurative arts of this modem age. The expression «mentality of violence- is applied in the historical context of cultural regression, from Friedrich Nietzsche to our day. After this, the author makes a summary description of the mental coordinates of massified man, as well as of certain particular features of the actual «organization- of culture, which is increasingly impregnated by political and economical ideas, in agreement with the fundamental methodology of historical materialism. The nucleus of these considerations is made up of a philosophical definition of the actual conditions of culture in Europe. This definition rests upon the conviction that the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, although it may by in a stage of partial historical modification, directs not only the political evolution of important sectors of , occidental society, but also that it has known how to model. thanks again to the coming-together of circunstances, the forma mentis of the contemporary intellectual. In the final part of the essay, the author dedicates special emphasis on the influence of Marxism upon wide sectors of modem Catholicism. He then adds several wamings in order to avoid , on the part of the reader, interpretations which might be inopportune or false.