g a
century after the Reformation. He refers with mitigated approval to "our
Pseudo-Catholics," who are severe with adultery but indulgent to
fornication, being perhaps of Cato's mind that it should be encouraged to
avoid worse mischiefs at home, and who holds brothels "as necessary as
churches" and "have whole Colleges of Courtesans in their towns and
cities." "They hold it impossible," he continues, "for idle persons,
young, rich and lusty, so many servants, monks, friars, to live honest,
too tyrannical a burden to compel them to be chaste, and most unfit to
suffer poor men, younger brothers and soldiers at all to marry, as also
diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. Therefore as well to keep
and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at these kind of
brothel-houses and stews. Many probable arguments they have to prove the
lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them, as of usery; and
without question in policy they are not to be contradicted, but altogether
in religion."[199]

It was not until the beginning of the following century that the ancient
argument of St. Augustine for the moral justification of prostitution was
boldly and decisively stated in Protestant England, by Bernard Mandeville
in his _Fable of the Bees_, and at its first promulgation it seemed so
offensive to the public mind that the book was suppressed. "If courtesans
and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly
people would have it," Mandeville wrote, "what locks or bars would be
sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters?... It is
manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to
preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature.
From whence I think I may justly conclude that chastity may be supported
by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst
of vices."[200] After Mandeville's time this view of prostitution began to
become common in Protestant as well as in other countries, though it was
not usually so clearly expressed.

It may be of interest to gather together a few more modern
examples of statements brought forward for the moral
justification of prostitution.

Thus in France Meusnier de Querlon, in his story of _Psaphion_,
written in the middle of the eighteenth century, puts into the
mouth of a Greek courtesan many interesting reflections
concerning the life and position