Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/81

 who live in the same Family have so many Opportunities of Licences of this Kind, that nothing could preserve Purity of Manners, were Marriage allow'd amongst the nearest Relations, or any Intercourse of Love betwixt them ratify'd by Law and Custom. INCEST, therefore, being pernicious in a superior Degree, has also a superior Turpitude and moral Deformity, annex'd to it.

is the Reason, why, by the Greek Laws, one might marry a Half-sister by the Father, but not by the Mother? Plainly this. The Manners of the Greeks were so reserv'd, that a Man was never per-