ion. The modest woman is esteemed, courted, and
established, with advantages of fortune which ensure her existence,
and render it agreeable to her, while the immodest and prostitute are
despised, repulsed, and abandoned to misery and infamy.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON COURAGE AND ACTIVITY.

Q. Are courage and strength of body and mind virtues in the law of
nature?

A. Yes, and most important virtues; for they are the efficacious and
indispensable means of attending to our preservation and welfare. The
courageous and strong man repulses oppression, defends his life, his
liberty, and his property; by his labor he procures himself an abundant
subsistence, which he enjoys in tranquillity and peace of mind. If he
falls into misfortunes, from which his prudence could not protect him,
he supports them with fortitude and resignation; and it is for this
reason that the ancient moralists have reckoned strength and courage
among the four principal virtues.

Q. Should weakness and cowardice be considered as vices?

A. Yes, since it is certain that they produce innumerable calamities.
The weak or cowardly man lives in perpetual cares and agonies; he
undermines his health by the dread, oftentimes ill founded, of attacks
and dangers: and this dread which is an evil, is not a remedy; it
renders him, on the contrary, the slave of him who wishes to oppress
him; and by the servitude and debasement of all his faculties, it
degrades and diminishes his means of existence, so far as the seeing his
life depend on the will and caprice of another man.

Q. But, after what you have said on the influence of aliments, are not
courage and force, as well as many other virtues, in a great measure the
effect of our physical constitution and temperament?

A. Yes, it is true; and so far, that those qualities are transmitted by
generation and blood, with the elements on which they depend: the most
reiterated and constant facts prove that in the breed of animals of
every kind, we see certain physical and moral qualities, attached to
the individuals of those species, increase or decay according to the
combinations and mixtures they make with other breeds.

Q. But, then, as our will is not sufficient to procure us those
qualities, is it a crime to be destitute of them?

A. No, it is not a crime, but a misfortune; it is what the ancients
call an unlucky fatality; but even then we have it yet in our power to
acquire them; for, as soon as we know on wh