ESSAYS IN MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY

At the request of friends I have willingly consented to the republication of my writings of past years in a uniform edition.

Truth never grows old, though re-adaptation to different phases of life may be necessary. I shall rejoice if anything I have written in the past may prove helpful to the younger generation of workers, with whom I am in hearty sympathy.

ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, M.D.

Hastings ,
May, 1902 .

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INTRODUCTION

This work is written from the standpoint of the Christian physiologist.

The essence of all religions is the recognition of an Authority higher, more comprehensive, more permanent than the human being. The characteristic of Christian teaching is the faith that this Supreme Authority is beneficent as well as powerful. The Christian believes that the Creative Force is a moral force, of more comprehensive morality than the human being that it creates. Under the symbol of a wise and loving parent—the most just, efficient, and attractive image that we know of—we are encouraged to regard this unseen Authority as being in direct relation with every atom of creation, and as desirous of drawing each atom into progressively higher forms of existence.

The Christian physiologist, therefore, knowing that there is a wise and beneficent purpose in the human structure, seeks to find out the laws and methods of action by means of which human function may accomplish its highest use.

The task can only be carried out gradually. Ultimate [Pg 4] function is not revealed by structure, nor ultimate use by function.

The empty arteries did not suggest the circulation of the blood to ancient physiologists, nor did the curious arrangements of the intestinal canal explain the complicated function of digestion. Ignorance of facts, preconceived notions, or fanciful theories as to ‘vital spirits,’ ‘cold and hot humours,’ etc., long delayed the attainment of correct knowledge of physiological facts.

Neither does physical knowledge of individual function reveal the developed use of which it is capable. The new life that may be given through touch to the blind, or the destruction of a nation through its vices, is not revealed by the minutest examination of the mechanism of touch, or the physical structure of the nervous system. Function and use are only proved by observation, reflection, and rational experiment patiently carried on age after age, with generalization based upon accurate and accumulated facts.

Structure, function, and extended use, although closely connected, are, nevertheless, separate branches of inquiry. Applied physiology comprehends them all. Function is the arrangement by means of which the independent life of the sentient being is carried on and maintained. Developed function or use includes the growth and improvement of the individual in relation to his fellows, and to existence outside his own personality.

No physiological truth is more firmly established [Pg 5] than the fact that we can modify the action of our physical organs towards the special objects related to them, by the way in which we use our organs. By long-continued and careful study of the apparatus and processes of digestion, the physiologist has discovered the general plan by means of which food is converted into the substance of the body, and the part which each portion of the complicated digestive system takes in the maintenance of daily life. He does not stop, however, with this discovery of the general plan by which food is converted into flesh. He studies the way in which our habits of eating and drinking may destroy or improve the power of digestion, and recognises the effects which various kinds of food and drink may exercise upon the character of the individual and the race. The physiologist, therefore, proceeds to investigate, as a direct branch of necessary human physiological inquiry, the influence which the consumption of flesh or fruit, of alcohol or water, of warm or cold articles, of quantity or quality, etc., exerts upon the unique organization of the human being, in producing health or disease in mankind; or upon the power of self-control or endurance, with the promotion of ferocious or genial tendencies in Man. Both human strength and human character can be affected by enlarged knowledge and control of the uses which belong to the digestive system.

What is true of the effects of food is equally true of the effect of every other physical condition of human life. It is, therefore, a special work of the [Pg 6] rational physiologist to discover the higher uses of our varied human faculties. We only see at present the beginning of this great work of applied physiology in enabling us to comprehend the full effects of food, air, exercise, climate, etc., upon human character. We possess only vague knowledge of the great facts of the hereditary transmission of diseased or healthy tendencies; and we give, as yet, no due consideration to the important results which follow from such transmission. We only faintly realize the transforming power of habit or mind in healthy growth and in morbid degeneration.

These investigations form a distinct branch of applied physiology; and such investigation and application of physiology is the especial duty of the rational or Christian physiologist who sees clearly that creative force is a beneficent power; and this perception cheers and guides him in the perplexed paths which lead towards human growth and perfection.

Medicine and morality being related to function and use are, therefore, inseparable in a Progressive State. The union between the physical, moral, and intellectual elements of our nature cannot be dissolved during lifetime. To speak of the ‘Physician of Nature’ and ‘Physician of Grace,’ as two entirely distinct classes is an untenable position or a misleading sophism. Sound education, State medicine, healthy society, must all be based upon the inseparable union of the various elements of the human constitution. This is the only rational system in [Pg 7] a Progressive State; any other practice leads to empirical medicine and hypocritical morality.

The unity of human nature gives immense importance to the influences which surround the beginning of life and the education of the young. The greatest present obstacle to progress is the ignorance of parents, and above all of mothers, of many facts of physiology, and particularly of the facts of sexual physiology. For want of this knowledge our nurseries and schools are not wisely guarded, young people lack guidance, and marriages are too often the mischievous union of two unsuitable partners.

By the present lamentable ignorance of sound physiology, men and women lack the elements necessary for forming correct judgment on the most important relations of life. Parents are thus unequal to their first duty, viz., the guiding of domestic and social life, as helpmeets to one another.

