PHILOSOPHY, MORAL. 
in this last reason: nevertheless, it is a rea- 
son to all for abstaining from any conduct 
which tends, in its general consequence, to 
obstruct marriage ; for whatever promotes 
the happiness of the majority, is binding 
upon the whole. — These considerations 
prove that the restraint of marriage-insti- 
tutions is an essentially important obligation. 
It may be violated by vagrant concubinage, 
or by cohabitation limited to a single indivi- 
dual. The former will be the object of the 
next paragraph : the latter cannot be placed 
upon the same footing with it, in several re- 
spects ; but as it can answer the primary 
public ends of marriage in only a few cases, 
as it tends to annihilate the individual ad- 
vantages which are naturally derived from 
it (both as to moral welfare and to com- 
fort), 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 irre- 
vocable obligations, and mutually conferring 
certain civil rights; if, therefore, the law 
has annexed these rights and obligations to 
certain forms, so that they cannot be se- 
cured or undertaken 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 
promise irrevocable), it becomes in the 
same degree immoral, that men and women 
should cohabit without the interposition of 
these forms;” 
32. With respect to the crime of forni- 
cation, it is to be observed, that promiscu- 
ous concubinage tends greatly to discourage 
marriage, and therefore to defeat the seve- 
ral beneficial purposes spoken of in the last 
paragraph. The reader will learn to com- 
prehend the magnitude of this mischief, by 
attending to the importance and variety of 
the uses to which marriage is subservient ; 
and by recollecting 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 instance 
of licentious indulgence be innocent or 
allowable, why should not more? and if 
allowable in one, why should not licentious- 
ness become general? and if it were so, 
what dreadful consequences w'ould follow? 
Every instance of licentious conduct ha* 
the direct and decided effect of leading to 
these dreadful consequences (which none 
but a purely malevolent being could con- 
template without horror); and every in- 
stance is therefore criminal, altogether in- 
dependent of its individual effects and ten- 
dencies. — ^Again, fornication supposes pros- 
titution ; and prostitution 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 suffered 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 con- 
tinuance of which every act and instance 
of fornication contributes. — Further, forni- 
cation produces habits of ungovernable 
lewdness, which introduce the more aggra- 
vated 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 accounted for, 
the criminal intercourse of the sexes cor- 
rupts and depraves the mind and moral cha- 
racter 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 
seldom found in persons addicted to these 
indulgences. They prepare an easy admis- 
sion for every sin that seeks it ; are, in low 
life, usually the first stage in men’s progress 
to the most desperate wickedness; and in 
high life, to that lamented dissoluteness of 
principle which manifests itself in a profli- 
gacy of public conduct, and a contempt of 
the obligations of religion and moral pro- 
bity. Add to this, that habits of libertinism 
incapacitate and indispose the mind for all 
intellectual, moral, and religious pleasures; 
which is a great lo.ss to any man’s happiness, 
— Lastly, fornication perpetuates a disease, 
which may be accounted one of the sorest 
maladies of human nature ; and the effects 
of which are said to visit the constitution of 
even distant generations. — The passion be- 
ing natural, proves that it was intended to 
be gratified; but under what restrictions, 
or whether without any, must be collected 
from other considerations. — If fornication 
be criminal, all those incentives which lead 
to it are acce.ssaries to the crime, and as 
such are criminal (independently of their 
injurious effects upon the mind, which how- 
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