Those who live in the same Family have so many Opportunities of Licences of this Kind, that nothing could preserve Purity of Manners, were Marriage allow'd amongst the nearest Relations, or any Intercourse of Love betwixt them ratify'd by Law and Custom. INCEST, therefore, being pernicious in a superior Degree, has also a superior Turpitude and moral Deformity, annex'd to it.
What is the Reason, why, by the Greek Laws, one might marry a Half-sister by the Father, but not by the Mother? Plainly this. The Manners of the Greeks were so reserv'd, that a Man was never per-
General Rules are often extended beyond the Principle, whence they first arise; and this in all Matters of Taste and Sentiment. 'Tis a vulgar Story at Paris, that during the Rage of the Mississippi, a hump-back'd Fellow went every Day into the Ruë de Quincempoix, where the Stock-jobbers met in great Crowds, and was well pay'd for allowing them to make use of his Hump as a Desk, in order to sign their Contracts upon it. Would the Fortune he rais'd by this Invention make him a handsome Fellow; tho' it be confest, that personal Beauty arises very much from Ideas of Utility? The Imagination is influenced by Associations of Ideas; which, tho' they arise, at first, from the Judgment, are not easily alter'd by every particular Exception, that occurs to us. To which we may add, in the present Case of Chastity, that the Example of the Old would be pernicious to the Young; and that Women continually thinking, that a certain Time would bring them the Liberty of Indulgence, would naturally advance that Period, and think more lightly of this whole Duty, so requisite to Society.
mitted
