er can
suppress, the deep-drawn sigh which recollection for ever brings
up, until recollection and life are extinguished together. Ever
affectionately yours.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXV.--TO JOHN ADAMS, October 28, 1813

TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monticello, October 28, 1813.

Dear Sir,

According to the reservation between us, of taking up one of the
subjects of our correspondence at a time, I turn to your letters of
August the 16th and September the 2nd.

The passage you quote from Theognis, I think has an ethical rather than
a political object. The whole piece is a moral exhortation,

[Illustration: page226]

and this passage particularly seems to be a reproof to man, who,
while with his domestic animals he is curious to improve the race, by
employing always the finest male, pays no attention to the improvement
of his own race, but intermarries with the vicious, the ugly, or the
old, for considerations of wealth or ambition. It is in conformity with
the principle adopted afterwards by the Pythagoreans, and expressed by
Ocellus in another form;

[Illustration: page226a

which, as literally as intelligibility will admit, may be thus
translated; 'Concerning the interprocreation of men, how, and of whom it
shall be, in a perfect manner, and according to the laws of modesty and
sanctity, conjointly, this is what I think right. First, to lay it down
that we do not commix for the sake of pleasure, but of the procreation
of children. For the powers, the organs, and desires for coition have
not been given by God to man for the sake of pleasure, but for the
procreation of the race. For as it were incongruous for a mortal born
to partake of divine life, the immortality of the race being taken away,
God fulfilled the purpose by making the generations uninterrupted
and continuous. This, therefore, we are especially to lay down as a
principle, that coition is not for the sake of pleasure.' But nature,
not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to have provided
more securely for the perpetuation of the species, by making it the
effect of the _oestrum_ implanted in the constitution of both sexes.
And not only has the commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed
impulse, but made subservient also to wealth and ambition by marriages,
without regard to the beauty, the healthiness, the understanding, or
virtue of the subject from which we are to breed. The selecting the best
male for a Haram of well chosen