Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/53

 done: The younger Part echo'd back their Song; declaring their Resolution, not to disgrace the Valour of their Forefathers. "

The Principle of natural Conscience was so intimately interwoven with those of their Religion and Honour, that it affords a striking Proof how far natural Conscience depends on these other Principles. If natural Conscience were in itself a well-regulated and sufficient Guide; could any Thing have been more odious to its Dictates, than Prostitution, Adultery, Thieving, and Assassination? Yet all these did the severe Spartans practise, not only without Remorse, but with Self-Approbation; the infant Mind being before-hand modeled to this preposterous System of imagined Duty. For, on the very ruling Principles of the State, their Daughters were debauched, their Wives were common, their Victuals were stolen, their Slaves were murdered.