It is upon this principle that Venette, in whose work there may be seen a good chapter on the dangers of pushing the pleasures of love to an excess, establishes it as a maxim, that an union with a beautiful woman is less apt to exhaust the strength, than with a homely one.
“Beauty (says he) has charms which dilate the heart, and multiply the vital spirits, that proceed from it. We may very well believe, with St. Chrysostom, that to excite one’s self repugnantly to the laws of nature, is, in that respect, a much greater crime than the other.”
And, in fact, can there be a doubt of Nature’s not having annexed more joy to the pleasures procured by the means which are in her appointed course, than by any which are out of it?
An eighth and last cause which augments the dangers of self-pollution, is the regrets, the horrors, which cannot fail of being the consequence of it, when once one’s eyes come to be opened on the crime and its dangers.
Miseri quorum gaudia crimen habent!
Wretched are those joys which are obnoxious to remorse!
And, surely, if there are any human beings in this case, the self-pollutors must be among them.
When the veil is drawn, the representation of their conduct appears to them in all its most hideous colors and aspects. They find themselves guilty of a crime, of which divine justice would not postpone the punishment, but punished it immediately with death; a crime reputed a very great one even by the heathens themselves.
Hoc nihil esse putas! scelus est; mihi crede, sed ingens