These are the arts which protract the existence of government.
Nor were the domestic institutions of Lacedaemon less hateful or less contemptible than her foreign policy.

A perpetual interference with every part of the system of human life, a constant struggle against nature and reason, characterised all her laws.

To violate even prejudices which have taken deep root in the minds of a people is scarcely expedient; to think of extirpating natural appetites and passions is frantic: the external symptoms may be occasionally repressed; but the feeling still exists, and, debarred from its natural objects, preys on the disordered mind and body of its victim.

Thus it is in convents---thus it is among ascetic sects--thus it was among the Lacedaemonians.

Hence arose that madness, or violence approaching to madness, which, in spite of every external restraint, often appeared among the most distinguished citizens of Sparta.