sovereign? Will you have me renounce my happiness?

The _voluptuary_ argues,--You pretend that I should resist my desires;
but was I the maker of my own temperament, which unceasingly invites me
to pleasure? You call my pleasures disgraceful; but in the country in
which I live, do I not witness the most dissipated men enjoying the most
distinguished rank? Do I not behold, that no one is ashamed of adultery
but the husband it has outraged? do not I see men making trophies of
their debaucheries, boasting of their libertinism, rewarded, with
applause?

The _choleric_ man vociferates,--You advise me to put a curb on my
passions; to resist the desire of avenging myself: but can I conquer my
nature? Can I alter the received opinions of the world? Shall I not be
for ever disgraced, infallibly dishonoured in society, if I do not wash
out, in the blood of my fellow-creature, the injuries I have received?

The _zealous enthusiast_ exclaims,--You recommend to me mildness, you
advise me to be tolerant, to be indulgent to the opinions of my fellow-
men; but is not my temperament violent? Do I not ardently love my God?
Do they not assure me that zeal is pleasing to him; that sanguinary
inhuman persecutors have been his friends? That those who do not think
as I do are his enemies? I wish to render myself acceptable in his
sight, I therefore adopt the means you reprobate.

In short, the actions of man are never free; they are always the
necessary consequence of his temperament, of the received ideas, of the
notions, either true or false, which he has formed to himself of
happiness: of his opinions, strengthened by example, forfeited by
education, consolidated by daily experience. So many crimes are