with the prescriptions of their own natural appetite;
after this manner do our physicians proceed, who eat melons and drink
iced wines, whilst they confine their patients to syrups and sops.
"I know not," said the courtezan Lais, "what they may talk of books,
wisdom, and philosophy; but these men knock as often at my door as any
others." At the same rate that our licence carries us beyond what is
lawful and allowed, men have, often beyond universal reason, stretched
the precepts and rules of our life:

"Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum
Permittas."

["No one thinks he has done ill to the full extent of what he may."
--Juvenal, xiv. 233.]

It were to be wished that there was more proportion betwixt the command
and the obedience; and the mark seems to be unjust to which one cannot
attain. There is no so good man, who so squares all his thoughts and
actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to deserve hanging ten
times in his life; and he may well be such a one, as it were great
injustice and great harm to punish and ruin:

"Ole, quid ad te
De cute quid faciat ille vel ille sua?"

["Olus, what is it to thee what he or she does with their skin?"
--Martial, vii. 9, I.]

and such an one there may be, who has no way offended the laws, who,
nevertheless, would not deserve the character of a virtuous man, and whom
philosophy would justly condemn to be whipped; so unequal and perplexed
is this relation. We are so far from being good men, according to the
laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own human wisdom never
yet arrived at the duties it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive
there, it would still prescribe to itself others beyond, to which it
would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy to consistency is our
human condition. Man enjoins himself to be necessarily in fault: he is
not very discreet to cut out his own duty by the measure of another being
than his own. To whom does he prescribe that which he does not expect
any one should perform? is he unjust in not doing what it is impossible
for him to do? The laws which condemn us not to be able, condemn us for
not being able.

At the worst, this difform liberty of presenting ourselves two several
ways, the actions after one manner and the reasoning after another, may
be allowed to those who only speak of things; but it cannot be allowed