to live honest, too tyrannical a burden to compel them to be chaste, and most unfit to suffer poor men, younger brothers and soldiers at all to marry, as also diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants.  Therefore as well to keep and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at these kind of brothel-houses and stews.  Many probable arguments they have to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them, as of usery; and without question in policy they are not to be contradicted, but altogether in religion."[199]

It was not until the beginning of the following century that the ancient argument of St. Augustine for the moral justification of prostitution was boldly and decisively stated in Protestant England, by Bernard Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees, and at its first promulgation it seemed so offensive to the public mind that the book was suppressed.  “If courtesans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would have it,” Mandeville wrote, “what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters?...  It is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature.  From whence I think I may justly conclude that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices."[200] After Mandeville’s time this view of prostitution began to become common in Protestant as well as in other countries, though it was not usually so clearly expressed.

    It may be of interest to gather together a few more modern
    examples of statements brought forward for the moral
    justification of prostitution.

Thus in France Meusnier de Querlon, in his story of Psaphion, written in the middle of the eighteenth century, puts into the mouth of a Greek courtesan many interesting reflections concerning the life and position of the prostitute.  She defends her profession with much skill, and argues that while men imagine that prostitutes are merely the despised victims of their pleasures, these would-be tyrants are really dupes who are ministering to the needs of the women they trample beneath their feet, and themselves equally deserve the contempt they bestow.  “We return disgust for disgust, as they must surely perceive.  We often abandon to them merely a statue, and while inflamed by their own desires they consume themselves on insensible charms, our tranquil coldness leisurely enjoys their sensibility.  Then it is we resume all our rights.  A little hot blood has brought these proud creatures to our feet, and rendered us mistresses of their fate.  On which side, I ask, is the advantage?” But all men, she adds, are not so unjust towards the prostitute, and she proceeds to pronounce a eulogy, not without a slight touch of irony in it, of the utility, facility, and convenience of the brothel.