In all the excellent treatises on physiology, domestic economy and education, prepared for the special instruction and help of parents and teachers, all knowledge is generally omitted which refers to the sexual functions; yet to the parent or educator this is an essential branch of knowledge. A woman attempts to carry on her work blindfold, who tries to educate her children, guide her household, or take her proper part in society without this knowledge. She understands nothing that is going on around her; she sees nothing but the surface of things; her influence is either stupid, mischievous, or negative, if she is not truthfully instructed in relation [Pg 8] to the central force of human emotion and action.

Mothers, requiring this knowledge for their special duties which commence with infant life, can with propriety, purity, and reverence study the action and uses of our sexual powers. Their intense interest in the family and self-sacrificing devotion to its welfare, their insight into its needs, and their sensitive consciousness of the approach of danger to their offspring, make them the providentially appointed guardians of the young. The profound depth of the passion of maternity in women extends not only to the relations of marriage, but to all the weak or suffering wherever found. It gives a sacredness to the woman’s appreciation of sex, which has not yet been utilized for the improvement of the social life of the nation.

The ignorance of parents in relation to essential facts is deplorable. I believe it to be the source of our gravest social evils. In the present work, therefore, which I offer to my profession as an aid in the instruction of parents and guardians of the young, I shall speak with the frankness of profound respect in relation to our God-created faculties. As a Christian physiologist, I shall endeavour to show the true and noble use involved in the highest of our human functions.

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A fundamental error as to the nature of human sex too generally exists amongst us, from failure to recognise that in the human race the mind tends to rule the body, and that sex in the human being is even more a mental passion than a physical instinct. This superficial view dims our perception of the causes which produce the facts around us; it also prevents our recognising the essential difference which exists between human and brute sex, and it blinds us to the imperative necessity of giving human education to this part of our nature.

As the study of the human body is carried on from its simpler to its more complex parts, it is perceived that the physiology of the more complex functions takes in a wider range of relations. The wise guidance of these more complex powers by parent or physician in health, and disease, demands a careful consideration of this extended range of relations. Thus the proper nourishment and exercise of the brain require more extended knowledge than the [Pg 10] hygienic treatment of the skin, and diseases of the brain cause more serious danger to the individual. So all the faculties which belong to the life of relation—viz., the faculties which, like the senses, link us to our fellows—involve a broader range of study than those which appertain solely to those functions of the body which concern only the individual.

The portion of our organization most difficult of study, but also requiring the widest range of knowledge for its healthy guidance, is the faculty of sex. This faculty has a very complex aspect from its three-fold relation to the race, to men, and to women.

Sex is not essential to individual existence, but it is indispensable to the continuance of the race; and the progressive or retrograde character of the race largely depends upon the wisdom with which this faculty is guided in youth, and the character of the parental relations which are established.

A serious difficulty in understanding how to educate and regulate the relations of sex arises from the fact that it is the relation of two equal but distinct halves of the human race, and exists in the dual form—male and female. Unless the distinctive characteristics and requirements of each of these equal halves are fully understood, the relation between them cannot be satisfactory. The physiological meaning of the differences in organization between the sexes is at present very imperfectly understood.

The most striking distinction, however, in the manifestation of the sexual faculties exists between man and the brute creation, and is found in the [Pg 11] mental or moral aspects which it assumes in man. The general structural resemblance between man and the lower animals affords no guidance to the education of this human faculty, for the differences between man and the lower animals are radically greater than the resemblance between them.

The most evident form of this mental difference shows itself as a sentiment of self-consciousness which is not observed in the brute. If an animal is not frightened by human beings it never hesitates in carrying on sexual congress in their presence, and neither before nor after the special act does it exhibit the smallest approach to shame in relation to it. In man, however, from the earliest dawn of the approaching faculty, self-consciousness is intense. This is not only observed in well brought-up boys and girls, who shrink from indecency of word or action, but it is never entirely extinguished in the most corrupt man or woman; and even the poor little waifs of our streets, blighted from earliest infancy, exhibit marked consciousness in their infantile depravity. All the vast difference between the gregariousness of the lower animals and the highest human civilization indicates the mental difference which moulds the human form of the sexual relations. Permanent parental care of offspring, mutual respect between the sexes, reverence for these faculties as typifying the mighty Creative Power of the universe, are stages of social progress based upon this mental difference in human and brute sex.

It is the mental or moral aspect of our sexual [Pg 12] powers which, as society grows, shapes so much of the literature of every civilized country. In the popular ballads of a people, songs of love are even more abundant than patriotic songs; and as education spreads amongst the masses, romances and novels form the bulk of popular reading.

The subject of love is always of the most absorbing interest to the younger and more active portion of a people; sexual passion, in its ennobling or debasing form, exercises irresistible attraction.

Our amusements and our customs are largely moulded by the same powerful attraction, viz., the mental and moral quality of the relations which are formed between the sexes. As civilization advances, and dense masses of human beings are crowded together in heterogeneous selfish strife, the destructive extremes of luxury and pauperism appear. From this state of society, where misery will do anything for money, and the satiety of luxury seeks fresh stimulus, speculation in this strongest part of our nature—sex—arises. Its creative use disappears, and it becomes a subject of merchandise. Every variety of effort is made to stimulate and debase the mental quality or sentiment of sex, and the strength of human passion furnishes an exhaustless field for corrupt speculation.

It is therefore not the simple physical aspect of the reproductive powers which is remarkable in humanity. The physical instinct is shared with the rest of the animal creation. It is the unique and powerful mental and moral element, the principle that moulds [Pg 13] and governs human sex, which produces such striking results in the life of our race.

