I could point out some, whom this incapacity of fixing themselves to any thing, combined with the diminution of their faculties, disables from ever being of any use or value in society. Melancholic condition! which sinks the man beneath the brute, and, very justly renders an object rather of contempt than of pity to his fellow-creatures!
From these two causes there necessarily results a third; and that is the frequency itself of the act. As soon as the habit has gained a little strength, both body and soul concur in sollicitation to this crime. The soul, immersed in obscene ideas, is almost constantly exciting to lascivious acts, and if ever she is, for some moments, interrupted by other thoughts, the acrid humors, which irritate the organs of generation, soon recall her attention, and drag her back again to her mire.
How fit would these truths, collected from observation, be to check youth, if they could but foresee that in this case one false step would bring on another; that they will become slaves to the temptation; that in proportion as the motives of their seduction increase, that reason of theirs, which ought to restrain them, will grow weaker and weaker; and that they will, in a little time, find themselves cast away in a sea of misery, without, perhaps, the aid of any the least plank, to bring them to the shore again.
If sometimes their beginning infirmities give them strong and salutary advice, if the danger terrifies them for some moments, their rage of debauchery replunges them again, so that it may well be said of them,
Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.
Pers.
In the mean while the danger is actual, the destruction so imminent, that short indeed is the time of opportunity for amendment.
——cinis et manes et fabula fies:
Vive memor lethi: fugit hora: hoc quod loquor inde est.
Pers.