of constitution and of the organs, which form afterwards
different kinds of temperaments, each of which is distinguished by
a peculiar characteristic. And it is for this reason that, in hot
countries especially, legislators have made laws respecting regimen
or food. The ancients were taught by long experience that the dietetic
science constituted a considerable part of morality; among the
Egyptians, the ancient Persians, and even among the Greeks, at the
Areopagus, important affairs were examined fasting; and it has been
remarked that, among those people, where public affairs were discussed
during the heat of meals, and the fumes of digestion, deliberations were
hasty and violent, and the results of them frequently unreasonable, and
productive of turbulence and confusion.

CHAPTER VII.

ON CONTINENCE.

Q. Does the law of nature prescribe continence?

A. Yes: because a moderate use of the most lively of pleasures is not
only useful, but indispensable, to the support of strength and health:
and because a simple calculation proves that, for some minutes of
privation, you increase the number of your days, both in vigor of body
and of mind.

Q. How does it forbid libertinism?

A. By the numerous evils which result from it to the physical and the
moral existence. He who carries it to an excess enervates and pines
away; he can no longer attend to study or labor; he contracts idle
and expensive habits, which destroy his means of existence, his
public consideration, and his credit; his intrigues occasion continual
embarrassment, cares, quarrels and lawsuits, without mentioning the
grievous deep-rooted distempers, and the loss of his strength by
an inward and slow poison; the stupid dullness of his mind, by the
exhaustion of the nervous system; and, in fine, a premature and infirm
old age.

Q. Does the law of nature look on that absolute chastity so recommended
in monastical institutions, as a virtue?

A. No: for that chastity is of no use either to the society that
witnesses, or the individual who practises it; it is even prejudicial to
both. First, it injures society by depriving it of population, which
is one of its principal sources of wealth and power; and as bachelors
confine all their views and affections to the term of their lives, they
have in general an egotism unfavorable to the interests of society.

In the second place, it injures the individuals who practise it, because
it deprives them of a number