This faultlessness is more peculiar
than we are apt to imagine. Some stain pollutes the morals or the
morality of almost every other teacher, and of every other lawgiver.*
Zeno the stoic, and Diogenes the cynic, fell into the foulest
impurities; of which also Socrates himself was more than suspected.
Solon forbade unnatural crimes to slaves. Lycurgus tolerated theft as a
part of education. Plato recommended a community of women. Aristotle
maintained the general right of making war upon barbarians. The elder
Cato was remarkable for the ill usage of his slaves; the younger gave up
the person of his wife. One loose principle is found in almost all the
Pagan moralists; is distinctly, however, perceived in the writings of
Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus; and that is, the allowing,
and even the recommending to their disciples, a compliance with the
religion, and with the religious rites, of every country into which they
came. In speaking of the founders of new institutions we cannot forget
Mahomet. His licentious transgressions of his own licentious rules; his
abuse of the character which he assumed, and of the power which he had
acquired, for the purposes of personal and privileged indulgence; his
avowed claim of a special permission from heaven of unlimited
sensuality, is known to every reader, as it is confessed by every writer
of the Moslem story.
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