The mental or emotional element in these powers, both in relation to the action and reaction of mind and body, and the hereditary transmission of tendencies, will, therefore, largely engage the attention of the physiologist who truly studies our human nature. The distinctive moral character of human sex renders the exclusive study of physical phenomena in man as useless and unscientific a method of investigation as would be the study of music on dumb instruments. The distinctively mental character of human sex must therefore always be recognised as a guide in any physiological inquiry into the structure and functions of the physical organs especially appropriated to the use of sex.

The clue to a true knowledge of sexual functions in man and woman is found in this striking peculiarity of the human race, viz., that these functions are largely dominated by mental action, and that sex in the human being does not mean simply the action of the physical organs, but also the conjoined mental principle directing those organs.

Sex, therefore, in the human race alone, resting upon that broad, well-marked mental foundation, is capable of great development towards good or towards evil. As simply material satisfaction soon reaches the limit which bounds matter, so mental or spiritual enjoyment is capable of indefinite growth. It is this mental sentiment peculiar to human sex which is capable of a twofold development. It may [Pg 14] grow into a noble sympathy, self-sacrifice, reverence, and joy, which enlarge and intensify the nature through the gradual expansion of the inborn moral elements of sex. It is also this same intensity of the mental form and power of sex, possessed by mankind alone, which allows of the perversion and extreme degradation of sex which is observable only in the human race. It is the degradation of this mental power when running riot in unchecked license that converts men and women into selfish and cruel devils—monsters, quite without parallel in the brute creation.

These facts are strikingly illustrated by the anatomical and physiological constitution of the human being. The structure and functions of the generative system in our race are contrived in such a way as to support two great leading principles of existence.

These fundamental principles are—First, the independence, freedom, and perfection of the individual. Second, the preservation of the race. These two objects are secured to a certain extent in all highly organized creatures; but in the human race provision is made for individual freedom in a much more marked and perfect manner, in accordance with the superior rank of man in creation.

The brute, both male and female, is at certain times blindly dominated by the physical impulse of sex. This impulse in the lower animal is a simple imperative instinct, unhesitatingly yielded to, with no preparation or after-thought, with no calculation, shame, triumph, or regret. But it is very different [Pg 15] with the human race, as it grows from lower to higher states of society. Thoughts and feelings, social ties and conscience, religious training and the objects of life, all act upon the distinctive mental character of sex; and it is seen that the welfare of a third factor, viz., the child, is inseparably connected with these relations.

Its character is thus changed to a very complex faculty. The young man or woman blindly yielding to this power of sexual attraction, against the remonstrance of a high sense of duty, is torn by remorse, and is consciously self-degraded.

The influence of the moral element is also strikingly shown by an evil peculiar to the human race, viz., suicide or insanity as the result of unhappy love.

The growing power of the mental element over sex in all the higher races of mankind is demonstrated by the ennobling friendships between men and women which increasingly brighten life in our own Anglo-Saxon civilization. The free and friendly intercourse of self-respecting youth of both sexes satisfies the complex wants of early man and womanhood; there is physical as well as mental refreshment in such honourable and natural human intercourse.

In the young man or woman, just entered into the full possession of all the human faculties, where the special attraction of two tends towards marriage, this moral or mental predominance is still remarkable. The attraction towards the other sex is rich in mental delights. The passing sight of the object beloved, a word, a look, a smile, will make sunshine in the [Pg 16] gloomiest day. The consciousness of spiritual attraction will sustain and guard through long waiting for more complete union.

The physical pleasure which attends the caresses of love is a rich endowment of humanity, granted by a beneficent Creative Power. There is nothing necessarily evil in physical pleasure. Though inferior in rank to mental pleasure, it is a legitimate part of our nature, involving always some degree of mental action. The satisfaction which our senses, sight, hearing, touch, etc., derive from all lovely objects adapted to the special sense, indicates that beneficence latent in the ‘cosmic process’ which enters into the physical manifestation of our present earthly life. The sexual act itself, rightly understood in its compound character, so far from being a necessarily evil thing, is really a Divinely created and altogether righteous fulfilment of the conditions of present life. This act, like all human acts, is subjected to the inexorable rule of moral law. Righteous use brings renewed and increasing satisfaction to the two made one in harmonious union. Unrighteous use produces satiety, coldness, repulsion, and misery to the two remaining apart, through the abuse of a Divine gift.

At a public table in the Tyrol I once heard an Austrian officer, a most repulsive spectacle, dying of his vices, boast of his ruined life, and declare that he would take the consequences and live it over again had he the power to do so. This is the insanity of lust. But it illustrates the inseparable union of soul and body in human sex.

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It is the mental element dominating the physical impulse in man, for evil, which produces that monstrous creation, cold, selfish, and cruel, which is seen only in the man or woman abusing the creative powers of sex.

It will thus be seen that in the varieties of degradation of our sexual powers, as well as in their use and ennoblement, it is the predominance of the mental or spiritual element in our nature which is the characteristic fact of human sex. The inventions and abuses of lust, as well as the use and guidance of love, alike prove the striking and important distinction which exists between the sexual organization of man and that of the lower animals.

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In examining the characteristics of sex in Man under its dual aspect, male and female, Nature’s primary or rudimentary aim in establishing sex must be clearly recognised. This aim is the reproduction of the species.

