He would have none to make, if you had accustomed him to conquer himself, to respect every woman as though she were his mother, every young girl as though she were his sister; to treat others as he would think it right to be treated by them; if you had fully inculcated on him that there is but one system of morality, which both sexes are equally bound to obey; if you had caused him to honor, love and practice labor; if you had told him that we live to improve ourselves, to practise justice and kindness, and to render back to humanity what it does for us in protecting us, enlightening us, rendering us moral, surrounding us with security and comfort; that in fine our glory lies in subjecting ourselves to the great law of Duty. If you had reared him in this manner, madam, on surprising in your son the first signs of the ardent attraction that man feels toward the other sex, far from abandoning the education of this instinct to the chances of inexperience, you would do for it what you did for the others; you would teach the young man to subject it to a wise discipline. Instead of repeating the stupidly atrocious phrase; _young men must sow their wild oats_, you would have taken your son's hand affectionately in your own, and, looking in his face, would have said: "My child, Nature decrees that a woman should henceforth attract you more strongly than I, and should maintain or destroy what I have so laboriously built up: I do not murmur at this; it must be so. But my affection and duty require me to enlighten you in this grave juncture. Tell me, if a young man, to satisfy the instinct which is now awakening in you, should corrupt your sister, should sacrifice her life, what would you think of him? what would you do?" The young man, accustomed from childhood to practise Justice, would not fail to reply: "I should think him depraved and cowardly. Would he not be punished?" "No, my son, the seducer is not punished by the law." "Well! I would kill him, for my right of justice reverts to me when the law makes no provision." "Right, my child. Then you will be neither depraved nor cowardly with respect to any young girl; you will not deserve the sentence which you have pronounced; namely, death. You will respect all young girls and women as you would wish your sister, your daughter to be respected. "Another question: what would you think of a man who should persuade me to betray your father; who should rob him of my heart and cares; who should draw me aside from the grave duties of maternity? What would you think of the man who should act thus with respect to your own companion?" "I would judge him like the former and would treat him no better." "Right again. Then you will respect all married women as you would wish your mother and your wife to be respected; and if you should meet any one towards whom you should feel attracted, or who should be disloyal enough to seek to attract you, you will shun her: for flight is the sole remedy for passion.