Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/205

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virtue, and concubinage a vice; that women are not likely to be better members of society, domestic, civil, and political, for being continent than prostitutes. He set up an immoral and impious model for the sex, and if all women were to follow the example of his heroine, universal profligacy and irreligion would ensue. As far, therefore, as the literary authority and power of these writings reach, they tend to increase debauchery and impiety. He has written a metaphysical work, of which the theoretical propositions are chimerical, absurd, and totally irreconcileable to human nature, as known to us by experience and induction, the only guides to just intellectual and moral speculation; and the practical doctrines, inculcated by precept and example, lead to the most unwise and immoral conduct, and to consequences that would unhinge all