Pleasure in sexual congress is an incident depending largely on mental constitution. In the varying ranks of the animal creation it may or may not exist in connection with reproduction; for it is not essential to the one all-important dominating fact in nature, viz., parentage.

Reproduction is accomplished in various ways in the widely differing ranks of living creatures. Man, owing to certain general resemblances of physical structure, belongs to the higher class of animals, the Mammalia. In this class the two factors necessary to reproduction, viz., ova and semen or sperm, exist in separate individuals. The ova or seed are formed in the ovaries, two small bodies placed within the pelvis of the female; whilst the sperm or vitalizing [Pg 19] fluid is formed in the testes, two small bodies placed outside the pelvis of the male.

The organs or parts which produce the ova and semen are strictly analogous in the two sexes. Each part in the female corresponds to a similar part in the male; and at an early period of existence before birth it is impossible to determine whether the sex of the embryo is male or female.

Whilst the male and female organs concerned in the production of semen and of ova are parallel and in strict correspondence, there is one striking deficiency in the male structure. The organ essential to the development of the human being, the organ into which the fertilized ovum (or human seed) must be brought for growth, is wanting in the male structure. This deficiency or difference between the sexes produces important physiological results. The special part which the male has to perform physically in the all-important reproductive function of sex finishes with the act of sexual congress, but it continues in the female. If conception has taken place, the results of this act become increasingly important. The life of sex, or all that belongs to the life of the race, as distinguished from the existence of the individual, becomes continuously and for a long time inseparable from the woman’s personal existence. Thus, all the relations of sex form a more important part of the woman’s than of the man’s life. Another important fact in sexual construction must be noted—viz., the nervous connections of the sexual organs. All the parts concerned in reproduction [Pg 20] are in close communication with the brain by means of the nervous system and that enlargement of the spinal cord at the base of the brain, the medulla oblongata. If the nervous connection between the generative organs and the brain be severed, no consciousness of those parts will remain. But whilst the natural nervous connection exists, the influence of the brain upon those organs is continually felt, and information as to their changes is sent to the brain. This nerve connection exists from birth, although the formation of ova and semen (on which the power of reproduction depends) does not take place until a later date. Keen nervous sensation may, therefore, be perceived at any time after birth, although offspring cannot be produced until the more or less perfect establishment of reproductive power at puberty.

It is of great importance to recognise this fact in the education of children.

The above general statements respecting the division and correspondence of the sexual organs in the male and female, and their connection with the brain through the nervous system, are true of all the Mammalia, where, as in man, the reproductive power exists in two separate individuals. When, however, we consider the way in which these functions act in the work of reproduction, an important difference is observed between their action in man and in the lower animals. This difference places man physically in a different and superior category from the brute creation.

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The physiological arrangement of physical sex in man corresponds to the demands made by the increasing complexity of the sentiment of mental sex.

As already stated, the two essential features of physical sex are ovulation and sperm-formation. These two important factors in the joint work of reproduction are governed by a different rule in human and in brute life. In man they exist under the rule of continuity and of self-adjustment— i.e. , these functions are always existent—but at the same time they adapt themselves to the higher needs of the individual. These two laws under which the functions exist—viz., 1st, continuity of action; 2nd, power of self-adjustment—are distinctive marks of superior human sexual function. Both are necessitated by the growth of reason— i.e. , by a progressive civilization.

This will be understood clearly by dwelling more in detail on the way in which these two essential parts of reproduction—viz., sperm-formation and ovulation—are established in the human race. In reproduction, the ova which are constantly produced in the female require to be fertilized by contact with the semen, which is constantly produced by the male, before they can commence the remarkable series of changes and transformations which result in the formation of the embryo, the rudimentary human being.

Semen is a highly vitalized fluid, slowly but constantly secreted or formed by the male. As is the case with all organized living fluids, it is filled with [Pg 22] rapidly-moving particles (spermatozoa), and its vitality appears to be in direct ratio to the quantity and activity of such movement. Motion seems to be inseparably connected with life, and is distinctive of any highly vitalized fluid. Thus, in the important and highly organized fluid, the blood, we observe constant motion and change in the active little bodies with which it is filled.

This quality of great and active vitality appears to be indispensable to the spermatozoon which in the work of procreation is obliged to traverse long and winding passages in order to come in contact with the ovum which is advancing to meet it. An intense energy in the special act of procreation is needed to overcome the difficulties which may prevent conception.

It is here necessary to note a common but mischievous fallacy. This necessary energy on the part of the male, in order to overcome anatomical difference of structure in sexual congress, is commonly considered an indication or measurement of the superior force of sexual attraction or passion in the male.

This superficial judgment is not unnatural, as facts which are patent to the senses suggest the first crude thought. The chief structures of the male are external, but they are internal in the female. This difference of structure first suggests to the boy the meaning of actions of the lower animals, whilst the girl may grow up to full womanhood in complete unconsciousness of their signification.

This failure to recognise the equivalent value of [Pg 23] internal with external structure has led to such crude fallacy as a comparison of the penis with such a vestige as the clitoris, whilst failing to recognise that vast amount of erectile tissue, mostly internal, in the female, which is the direct seat of special sexual spasm; such superficial observation also fails to realize that sexual attraction is not limited by any isolated physical act.

