not protected by birth and wealth to the
profligacy of men.--The shallowness of the sentiment of honour is
another great evil. In its origin, honour includes self-respect and the
respect of others. In time, "from its intimate connexion with what is
personal in interest and feeling, it is greatly exposed to degenerate
into a false and misguiding sentiment. Connecting itself with the
notions of character which prevail by chance in the community, rather
than with the rule of right and of God, it has erected a false standard
of estimate." The requisitions of honour come to be viewed as regarding
only equals, or those who are hedged about with honour, and they are
neglected with regard to the helpless. Men of honour use treachery with
women,--with those to whom they promise marriage, and with those to
whom, in marrying, they promised fidelity, love, and care; and yet their
honour is, in the eyes of society, unstained.--Feudal ambition is
another sentiment fraught with evil to marriage. In a society where
pride and ostentation prevail, where rank and wealth are regarded as
prime objects of pursuit, marriage comes to be regarded as a means of
obtaining these. Wives are selected for their connexions and their
fortune, and the love is placed elsewhere.--Any one of these corrupt
species of sentiment, and of some others which exist, must ruin domestic
peace, if the laws of each country were as wise as they are now, for the
most part, faulty, and as powerful as they are now ineffectual.--If the
traveller will bear these things in mind, he will gain light upon the
moral sentiment of the society by the condition of domestic life in it;
and again, what he knows of the prevalent moral sentiment of the society
will cast light upon the domestic condition of its members.

Another thing to be carefully remembered is, that asceticism and
licentiousness universally coexist. All experience proves this; and
every principle of human nature might prophesy the proof. Passions and
emotions cannot be extinguished by general rules. Self-mortification can
spring only out of a home-felt principle, and not from the will of
another, or of any number of others. The exhibition only can be
restrained, and the visible conduct ordered by rule. In consequence, it
is found that no greater impurity of mind exists than among associated
ascetics; and nowhere are crimes of the licentious class so gross, other
circumstances being equal, as in communities which have