"Were he to act otherwise, he must forfeit all pretensions either to honesty or skill." "Let us then apply all this to the mind, instead of the body, and suppose for an instant, that some legislator, either human or divine, who comprehended all the secret springs that govern the mind, was preparing a universal code for all mankind; must he not imitate the physician, and deliver general truths, however unpalatable, however repugnant to particular prejudices, since upon the observance of these truths alone the happiness of the species must depend?" "I think so, indeed." "Should such a person observe, that an immoderate desire and accumulation of riches, a love of ostentatious trifles, unnecessary splendour in all that relates to human life, and an habitual indulgence of sensuality, tended not only to produce evil in all around, but even in the individual himself, who suffered the tyranny of these vices; how would you have the legislator act? Should he be silent?" "No, certainly; he should arraign these pernicious habitudes by every means within his power--by precept, by example." "Should he also observe, that riches employed in another manner, in removing the real miseries of humanity, in cherishing, comforting, and supporting all around, produced a contrary effect, and tended equally to make the obliged and the obliger happy; should he conceal this great eternal truth, or should he divulge it with all the authority he possessed, conscious, that in whatever degree it became the rule of human life, in the same degree would it tend to the advantage of all the world?" "There cannot be a doubt upon the subject." "But, should he know, either by the spirit of prophecy, or by intuitive penetration, that the majority of mankind would never observe these rules to any great degree, but would be blindly precipitated by their passions into every excess against which he so benevolently cautioned them; should this be a reason for his withdrawing his precepts and admonitions, or for seeming to approve what was in its own nature most pernicious?