late and overtask the bodily functions, till the mind is oppressed, impeded, or arrested in its intellectual and moral operations. In the man who indulges a love of intoxicating liquors, this takes place more evidently and more rapidly. He speedily reduces himself to a condition in which neither reason nor moral restraint has its due power. The indulgence of other sensual appetites stimulates the bodily desires and inflames the imagination. Lust, obeyed as mere Lust, tends to fill the mind with obscene thoughts, and to make the intellect and the fancy mere ministers of Appetite. By such courses, the heart and affections are corrupted: the imagination is polluted: the character is depraved. Any steps in such a course are the opposite of a moral progress they are steps in a course of moral degradation, of which the end is utter depravity, filthiness, and profligacy; in short, moral ruin. Transgressions of the Rules of Duty, of the kind now referred to, especially produce their effect, as steps of a course. The act of transgression leaves a more distinct trace in the habits, than in the case of mere mental desires. The appetites become more powerful by being gratified. Their craving becomes, by indulgence, more and more importunate and irresistible. The body will not let the mind turn away from the accustomed path of sensuality. Sensual acts leave a stain of material filth upon the mind; of which it takes long and earnest efforts to remove the trace, so that it shall not afterwards give a sensual tendency to the Will. And thus, every sensual act contributes to the moral degradation of which we have spoken; and is grossly at variance with the Duty of our own Moral Culture.

324. It is very important to dwell upon this Duty of Moral Self-culture, in reference to offenses of Impurity; for these offenses are not mere extensions of the notion of jural wrongs, as some moral offenses are. Jurally speak

ing, each person may be said to have a Right over his own body, provided he injure no other person; and two persons may appear to have a Right to agree to unite in acts of sensuality, when no Right of a husband or a father is violated. Accordingly, Fornication, and Concubinage, have not been generally prohibited by the Laws of Ancient and Modern Countries. But yet such practices have almost always been condemned as impure and degraded. And the consideration of the Duty of Moral Self-culture, which we have insisted on, shows the propriety of this condemnation. No person can use his body for purposes of mere Lust, without utterly abandoning all aim at his Moral Progress, and all hope of it. He who thus gives himself up to the government of the Lower parts of his nature, neglects and despises the Higher. So far as he does this, he renounces his moral nature, reduces himself to the level of brute beasts, and goes on resolutely and recklessly to moral ruin. It is true, that men may continue to perform some Duties, and to aim at some Virtues, while they still do not refrain from the Vice of Impurity. But it is plain, that a man's desire of Moral Progress must be so feeble and inconsistent as not to deserve the name, if he contentedly and intentionally pursues a course which manifestly leads to the pollution and degradation of one main element of a moral character.

325. The different constitution of the heart and mind in the two sexes, as well as the difference in corporeal conditions, lead to some special considerations respecting their Duties. The Desires and Affections of both sexes lead to the Conjugal Union: but according to the natural feelings of most persons, and the practice of most communities, the man proposes and urges the union, before it takes place; the woman yields and consents. The man is impelled by a love which he proclaims to the object of it; and he asks

for a return in which he has the character of a conqueror. The woman is led to consent, not only by affection, but by the hope of a life filled with those family affections, and family enjoyments, for which, as her heart whispers to her, she was made. When these natural propensities operate under due moral restraint, they lead to the marriage union. But moral restraints may be disregarded in some cases; and in other cases may be so feeble, that the solicitation on one side overcomes the resistance on the other; and the woman is seduced to a bodily union without marriage. This is an act of sensuality; and thus, as we have already said, an offense against morality. And in consequence of the character and conditions of the two sexes, of which we have just spoken, after such an act, the woman continues to yield, but the man is no longer ready to bind himself to her by the marriage tie. She is betrayed, as well as seduced. In so far as the Seducer breaks the engagements which he has expressly or implicitly made, he violates the Duty of Good Faith, as well as the Duty of Chastity. But what we have here to observe is, that by the act of unchastity, he not only renounces the Duty of Moral Culture, so far as he himself is concerned; but that he is a Violator of the Duty of Benevolence, as the author of her moral degradation; perhaps of her utter moral ruin. For, as we have already said, the Vice of Sensuality, once admitted, has an especial, and almost irresistible tendency, to extend itself over the whole character. The woman who has yielded to blind affection, afterwards, when her affections are chilled, and her character hardened, by the disappointment and treachery she has experienced, and retaining the trace of sensual desire which unchastity produces, may, as we know she often does, become a Wanton; may give herself up to lasciviousness; may sink from one degree of impurity to another, till she end in a state of

utter moral ruin. There are said to be men who intentionally, and without remorse, practise the Seduction of women. It cannot but seem very strange, to a person of the ordinary kind of affections, that a human being should employ his skill and exertions in urging a woman, whom he pretends to love and admire, down this moral descent. Such conduct appears to involve a want of common humanity; for the moral degradation of the woman deprives her of almost all that is admirable and estimable, even in the eyes of her seducer himself; and would be mourned by him as the bitterest evil, and resented as the most grievous wrong, if it were inflicted upon any one for whom he has a family affection. To say nothing of the duty of purity, a man who is not restrained by his Humanity from such a course of action, must look upon the moral destruction of women with the kind of indifference with which the sportsman looks upon the death and wounds of beasts and birds which he pursues. It is difficult to conceive a more monstrous degree of inhumanity than is implied in such a view of human beings. The cruelty is greater than if the pursuer were, in wilful levity, to inflict bodily pain and wounds: for this moral damage is, and is commonly held to be, a greater calamity than any bodily suffering. The moral ruin of a woman makes her an object of abhorrence to those who are bound to her by ties of family love; and produces in her and in them extreme bitterness of heart, and a gloom approaching to the blackness of despair.

326. The tendency of sensual indulgence to inflame the desires, defile the imagination, and corrupt the heart, makes the Duty of Purity especially important in the season of youth. Habits of indulgence, begun in that season, can hardly fail to give their impress to the character, throughout life. The common belief that this is so, appears in the contempt and condemnation which the loss of virginity in

unmarried women, has in all ages and countries incurred. In its effects upon the moral culture of the character, unchastity is as destructive in men as in women. No young man who has any regard for his moral progress, will make his body the instrument of lust. And as connected with the government of his bodily desires, both in the way of cause and of consequence, he will guard the purity of his mind. He will avoid admitting into his own thoughts, or suggesting to others, lascivious images. He will avoid placing himself in circumstances of temptation or opportunity. He will watch the affections which may arise in his heart towards particular persons, in order to suppress them; well aware how vehement may become the combined urgency of unlawful affection, and sensual desire; and in what a career of vice they plunge those whom they overmaster.

327. The direction of the Affections and Desires, here referred to, towards their proper object, Marriage, is the best mode of avoiding the degradation of character which is produced by their improper operation. Virtuous love, as it has often been said, is the best preservative against impure acts and thoughts. The Love which looks forwards to the conjugal union, includes a reverence for the conjugal condition, and all its circumstances. Such a love produces in the mind a kind of moral illumination, which shows the lover how foul a thing mere lust is; and makes him see, as a self-evident truth, that affection is requisite to purify desire, and virtue necessary to purify affection.

Other Duties arising out of the conjugal union depend upon the Principle of Order, and must be considered in reference to that Principle.

VOL. I.

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