Look into yourself, therefore, and consider whether it be permitted you to make a deliberate attempt on the life of a man, and expose yours to satisfy a barbarous and fatal notion, which has no foundation in reason or nature. Consider whether the sad reflection of the blood spilt on such occasions can cease to cry out for vengeance on him who has spilt it. Do you know any crime equal to wilful murder? If humanity also be the basis of every virtue, what must be thought of the man, whose blood-thirsty and depraved disposition prompts him to seek the life of his fellow-creature? Do you remember what you have yourself said to me, against entering into foreign service? Have you forgot that a good citizen owes his life to his country, and has not a right to dispose of it, without the permission of its laws, and much less in direct opposition to them? O my friend, if you have a sincere regard for virtue, learn to pursue it in its own way, and not in the ways of the world. I will own some slight inconvenience may arise from it; but is the word virtue no more to you than an empty sound? and will you practise it only when it costs you no trouble? I will ask, however, in what will such inconvenience consist? In the whispers of a set of idle or wicked people, who seek only to amuse themselves with the misfortunes of others, and to have always some new tale to propagate. A pretty motive, truly, to engage men to cut each other’s throats! If the philosopher and man of sense regulate their behaviour, on the most important occasions of life, by the idle talk of the multitude, to what purpose is all their parade of study, if they are at last no better than the vulgar? Dare you not sacrifice your resentment to duty, to esteem, to friendship, for fear it should be said you are afraid of death? Weigh well these circumstances, my good friend, and I am convinced you will find more cowardice in the fear of that reproach than in the fear of death. The braggard, the coward, would, at all hazards, pass for brave men. _Ma verace valor, ben che negletto, E’ di se stesso a fe freggio assai chiaro._ He, who affects to meet death without fear, is a liar. All men fear to die; it is a law with all sensible Beings, without which every species of mortals would soon be destroyed. This fear is the simple emotion of nature, and that not in itself indifferent, but just and conformable to the order of things. All that renders it shameful, or blameable, is, that it may sometimes prevent us from well doing, and the proper discharge of our duty. If cowardice were to no obstacle to virtue, it would never be vicious. Whoever is more attached to life than his duty, I own, cannot be truly virtuous; but can you, who pique yourself on your judgment, explain to me what sort of merit there is in braving death in order to be guilty of a crime?