The sad eloquence of facts too often shews us the possessors of income, fortune and wealth corrupting those suffering from destitution and hunger. We must in a measure base the regeneration of France upon material independence, the source of woman’s dignity; and, consequently, we call for a widely extended system of professional instruction, of liberty of action which may, if possible, introduce into the laws of wages the equality which obtains in those of real estate. With reference to the impunity and protection of the immoral man, they are condemned by sound reason bearing testimony that every society disloyal to the laws that maintain its vitality, must perish by continually-increasing degeneracy. The purpose of human existence is moral perfection, not happiness, much less those vulgar, coarse, and fatal pleasures which, by lowering man to the level of the brute, destroy the institution of marriage, together with the domestic virtues and the rights of the weak. Let us then reject the sophisms of erring and depraved intellects, which represent that paths must be opened to profligacy if we would have the sanctuary of the family institution respected. In the slough of the Roman empire, the rights and necessities of _passions not to be resisted_ were already being talked of, when Christianity replied by raising man and woman to the same moral perfection. Let us further remind our self-satisfied people of the prosperity of the family principle among nations which put down prostitution, and of its decline among those who permitted it: perhaps they will, at length, understand the value of the argument from facts. Be it, in the first place, remarked that the irresponsibility of the father of children born out of wedlock, which gives him every advantage in going after prostitutes, is the most fruitful cause of profligacy. I would, then, make other repressive measures subordinate to the effort to make the father responsible. After placing this corner-stone of social law in such a position as to act with rigour against prostitution, we shall scarcely need to inquire if that evil can be restrained. Human dignity and civil equality are opposed to penal measures against the common prostitute as such. This is the point from which to start on the effort to discover a just measure for checking prostitution. Ancient France was ignorant alike of registration and the frightful “surveillance” it necessitates. We know that modern nations governed by the laws of true honour have maintained justice enough to be horrified at this utter destruction of the human soul for the benefit of debauchery. The nations that are seized with the desire of emulating our system for the regulation of morals have, on the contrary, fallen to an unspeakable degree of degradation.[51]