render itself charming, and yet, in truth, whatever it may do, being
venal and public, it remains feeble and languishing. Even so in virtue
itself, of two like effects, we notwithstanding look upon that as the
fairest and most worthy, wherein the most trouble and hazard are set
before us.

'Tis an effect of the divine Providence to suffer the holy Church to be
afflicted, as we see it, with so many storms and troubles, by this
opposition to rouse pious souls, and to awaken them from that drowsy
lethargy wherein, by so long tranquillity, they had been immerged.
If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who
have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
surmount the damage.

We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and
firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the
will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how
much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which
kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the
liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives
the better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the
full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before
any one made use on't.

"Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."

["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
appetite.--"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]

We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"

"Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."

["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
--Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]

I do not know that this is true; but I experimentally know, that never
civil government was by that means reformed; the order and regimen of
manners depend upon some other expedient.

The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to
Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only
no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can f