Rules respectin.g. Sensible Pleasuree 30. " The only rule with respect to our diet," says Dr. Priestley, in his Institutes, " is to prefer those kinds, and that quan tity, of food, which most conduce to the health and vigour of our bodies. What ever in eating or drinking is inconsistent with, and obstructs this end, is wrong, and should carefully be avoided; and every man's own experience, assisted with a little information from others, will be sufficient to inform him what is nearly the best for himself in both these re. spects ; so that no person is likely to injure himself through mere mistake." 31. It is sufficiently obvious, that it is the benevolent affections which give the chief value and highest interest to the sensible pleasures arising from the in tercourse of the sexes ; and it also ap pears that these pleasures were designed by the great Author of our frame, to be one chief means of transferring our affec tion and concern from ourselves to others. lf, therefore, this great source of benevolence be corrupted or per verted, the social affections depending on it will also be perverted, and degene rate into selfishness or malevolence. These considerations of themselves point to marriage as the only justifiable mode of indulging the sexual passion.—Unre. strained promiscuous intercourse would produce the greatest evils, public and private: by being unrestrained, it would destroy the health, and prevent the propagation of the species; by being promiscuous, it would be ineffectual to promote the tender and benevolent cha rities, either between the individuals themselves, or towards their offspring, and would produce endless contentions among mankind. Now, though scarcely any known nation has allowed of such entire licentiousness, yet the evils arising from any great degree of it are so abun dantly obvious and important, that they have almost universally led to some such regulation of sexual intercourse as that of marriage, and prove its necessity for the well-being of society.—Further, (to use the words of Paley, excellent remarks on this subject we shall freely employ, as suits our purpose), the public use of marriage institutions, also, consists in their promoting the produc tion of the greatest number of healthy children, their better education, and the making of due provision for their settle ment in life ; and, in their promoting the private comfort of individuals, and par ticularly of the female sex. It may be true, all are not interested in this last rea son: nevertheless, it is a reason to all for abstaining from any conduct which tends, in it, general consequence, to obstruct marriage ; for whatever pro motes the happiness of the majority, is binding upon the whole.—These con siderations prove that the restraint of marriage-institutions is an essentially im portant obligation. It may be violated by vagrant concubinage, or by cohabitation limited to a single individual. The former will be the object of the next paragraph: the latter cannot be placed upon the same footing with it, in several respects ; but as it can answer the primary public ends of marriage in only a few cases, as it tends to annihilate the individual advantages which are naturally derived from it (both as to moral welfare and to comfort), and as it decidedly discountenances marriage, and consequently, in the present state of society, countenances fornication, it follows that it is immoral. " Laying aside the injunctions of the Scriptures," says Paley, " the plain account of the question seems to be this: it is immoral, because it is pernicious, that men and women should cohabit, without undertaking certain irrevocable obligations, and mutu ally conferring certain civil rights; if, therefore, the law has annexed these rights and obligations to certain forms, so that they cannot be secured or under taken by any other means, which is the case here (for whatever the parties may promise to each other, nothing but the marriage ceremony can make their por mise irrevocable), it becomes in the same degree immoral, that men and women should cohabit without the in terposition of these forms." 32. With respect to the crime of forni cation, it is to be observed. that promis cuous concabinage tends greatly to dis courage marriage, and therefore to de feat the several beneficial purposes spok en of in the last paragraph. The reader will learn to comprehend the magnitude of this mischief, by attending to the im portance and variety of the uses to which marriage is subservient ; and by recollect ing that the malignity and moral quality of each crime is not to be estimated by the particular effect of one offence, or of one person's offending, but by the general tendency and consequence of crimes of the same nature. if one in stance of licentious indulgence be innocent or allowable, why should not more ? and if allowable in one, why should not li centiousness become general ; and if it were so, what dreadful consequences would follow ? Every instance of licenti ous conduct has the direct and decided effect of leading to these dreadful conse quences (which none but a purely malevo lent being could contemplate without horror) ; and every instance is therefore criminal, altogether independent of its in.
dividual effects and tendencies. Again, fbr nication supposes prostitution, and pros titution brings and leaves the victims of it to almost certain misery. It is no small quantity of misery in the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and insult, is suffer ed by those outcasts of human society who infest populous cities : the whole of which is a general consequence of fornication, and to the increase and continuance of which every act and instance of fornica tion contributes. Further, fornication produces habits of ungovernable lewd ness, which introduce the more aggrava ted crimes of seduction, adultery, viola tion, &c. Of this passion it has been truly said, that irregularity has no limits ; that one excess draws on to another ; that the most easy, therefore, as well as the most excellent way of being virtuous, is to be so entirely. However it be ac counted for, the criminal intercourse of the sexes corrupts and depraves the mind and moral character more than any single species of vice whatsoever. That ready perception of guilt, that prompt and decisive,resolution against it, which constitutes a virtuous character, is sel dom found in persons addicted to these indulgences. They prepare an easy ad mission for every sin that seeks it ; are, in low life, usually the first stage in men's progress to the most desperate wicked ness ; and, in high life, to that lamented dissoluteness of principle which manifests itself in a profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of reli gion and moral probity. Add to this, that habits of libertinism incapacitate and in dispose the mind for all intellectual, mo ral, and religious pleasures ; which is a great loss to any man's happiness. Last ly, fornication perpetuates a disease, which may be accounted one of the sorest ma ladies of human nature ; and the effects of which are said to visit the constitution of even distant generations. The pas sion being natural, proves that it was in tended to be gratified ; but under what restrictions, or whether without any, must be collected from other considerations.— If fornication be criminal, all those incen tives which lead to it are accessaries to the crime, and as such are criminal (kale pendently of their injurious effects upon the mind, which however are very great) ; for instance, lascivious conversation, whe ther expressed in obscene, or disguised under modest, phrases ; also, wanton songs, pictures, and books; the writing, publishing, and circulating of which, whether out of frolic, or for some pitiful profit, is productive of so extensive a mis chief; from so mean a temptation, that few crimes within the reach of private wickedness, have more to answer for, or less to plead in their own excuse.
33. Though the sexual desires are ve ry strong, yet there is abundant reason to believe that they are not originally much disproportionate to their end ; and that if due care were taken, they would not arise in youth much before the proper time for this end. But the violence and unseasonableness of these passions are so manifest in the generality of young per sons, that one cannot but conclude the general education of yOuth to be grossly erroneous and perverted : and this will appear very evident, in fact, upon exami nation. The diet of children and young persons is not sufficiently plain and spar ing; a proper regulation of which would lay a better foundation for health, and freedom from diseases, and put some cheek upon these passions. They are brought up in effeminacy, and neglect of bodily exertion, which would materially assist to prepare both body and mind for the discipline of life, and would restrain the sexual passion. The due culture of the mind, especially in respect of religion, is very generally neglected ; so that the young are usually left without employ ment for their thoughts, and destitute of the chief armour, that of religious mo tives, whereby to oppose temptation.— Lastly, the conversation which they hear, and the books which they are allowed to read, are so corrupt, in this respect, that it is a matter of astonishment how a parent, who has any serious concern for his child, can avoid seeing the immediate destructive consequences, or think that any considerations relating to this world can be a balance to them.