Those, then, who would make love and lust synonymous, confound the effect with the cause of it: yet such is the force of education, and a habit of thinking, as we are taught, that sometimes persons of either sex are actually in love without feeling any carnal desires, or penetrating into the intentions of nature, the end proposed by her, without which they could never have been affected with that sort of passion. That there are such is certain, but many more whose pretences to those refined notions are only upheld by art and dissimulation. Those, who are really such Platonic lovers, are commonly the pale-faced weakly people, of cold and phlegmatic constitutions in either sex; the hale and robust, of bilious temperament, and a sanguine complexion, never entertain any love so spiritual as to exclude all thoughts and wishes that relate to the body; but if the most seraphic lovers would know the original of their inclination, let them but suppose that another should have the corporal enjoyment of the person beloved, and by the tortures they will suffer from that reflection they will soon discover the nature of their passions: whereas, on the contrary, parents and friends receive a satisfaction in reflecting on the joys and comforts of a happy marriage, to be tasted by those they wish well to. The curious, that are skilled in anatomizing the invisible part of man, will observe that the more sublime and exempt this love is from all thoughts of sensuality, the more spurious it is, and the more it degenerates from its honest original and primitive simplicity. The power and sagacity as well as labour and care of the politician in civilizing the society, has been no where more conspicuous, than in the happy contrivance of playing our passions against one another. By flattering our pride, and still increasing the good opinion we have of ourselves on the one hand, and inspiring us on the other with a superlative dread and mortal aversion against shame, the artful moralists have taught us cheerfully to encounter ourselves, and if not subdue, at least, so to conceal and disguise our darling passion, lust, that we scarce know it when we meet with it in our breasts: Oh! the mighty prize we have in view for all our self-denial! can any man be so serious as to abstain from laughter, when he considers, that for so much deceit and insincerity practiced upon ourselves as well as others, we have no other recompense than the vain satisfaction of making our species appear more exalted and remote from that of other animals, than it really is; and we, in our consciences, know it to be? yet this is fact, and in it we plainly perceive the reason why it was necessary to render odious every word or action by which we might discover the innate desire we feel to perpetuate our kind; and why tamely to submit to the violence of a furious appetite (which is painful to resist) and innocently to obey the most pressing