Eroticism is no more a vice than sexual anæsthesia is a virtue. Even when they are chaste, men of libidinous nature require a strong will to resist all the artificial seductions which excite their sensuality. This is why the bog of debauchery engulfs so many men of a naturally good nature. In this sense, cold natures are better off; they can cover themselves with the glory of a "virtue" the resplendent rays of which become lost in a penumbra of defects and weaknesses from which these natures suffer in other domains. =Sexual Hypocrisy.=--Hypocrisy is a peculiarity deeply rooted in the human mind. We can affirm that whoever pretends never to have been a hypocrite lies, quite as much as one who swears he has never lied. But nowhere, save perhaps in the domain of religion, does hypocrisy play a greater part than in the sexual domain. Nowhere is there so much falsehood, and men who are most honest on other points make no scruple of deceiving their wives in this respect. I do not speak here of the simulation of sentiments of love, for it is too banal, and there is no need to be too exacting over this point, for there are strong attenuating circumstances. First of all, erotic feelings are capable of blinding man for the moment, as far as persuading him of the eternal duration of love and fidelity which he promises the object of his appetites, as well as of the reality of the celestial qualities under which this object appears to him, or with which it pleases him to adorn it. Two persons mutually excited by sexual passion are fascinated by the illusions of a mirage, which often vanishes soon afterward, so that it is not rare to see them on the following day hurling the most violent abuse at each other.