The true nature of semen remained unknown during ages of physiological ignorance. It was regarded as the one essential element in reproduction, planted for growth in the uterus, where it was simply nourished by the female. The moving particles contained in it were regarded as animalculæ, and fanciful theories as to these particles forming the brain and nervous system, etc., of the embryo were entertained. But all these theories have been swept away by modern investigation. It is now proved that when the substances of spermatozoa and ova mingle a new action is set up, and an entirely new substance created. Life, in the true sense of separate individuality, only begins with the mingling of the male and female elements, the commencement of a new existence then taking place when the living ovum fixes itself in the uterus, and remains there for full growth and final birth. The substance of spermatozoa and the substance of ova possess no sanctity of life apart from their union. They are both produced in lavish abundance, and thrown off from the body in the same way as other unused secretions are thrown off.

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At the periods of menstruation unused ova are discharged. In a similar manner unused semen is thrown off from time to time, in an entirely healthy and beneficent way, by spontaneous natural action.

As ovulation in the female and sperm-formation in the male are equivalent productions, so menstruation in the female and natural sperm-emission in the male are analogous and beneficial functions.

It is in the arrangement of these two functions in man that the physical sexual superiority of mankind to the brute creation lies. The reason of the two distinctive laws which govern human sex is evident. Thus:

1st. Continuity of action. Procreation in man is not limited to any special season. [1] Men and women can be governed by reason as to the time and circumstances when they select one another and commence the important work of founding a family. The physical organs are maintained in fit condition for reproduction by these functions of ovulation and spermation, as servants ready to obey at any time the superior intelligence of the master Will.

2nd. The power of self-adjustment. These two functions, whilst maintaining aptitude for procreation in the activities of ovaries and testes, by occasional spontaneous action secure also the independence of the individual by such natural action. In the exercise of a faculty which requires the concurrence of two intelligent beings endowed with free will and reason, individual independence must be secured. [Pg 25] It would strike at the root of human progress, and convert society into slavery, if the life and health of an adult could not be maintained by the self-guidance and independence of the individual. The natural occasional spontaneous action of the structures concerned in reproduction secures individual independence whilst awaiting the beneficial ordinance of marriage.

Thus in the female the constant formation of ova is subordinated to the needs of individual freedom and to the power of mental self-government by the function of menstruation, which only in exhausting excess becomes menorrhœa. In the male the slower secretion of semen is adapted to the same individual freedom and power of self-control by the natural function of sperm-emission, which only in exhausting excess becomes spermatorrhœa.

As menstruation in the female is the means adopted by our organization for securing both the permanent integrity of the various essential generative structures and their relief from any excess of vitality, so sperm-emission is the natural relief and independent outlet of that steady action of the generative organs in the male, which secures through adult life the constant aptitude for reproduction distinctive of the human race. The parallel in the two sexes is exact. Menstruation and sperm-emission are the natural healthy actions of self-balance, established by the economy for preserving the mastership of each individual over her or his own nature. At the same time the integrity of the structure is maintained by the steady action [Pg 26] of these two functions of ovulation and spermation. These natural functions only degenerate into states of disease through ignorance of physiological law and faulty hygienic conditions on the one hand, or through impure thoughts and bad habits acting through the nervous system on the other. When these natural functions are either injured or unduly stimulated through the brain and nervous system, then only do they become diseased, producing menorrhœa or leucorrhœa in the female, and spermatorrhœa in the male.

It is impossible to overrate the wide importance of this law of self-adjustment, under which human function is carried on. The abuses of sex and the misunderstanding of actual facts, which have led to widespread error on this subject, will be dwelt on later. Every parent, however, who has been able to fulfil the true parental relationship to the child will realize the beneficence of this law. The obligatory and premature marriage of daughters, so largely the custom abroad, is one result of error on this subject. A still more dangerous error is the cruel advice sometimes given to a young man to degrade a woman, and sin against his own higher nature by taking a mistress or resorting to harlots.

I have often been consulted by anxious mothers who have observed or been told by their boys of fourteen or fifteen that an unusual discharge had taken place. It is of vital importance to the parent to know that such action is as natural and healthy in the growing lad as in the growing girl, but that in [Pg 27] both it is a time requiring guidance, both moral and physical. Respectful, earnest words of hygienic counsel, including mind and body, are indispensable at this critical time of youth. Parents, particularly mothers, live too often in fatal ignorance of the conditions of sexual health and disease in their children. My advice is constantly asked in such cases as the following: A careful mother, who had brought up her son, a strong and healthy young man, to the age of twenty, learned from him of this natural sign of vitality, which both supposed to indicate disease! It was with pain and dismay that she replied to his confidence, ‘Alas! then, my son, I fear you must consult a doctor.’ The joyful light of gratitude and renewed hope with which she learned the truth on this important subject—viz., that the occasional spontaneous action of the organs (not voluntarily forced by corrupt thought and action) is natural and beneficial—will not be easily forgotten. It was like the gleam of transcendent joy which I have seen illuminate the face of a young mother at the shrill cry of her first-born infant.

The measureless evil caused, not only by their ignorance, but by the false information given to mothers, is illustrated by the inquiry made of a friend of mine, a clergyman, by an intelligent French mother about to move to Paris with her son. This lady, sensible and even pious, wrote to the clergyman to inquire ‘if providing a mistress for her son would be very costly in Paris.’ She had accepted as a fact what she had been taught, viz., that no young [Pg 28] man who could not marry early could remain healthy without resorting to vice.

