If we should lay the loss we have sustained in the number of those who
have gone astray, in the balance against the benefit we have had by being
again put in breath, and by having our zeal and strength revived by
reason of this opposition, I know not whether the utility would not
surmount the damage.

We have thought to tie the nuptial knot of our marriages more fast and
firm by having taken away all means of dissolving it, but the knot of the
will and affection is so much the more slackened and made loose, by how
much that of constraint is drawn closer; and, on the contrary, that which
kept the marriages at Rome so long in honour and inviolate, was the
liberty every one who so desired had to break them; they kept their wives
the better, because they might part with them, if they would; and, in the
full liberty of divorce, five hundred years and more passed away before
any one made use on't.

"Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit."

["What you may, is displeasing; what is forbidden, whets the
appetite.--"Ovid, Amor., ii. 19.]

We might here introduce the opinion of an ancient upon this occasion,
"that executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices: that they do
not beget the care of doing well, that being the work of reason and
discipline, but only a care not to be taken in doing ill:"

"Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt."

["The plague-sore being lanced, the infection spreads all the more."
--Rutilius, Itinerar. 1, 397.]