But while the persons we speak of have endeavoured to prevent dangers of one kind, they have incurred others which are still worse. By most of the antient Monastic Rules, religious persons were forbidden to inspect any part of their naked bodies, for fear of the wicked thoughts to which such indulgence might give rise: now, how is it possible for persons who strip intirely naked, in order to take discipline, to help, however great their piety may be, having a sight of those parts of themselves which they have been directed never to look on? How can Nuns avoid, in those instants, having at least a glance of those excellent beauties[121] which they are forbidden to survey, and which they thus imprudently expose to the light of the Sun? By substituting one kind of discipline to the other, religious persons have, I am afraid, only laid themselves open, as hath been above observed, to dangers of a still worse nature than those they meant to avoid, and have perhaps only fallen from Charybdis into Scylla[122]. Neither, if such disciplines cannot be performed in secret without danger, is it very prudent to execute them in the presence of witnesses. Tertullian observes, that ‘Nature has made either fear or shame, the attendants of every evil action.’ Now, if we judge from this rule, we shall become convinced of the truth of the observations we are making here. In fact, what Man or Woman could, without fear or shame, execute a lower discipline in company with other persons? who could without reluctance firk their loins and posteriors with rods, on an exalted place, and in the middle of a numerous Assembly of People? who could thus undauntedly expose their nakedness to the rays of the Sun, and to the eyes of a multitude of Spectators[123]? [Illustration: (end of chapter mark)] FINIS. FOOTNOTES: [118] In order to support his opinion concerning the dangers of disciplines, the Abbé Boileau has quoted Bartholinus’s treatise _De medico flagrorum usu_, and that wrote by John-Henry Meibomius, a Professor at Lubeck, _De usu flagrorum in re venereâ_. The singularity of these titles led me to look into both publications, in order to be able to give my opinion about them, and also in hope I might pick a few facts and quotations to entertain the Reader with: but I have been disappointed; both Treatises being as dull unconnected farragos as ever were printed. From Meibomius’s Treatise, and also from Cœlius Rhodiginus’s Book, the Abbé had however borrowed two stories, which I at first intended to insert in this Chapter; but as I have found them, upon more attentive examination, to be related in no pleasing nor even probable manner, besides being very long, I have set them aside, contrary to the design of this Work, as I have explained it in the _Introduction_, which was to make use of and introduce, in the Text, all the facts and quotations scattered in the Abbé’s Book: I therefore make my apology to the Reader, for the omission.