From lack of true knowledge of the natural facts of their own physical organization, young men are often terrified into a resort to quacks, who impose on their ignorance. The young also of both sexes may be tempted into bad habits of self-abuse at the outset of this new life, from being unacquainted with the evils and dangers of vicious indulgence.

It is the grave parental duty of both father and mother to be able to direct a child at its first entrance into adult life. At an age varying with climate, race, and temperament, the young man as well as the young woman will experience the healthy discharge, which is a sign that the gradual development of the reproductive organs has attained its final stage. In both its sudden appearance often produces fright; in both it may appear once, with long intervals of recurrence. In the girl it tends gradually (for important natural reasons) to the establishment of a frequent and regularly returning function. In the young man and in the continent unmarried adult, the natural action of these organs is of far less frequent recurrence; it may be of slow and uncertain return, dependent greatly upon the occupation of the mind and general physical state of the individual. In the natural healthy young man, the occasional return of this function, even with a certain degree of periodicity, is a valuable aid to adult self-government.

It is impossible to reprobate too strongly the false [Pg 29] views of physiology held by those who make no distinction between the natural healthy growth of these functions and their abuse. No Christian physiologist whose observation of facts is enlightened by a knowledge of the possibility of moral growth can commit so fatal an error. It is an insult to the male nature to infer that it is inferior to the female nature because it does not fully possess the power of individual self-balance. The assertion that one human being is dependent on the degradation of another human being for the maintenance of personal health is contradicted by physiological facts as well as social experience.

The greater complication and elaboration of sexual structure and function belonging to the female nature is due to the more important share given to woman in the work of parentage. The constant production in the female of living germs (ova), which require only a passing act of stimulation by the male to enter into a state of active and astonishingly rapid growth; the unique change of the small uterus into an enormous and powerful structure, capable of containing a perfect child, and sending it forth by tremendous efforts into the outer world; the changes in all the surrounding organs and tissues necessitated by the accomplishment of such a remarkable work in the short space of nine months; and the subjection of this great physical work to the law of individual freedom and perfection, are facts which show the superior complication and importance of the female sexual organization. The more elaborate processes [Pg 30] of menstruation, as compared with the lesser work of sperm-emission, show the greater complication of the organs to be kept in good working order in the female than in the male.

So extensive and important are the physical structures that must be kept in readiness for use in the mothers of the race, that their action is more withdrawn from the dominion of the will than is the case with men. In relation to the male, it is well known that the secretion of semen is very much controlled by the mental condition of the individual. Thus many a young man during keen nervous excitement (or during the strain of examinations) becomes alarmed by the appearance of unusual action never before noticed.

It is a fact to be carefully noted that sufficient healthy action to insure reproductive aptitude is always maintained in the secreting organs throughout adult life, quite independently of the will. Nature never allows the male, any more than the female, to become impotent through abeyance of function. No such fear need ever disturb the mind. The utmost devotion to intellectual life, to lofty thought, to beneficent action, never injures the procreative power, which always remains intact, capable of its special faculty throughout the virile age. But the active exercise of the intellectual and moral faculties has remarkable power of diminishing the formation of semen, and limiting the necessity of its natural removal, the demand for such relief becoming rarer under ennobling and healthy influences. As Dr. [Pg 31] Acton remarks, ‘sexual distress affects particularly the semi-continent —those who indeed see the better course and approve of it, but follow the worse; who, without the recklessness of the hardened or the strength of the pure, endure at once the sufferings of self-denial and the remorse of self-indulgence.’ [2]

The healthy limitation of sexual secretion in men sets free a vast store of nervous force for employment in intellectual and active practical pursuits. The amount of nervous energy expended by the male in the temporary act of sexual congress is very great, out of all apparent proportion to its physical results, and is an act not to be too often repeated. In the fully matured and strong adult the nature is adapted to such occasional expenditure, but it is a serious evil to the growing or unconsolidated nature. Even in strong adult life there is a great loss of social power through the squandering of adult energy, which results from any unnatural stimulus given to the appetite of sex in the male. The barbarous custom of polygamy, the degrading habit of promiscuous intercourse, selfish license in marriage, and all artificial excitements which give undue stimulus to the passion of sex, divert an immeasurable amount of mental and moral force from the great work of human advancement.

The control possessed so largely by the male over the physical function of sperm-formation is not possessed by the female over the corresponding function [Pg 32] of ovulation. In the female, Nature apparently cannot venture to subordinate the simple physical functions of sex to the will, to as great an extent as in the male. A more unyielding rule is needed in these physical activities, because the work to be accomplished for the race by the female is so much more elaborate and long continued. A greater amount of varied action in the complicated organs is necessitated in order to maintain their adult aptitude. The function of ovulation (formation of ova) is not increased or diminished by the will, or by the dwelling of the mind upon sexual objects, at all to the same extent that spermation (formation of sperm) may be affected by the same mental action. Ovulation, and its natural accompaniment, menstruation, is much more of a necessary fixed quantity than spermation and its natural accompaniment, sperm-emission. [3]

It is thus seen that the laws guiding the human sexual functions as established by Creative Power are as conducive to health, and as consistent with the freedom and perfection of human growth, in one sex as in the other. Each sex, obeying the Governing Law, is created to help, not destroy the other. The general outline of arrangement is the same in each, viz., power of mental and physical self-balance, strictly guarded potency, and a certain degree of periodicity.

