redounding to his honour, he hath the fairest and most promising
appearance I have ever yet beheld. A good face, they say, is a letter
of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest as ever
to send men with these false recommendations into the world?"

"Indeed, my dear sir, I begin to grow entirely sick of it," cries
Amelia, "for sure all mankind almost are villains in their hearts."

"Fie, child!" cries the doctor. "Do not make a conclusion so much to
the dishonour of the great Creator. The nature of man is far from
being in itself evil: it abounds with benevolence, charity, and pity,
coveting praise and honour, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad
education, bad habits, and bad customs, debauch our nature, and drive
it headlong as it were into vice. The governors of the world, and I am
afraid the priesthood, are answerable for the badness of it. Instead
of discouraging wickedness to the utmost of their power, both are too
apt to connive at it. In the great sin of adultery, for instance; hath
the government provided any law to punish it? or doth the priest take
any care to correct it? on the contrary, is the most notorious
practice of it any detriment to a man's fortune or to his reputation
in the world? doth it exclude him from any preferment in the state, I
had almost said in the church? is it any blot in his escutcheon? any
bar to his honour? is he not to be found every day in the assemblies
of women of the highest quality? in the closets of the greatest men,
and even at the tables of bishops? What wonder then if the community
in general treat this monstrous crime as a matter of jest, and that
men give way to the temptations of a violent appetite, when the
indulgence of it is protected by law and countenanced by custom? I am
convinced there are good stamina in the nature of this very man; for
he hath done acts of friendship and generosity to your husband before