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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: stringent laws against these crimes continued to the days of
Justinian, which shows that the crimes had not been checked; and,
as Gibbon says (``Decline and Fall,'' ch. 44), the Scatinian law
against ``venus nefanda'' had fallen into abeyance through lapse
of time and the multitude of offenders. Yet we see in our own
days, as in France, that there are some who would oppose celibacy
with no other remedy than a law passed for the purpose.
Since medival times the increasing gentleness of manners
has caused a diminution of crimes of blood, once so numerous that
there was need of sundry ``truces'' and ``peaces,''
notwithstanding the harsh penalties of previous centuries. And Du
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