I believe the instances are exceedingly rare of men immediately passing
over a clear, marked line of virtue into declared vice and corruption.
There are a sort of middle tints and shades between the two extremes;
there is something uncertain on the confines of the two empires
which they first pass through, and which renders the change easy and
imperceptible. There are even a sort of splendid impositions so well
contrived, that, at the very time the path of rectitude is quitted
for ever, men seem to be advancing into some higher and nobler road
of public conduct. Not that such impositions are strong enough in
themselves; but a powerful interest, often concealed from those whom it
affects, works at the bottom, and secures the operation. Men are thus
debauched away from those legitimate connexions, which they had formed
on a judgment, early perhaps but sufficiently mature, and wholly
unbiassed.