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Book IV: Chapter VIII 245It follows from this that the censorship may be useful to preserve morality,never to restore it. Institute censors while the laws are vigorous; so soonas they have lost their power all is over. Nothing that is lawful has any forcewhen the laws cease to have any.The censorship supports morality by preventing opinions from beingcorrupted, by preserving their integrity through wise applications, sometimeseven by defining them when they are still uncertain. The use ofseconds in duels, carried to a mad extreme in the kingdom of France, wasabolished by these simple words in an edict of the king: ‘‘As for those whohave the cowardice to appoint seconds.’’ This judgment, anticipating that ofthe public, immediately decided it. But when the same edicts wanted todeclare that it was also cowardice to fight a duel, which is very true, butcontrary to common opinion, the public ridiculed this decision, on which itsjudgment was already formed.I have said elsewhere* that as public opinion is not subject to constraint,there should be no vestige of this in the tribunal established to represent it.We cannot admire too much the art with which this force, wholly lostamong the moderns, was set in operation among the Romans and still betteramong the Lacedæmonians.A man of bad character having brought forward a good measure in theCouncil of Sparta, the ephors, without paying attention to him, caused thesame measure to be proposed by a virtuous citizen. What an honor for the one,what shame for the other, without praise or blame being given to either! Certaindrunkards from Samos † defiled the tribunal of the ephors; on the morrow apublic edict granted permission to the Samians to be filthy. A real punishmentwould have been less severe than such impunity. When Sparta pronouncedwhat was or was not honorable, Greece did not appeal those decisions.Chapter VIIIcivil religionMen had at first no kings except the gods and no government but a theocracy.They reasoned like Caligula, and at that time they reasoned rightly.A long period is needed to change men’s feelings and ideas in order that* I merely indicate in this chapter what I have treated at greater length in the Letter toM. d’Alembert.†They were from another island, which the delicacy of our language forbids us toname on this occasion.