Providence, besides, has furnished us means to enhance the pleasures of the senses by mingling with them the pleasures of the mind or heart. "Banquets," says Kant, "have, besides the physical pleasure they procure us, something that tends to a moral end, namely, to bring together a certain number of people, and to maintain among them an extended interchange of kindly feelings." And this austere moralist does not hesitate to lay down certain rules which should preside over refined festivities. We shall be pardoned if we reproduce here some of his witty remarks on that subject. "The good cheer," he says, "which best accords with humanity, is a good repast in good company; a company which Chesterfield says should not fall below the number of the Graces, nor exceed that of the Muses.... On the contrary, large assemblages and festivities are altogether in bad taste.... To eat alone is unwholesome for a philosophic scholar: it is no restoration, it is rather exhaustion; it is a labor, and not a play revivifying thought. The man who eats alone loses gradually his cheerfulness; he recovers it, on the contrary, when the intermittent jests of a guest give him a new subject of animation which, alone, he would not have been able to discover." Kant further requires, "that the repast should end with laughter, which, if it is loud and hearty, is a sort of compliment to nature." Then, after having given rules for table-talk, he concludes by saying: "However insignificant these laws of polite society may appear, especially when compared to morality properly so called, they are, nevertheless, a garment which becomes virtue, and which may be recommended in all seriousness. In fact, thanks to these laws, sensual pleasures are ennobled and increased by mixing with them intellectual pleasures. It is the same with those other pleasures related to the purest and noblest sentiments of the heart, and which, thanks to this alliance, may be reconciled with perfect chastity. =141. The exterior bearing.--Propriety.--Decorum.=--Temperance should not be confined to the inner man; it should manifest itself outwardly through acts, words, through proper bearing and attitudes: this is what is called _decency_; the principal part of which is _modesty_. "We must not," says Cicero, "mind the cynics and certain stoics who turn us into ridicule and reproach us for being ashamed to speak of things that have nothing shameful in themselves. As for us, let us follow nature, and abstain from all that might wound the eyes or ears. Let our bearing, gait, our looks, gestures, be always true to decency.... There are two things to be avoided: soft and effeminate airs, and a boorish and uncouth appearance."[96] The ancients justly attached great importance to the outward appearance and countenance; they regarded it as the sign of the freeman.