I repeat that parents, and especially mothers, should be acquainted with the truths of physiology. [Pg 33] There is in the pure sentiment of maternity a special Divine gift of unselfishness and profound devotion to the well-being of husband and children. This God-given power enables a wife and mother to comprehend and apply this knowledge with the impersonality of wisdom. The awful aberrations of our sexual nature excite a deep pity which inevitably seeks for a remedy. When this special aptitude given to women by the power of maternity is fully realized, the enlarged intelligence of mothers will be welcomed as the brightest harbinger of sexual regeneration.

[Pg 34]

Of the various forms of abuse which spring from ignorance or corruption in the exercise of the most important of our human faculties, two only will be dwelt on—viz., masturbation and fornication. These are the two radical vices from which all forms of unnatural vice spring. The first is the especial temptation of the child, the last the temptation or corruption of the adult. It will be seen how the one prepares for the other, and how both, unchecked and unguided into rightful channels by judicious sexual education, lead inevitably to those horrors of unnatural vice which belong to disease, not nature. Abnormal vice abounds on the Continent, where the virtue of Christianity has fallen into contempt. But although it is increasing amongst ourselves as we blindly follow in the path of foreign error, yet, happily for parental guidance of childhood and youth, the darkest phases of human corruption need not be exhibited here.

Of Self-abuse (called also Masturbation, Onanism, [Pg 35] etc.) it is necessary to speak fully. This vice may infect the nursery as well as the school, and in innumerable cases it induces precocity of physical sensation, and prepares the way for every variety of sexual evil.

That much contradiction of thought exists on this subject even in the medical profession, the following facts will show. One of the most distinguished members of the profession, a man noted for sound judgment and large experience, made the following noteworthy statement to me in speaking of ‘The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex.’ He said: ‘You are all wrong in what you say about masturbation. Medically speaking, it is of no consequence whatever. Mind, I say medically , not morally speaking. I know a man, the father of a family, who was taught by his nurse to masturbate at three years old, and it has done him no harm whatever.’

On the other hand, distinguished physicians, as Tissot and others, have drawn frightful pictures of the mental and physical ruin which always result from habits of self-abuse, and they refer to the records of insane asylums to confirm these statements.

There is error and confusion of thought in both these extreme views.

Self-abuse or Solitary Vice is the voluntary purposed excitement of the genital organs, produced by pressure or friction of those parts, or by the indulgence of licentious thoughts.

The term ‘masturbation’ does not apply to that involuntary and beneficent action of the organs in the [Pg 36] adult of both sexes, with which nature from time to time relieves necessary secretion.

This radical distinction between the independent and benign action of nature, and the dangerous practice of voluntarily stimulated physical sensation, has not been pointed out by physiological investigators with necessary clearness, nor has the extreme importance of this distinction in the guidance of practical life been dwelt on as a distinction vital to the growth of a Christian nation.

The dangerous habit of voluntarily produced excitement, to which alone the term ‘masturbation’ is due, may be formed by both the male and the female, and it is found even in the child as well as the adult.

In the child, however (it being immature in body), it is the dependencies of the brain, the nervous system, which come more exclusively into play in this evil habit. The production of ova or semen, which mark the adult age, has not taken place; in the child there are none of those periodic or occasional congestions of the organs which mark the growth or effects of reproductive substance in the adult. In the little ignorant child this habit springs from a nervous sensation yielded to because, as it says, ‘it feels nice.’ The portion of the brain which takes cognizance of these sensations has been excited, and the child, in innocent absence of impure thought, yields to the mental suggestion supplied from the physical organs. This mental suggestion may be produced by the irritation of worms, by some local eruption, by the wickedness of the nurse, occasionally [Pg 37] by malformation or unnatural development of the parts themselves. There is grave reason also for believing that transmitted tendency to sensuality may blight the innocent offspring.

A serious warning against the unnatural practice of circumcision must here be given. A book of ‘Advice to Mothers,’ by a Philadelphia doctor, was lately sent me. This treatise began by informing the mother that her first duty to her infant boy was to cause it to be circumcised! Her fears were worked upon by an elaborate but false statement of the evils which would result to the child were this mutilation not performed. I should have considered this mischievous instruction unworthy of serious consideration did I not observe that it has lately become common among certain short-sighted but reputable physicians to laud this unnatural practice, and endeavour to introduce it into a Christian nation.

Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys— i.e. , one-half the human race—are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently, that every male child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which Nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human body.

The erroneous nature of such a practice is shown by the fact that, although this custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in hot climates) has been carried on for many hundred generations, yet Nature continues to protect her children by [Pg 38] reproducing the valuable protection in man and all the higher animals, regardless of impotent surgical interference.

Appeals to the fears of uninstructed parents on the grounds of cleanliness or of hardening the part are entirely fallacious and unsupported by evidence.

It is a physiological fact that the natural lubricating secretion of every healthy part is beneficial, not injurious, to the part thus protected, and that no attempt to render a sensitive part insensitive is either practicable or justifiable. The protection which Nature affords to these parts is an aid to physical purity, by affording necessary protection against constant external contact of a part which necessarily remains keenly sensitive; and bad habits in boys and girls cannot be prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and physical education.

