seek, therefore, in a change of laws or institutions, while the seat of the disease is in a totally different region, and the cure must, consequently, come from different remedies.

As to the general duty of attention to the present society and times, in and through which we are what we are, I wish to add only, that, since we do no longer assemble in the market, and our states have become extensive political societies, and since, at the same time, printing has become so powerful and active an agent of transmitting knowledge and thoughts, it is our duty not to slight those vehicles which bring us information of the daily occurrences of life, near and far, important and trivial, cheering and saddening, in short such as life is. It is the duty of a free citizen to read attentively some newspapers. Without it he lives in the dark as an Athenian would have done who had not visited the market. We seize with avidity upon the letters written in past periods, even the gossiping ones, because they bear the imprint and breathe the spirit of the period in which they were penned. Newspapers are letters. It indicates, in my opinion, very little knowledge of our whole human character and calling, if persons, as I have actually found some, assert with superciliousness that they never look at a paper. Let the newspapers of some countries differ ever so far from what they ought to be, or the feeling of hauteur at the society around those persons be ever so great, still until mended the former are the channel through which alone a mass of the most important knowledge respecting our society can be obtained, and the latter remains the society in which we live, and to which our sympathies ought to belong. The noblest and the worst things

may happen, and to penetrate reality we ought to know both-a Ross may return from his three years' expedition, and be received by the people of Hull in a manner which reminded the public of the reception of Columbus after his first voyage; public defalcations may be discovered; improvements of all sorts may take place; crimes or noble deeds may be performed, or portentous signs forboding evil may show themselves without ever being noticed by so negligent a citizen. Only let us read the papers attentively, and not merely to fill vacant time. The gradual enlargement of knowledge by a serious and regular newspaper reading, with the proper aid of books of reference is very great, and-it ought to be observed, especially for the young-there is much knowledge of details irretrievably lost, perhaps that of great importance at some future period, when least expected, and you urgently desire to possess it, in the sweeping course of the news of the European race, if we do not store it up gradually as it is offered, and endeavor to keep on a level with facts and events in the political as well as scientific life of the civilised nations. This species of acquiring knowledge can be abused, as every thing else. As to the importance and duties of editors they will be touched upon farther below.

(1) Jovellanos, Complete Works, Madrid, 1830, vol. ii. p. 438. (2) I have dwelt upon this subject at some length in the Hermeneutics.

CHAPTER VI.

Continency.-Political Evils of Incontinency; of Prostitution.-The primary Foundation of Society, the Family is undermined by it.-Evils of general Incontinency in the highest Classes, and the lowest.-Religion.-Its Universality.-Its Importance for Morality; for Society; for the State.-Fanaticism.-Fanaticism of any kind.-Religious Fanaticism.-The Bible.Revelation. Both exclusively religious.-Persecution.-Direct and indirect Persecution.-Political and social Persecution.-Hypocrisy and Desecration of Religion.-Regulation of political or social actions by Tenets.

LVIII. CONTINENCY, a virtue demanded by all moral systems and purer religions, is a moral element of great importance in a civil point of view. The legislators of all times have acknowledged it, both by the direct support and countenance given to lawful marriage and well-constituted families, and the serious discountenance given to prostitution, from ancient times to modern. Hardly had the attempt been made during the first French revolution to pronounce by law that dissolution of some of the most elementary ties of human society, which had been eating itself into its vitals for upwards of two centuries; when, on the merest ground of public necessity, many of the violent political fanatics petitioned for legislative repression of universal profligacy, or, placed in authority, urgently recommend measures of the kind. (1) It is not only because prostitution at large is invariably coupled with crime, that it becomes so dangerous to the state, as the experience of all periods and all nations, ancient and modern, proves

without exception, that general incontinency becomes a dangerous political vice. There is another reason, and, in my opinion of much greater import still. We have seen how indispensable the family is for civilisation as well as virtue; we called it the hearth of the best traits of man, of virtue, of generosity, of patriotism. We have seen that monogamy is justly considered as one of the most important elements, perhaps the most important of all, to which Europe owes her early and great superiority over the eastern world, in which yet civilisation was of much earlier date. If we carefully examine Roman history, I believe no one can fail observing, that a very great part of all that we feel ourselves bound to admire in it, the great power which the word law acquired in that city, and that peculiar trait in her politics, which we may call Roman steadiness, was owing to their early acknowledgment of the family in its sacredness, and the consequent esteem of womankind, especially of wives and mothers-the high character which the Roman attributed to the matron, who, therefore stands prominent in their history from an early period, some of the accounts of which are mixed with fiction, but which nevertheless prove, even in this shape, the condition of popular sentiments. We shall return to this subject when we treat of Woman. In the middle ages, and especially in that period which more particularly is designated as the age of chivalry, few things served to restrain the lawlessness of the times in some degree at least, more effectually than the rising esteem of woman, extravagant and distorted as even this feeling generally was, or however extravagant the views of many persons to this day respecting the universal purity of this feeling at those times may be. It is a fact,

that it formed one of the essential points from which modern civilisation started anew. (2)

(1) Some of these reports are contained in a work of the saddest, indeed, but also the deepest interest for every reflecting man, who studies human society with that earnestness, and truthfulness which is anxious to know the real state of things and society in all its elements, not shuddering or averting the face from truth and fact, even though it be loathsomely hideous, as no physician allows himself to be repelled by the most sickening suffering, or if he does, is a worthless votary of the healing art. I allude to the work, De La Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris, consideré sons le Rapport de l'Hygiène publique, de la Morale et De l'Administration, &c. par A. I. B. Parent-Duchatelet. Paris, 2d. ed. 1837, 2 vols. 8vo. It is a work of the first importance to the moralist, philosopher, politician, criminalist and statist, to every one who studies man considered individually or socially, and gives a deep insight into one of the darkest, lowest sinks of vice, avarice and crime.

(2) Hallam's History of the Middle Ages, mentioned here, among so many others, only on account of its greater accessibility to most readers.

LIX. If the family, however, is so important, it is evident that continency, its very support and life-blood, is likewise so. The former cannot exist in its purity and that solidity which is necessary to make it a substantial element of political welfare, without the latter, without the purity of woman. Yet this does not exhibit the whole importance of continency. So soon as continency is generally disregarded or slighted, selfishness will likewise become general, because families are not formedthat circle where disinterestedness is fostered most, and the more lasting connexion between the two sexes, if formed, is founded upon selfish gratification only, the claims of children upon their parents for education, the pride of parents in their children, that they may do