1 prefent cafe of chastity, that the example of the old would be pernicious to the young; and that women, continually foreseeing that a certain time would bring them the liberty of indulgence, would naturally advance, that period, and think more lightly of this whole du ty, fo requifite to fociety. Those who live in the fame family have fuch frequent opportunities of licence of this kind, that nothing could preserve purity of manners, were marriage allowed, among the nearest relations, or any intercourfe of love between them ratified by law and custom. ceft, therefore, being pernicious in a fuperior degree, has alfo a fuperior turpitude and moral deformity annexed to it. In the What is the reafon, why, by the Athenian laws, one might marry a half-fifter by the father, but not by the mother? Plainly this: The manners of the Athenians were fo referved, that a man was never permitted to approach women's apartment, even in the fame family, unless where he vifited his own mother. His step-mother and her children were as much shut up from him as the women of any other family, and there was as little danger of any criminal. correfpondence between them. Uncle's and nieces, for a like reafon, might marry at Athens but neither thefe, nor half-brothers and fifters, could contract that alliance at Rome, where the intercourfe was more open between the fexes. Public utility is the caufe of all thefe variations. To repeat, to a man's prejudice, any thing that escaped him in private converfation, or to make any fuch ufe of his private letters, is highly blamed. The free and focial intercourse of minds must be extremely checked, where fuch rules of fidelity are established. Even in repeating ftories, whence we can forefee no ill confequences to refult, the giving of one's author is regarded as a piece of indifcretion, if not of immorality. These ftories, in paffing from hand to hand, and receiving all the ufual variations, frequently come about to the perfons concerned, and produce animofities and quarrels among people, whofe intentions are the most innocent and inoffenfive. To pry into fecrets, to open or even read the letters of others, to play the fpy upon their words and looks and actions; what habits more inconvenient in fociety? What habits, of confequence, more blameable? This principle is alfo the foundation of moft of the laws of good manners; a kind of leffer morality, calculated for the eafe of company and converfation. Too much or too little ceremony are both blamed, and every thing, which promotes ease, without an indecent familiarity, is ufeful and laudable. Conftancy in friendships, attachments, and familiarities, is commendable, and is requifite to fupport truft and good correfpondence in fociety. But in places of general, though cafual concourfe, where the pursuit of health and pleasure brings people promifcuoufly together, public conveniency has difpenfed with this maxim; and cuftom there promotes an unreferved converfation for the time, by indulging the privilege of dropping afterwards every indifferent acquaintance, without breach of civility or good manners. Even in focieties, which are established on principles the most immoral, and the moft deftructive to the interefts of the general fociety, there are required certain rules, which a fpecies of false honour, as well as private intereft, engages the members to obferve. Robbers and piVOL. II. rates, rates, it has often been remarked, could not maintain their pernicious confederacy, did they not establish a new diftributive juftice among themfelves, and recal thofe laws of equity, which they have violated with the rest of mankind. I hate a drinking companion, fays the Greek proverb, who never forgets. The follies of the laft debauch fhould be buried in eternal oblivion, in order to give full fcope to the follies of the next. Among nations, where an immoral gallantry, if covered with a thin veil of mystery, is, in some degree, authorised by custom, there immediately arife a fet of rules, calculated for the conveniency of that attachment. The famous court or parliament of love in Provence formerly decided all difficult cafes of this nature. In focieties for play, there are laws required for the conduct of the game; and thefe laws are different in each game. The foundation, I own, of fuch focieties is frivolous; and the laws are in a great measure, though not altogether, capricious and arbitrary. So far is there a material difference between them and the rules of juftice, fidelity, and loyalty. The general focieties of men are abfolutely requifite for the fubfiftence of the fpecies; and the public conveniency, which regulates morals, is inviolably established in the nature of man, and of the world, in which he lives. The comparison, therefore, in these refpects, is very imperfect. We may only learn from it the neceffity of rules, wherever men have any intercourfe with each other. They cannot even pafs each other on the road without rules. Waggoners, coachmen, and postilions have principles, by which they give the way; and these are chiefly founded on mutual eafe and convenience. Sometimes alfo they are arbitrary, at at least dependant on a kind of capricious analogy, like many of the reasonings of lawyers *. To carry the matter farther, we may observe, that it is impoffible for men so much as to murder each other without ftatutes, and maxims, and an idea of justice and honour. War has its laws as well as peace; even that sportive kind of war, carried on among wrestlers, boxers, cudgel-players, gladiators, is regulated by fixed principles. Common interest and utility beget infallibly a standard of right and wrong among the parties concerned. |