The plea that this unnatural practice will lessen the risk of infection to the sensualist in promiscuous intercourse is not one that our honourable profession will support.

Parents, therefore, should be warned that this ugly mutilation of their children involves serious danger, both to their physical and moral health.

It is a fact which deserves serious consideration that many ignorant women purposely resort to vicious sexual manipulation to soothe their fractious infants. The superintendent of a large prison for [Pg 39] women informed me that this was a common practice, and one most difficult, even impossible entirely to break up.

Medical observation proves that such injury to infancy is not confined to the lower or to the criminal classes. The habits formed by unrefined or exposed women are brought by servants into our homes. The ignorance or viciousness of nurses, often veiled by a respectable demeanour, has injured and even destroyed the children of many a well-to-do nursery.

That this habit of self-abuse existing in early childhood is a danger capable of undermining the health from its tendency to increase is a very serious fact. A little girl of six years old was lately brought to me whose physical and mental strength were both failing from the nervous exhaustion of a habit so inveterate that she fell into convulsions if physically restrained from its exercise. In this case an evil hereditary tendency from both parents was discovered, and malformation existed in the child. Indeed, cases of injury to childhood from self-abuse are so common in the physician’s experience that warning to parents should be given on this subject. The cause should be carefully sought for wherever this vicious practice is discovered, and the trusted family physician consulted if necessary.

Now, it is quite true that this habit, when observed in children, may often, and I believe generally, be broken up. It is the mother who must do this by sympathy and wise oversight. When a child is [Pg 40] known in any way to be producing pressure or excitement in these parts, the watchful observation of the mother must be at once aroused. If no physical cause of irritation, such as worms or some malformation, appears to be present, the dangerous habit may be broken up entirely; but no punishment must ever be resorted to. The little innocent child, to whom the sentiment of sex is an unknown thing, will confide in its mother if encouraged to do so. If kindly but seriously told that it may make little children ill to do this thing, and the reply being given (as in cases I have known) that ‘the little feeling comes of itself,’ the child should be encouraged to come to its mother, and she ‘will help him drive the feeling away.’

This providential guardianship of the portals of life is a special endowment of maternity, and it is the potential motherhood of all experienced women which fits them to understand and to guide the growth and development of the sexual powers of our human nature. The tact of a mother will never suggest evil to her child, but her quick perception of danger will enable her to detect its signs, and avert it.

The frequent practice of self-abuse occurring in little children from the age of two years old, clearly illustrates the fallacy of endeavouring to separate mind and body in educational arrangements or systems of medical treatment. In the very young child those essential elements of reproduction, semen and ova, which give such mighty stimulus to passion [Pg 41] in the adult, are entirely latent. Yet we observe a distinct mental impression possible, leading to unnatural excitement of the genital organs. This mental impression, growing with the growth of the child, produces an undue sensitiveness to all surrounding circumstances which tend to excite this cerebral action. Touch, sight, and hearing become avenues to the brain, prematurely opened to this kind of stimulus. The acts of the lower animals, pictures, indecent talk, which glide over the surface of the mind in a naturally healthy child, excite self-conscious attention when habits of self-abuse have grown up unchecked. The mind is thus rendered impure, and the growing lad or girl develops into a precocious sexual consciousness.

At school a new danger arises to children from corrupt communication of companions, or in the boy from an intense desire to become a man, with a false idea of what manliness means. The brain, precociously stimulated in one direction, receives fresh impulse from evil companionship and evil literature, and even hitherto innocent children of ten and twelve are often drawn into the temptation.

From the age when the organs of reproduction are beginning slowly to unfold themselves for their future work, the temptation to yield to physical sensation or mental impression increases.

The inseparable relation of our moral and physical structure is seen in full force at the age of twelve or fourteen. Confirmed habits of mental impurity may at any age destroy the body from the physical results [Pg 42] of such habits. My attention was painfully drawn to the dangers of self-abuse more than forty years ago by an agonized letter received from an intelligent and pious lady, dying from the effects of this inveterate habit. She had been a teacher in a Sunday-school, and the delight of a refined and intelligent circle of friends. But this habit, begun in childhood in ignorance of any moral or physical wrong which might result to her nature, had become so rooted that her brain was giving way under the effects of nervous derangement thus produced, whilst her will had lost the power of self-control.

It will thus be seen that there are two grave dangers attending the practice of masturbation.

The first evil is the effect upon the mind through the brain and nervous system from evil communications or evil literature. The mind is thus prematurely awakened to take in and dwell upon a series of impressions which awaken precocious sexual instinct. This precocity gives an undue and even dominating power to this instinct over the other human faculties. Coming into play before reason is strengthened or the sense of responsibility awakened, there is no counterpoise or principle of guidance to the rapidly developing powers of procreation. Thus the precocious stimulus of childhood, even if it has not undermined the individual health, becomes a direct preparation for the selfishness of lust in the adult.

The other grave danger incurred by the practice of masturbation is the risk of its becoming an over-mastering [Pg 43] habit, from the ease with which it can be indulged; also from the insidious and increasing power of the temptation when yielded to, and from its association with the times when the individual is alone, and particularly the quiet hours of the night.

In the adult who yields to solitary vice, Nature’s marked distinction between the beneficent effect of spontaneous healthy relief and the injurious action of self-induced irritation is destroyed. Individual self-control, the highest distinctive mark of the human being, is abandoned. In this way the evil habit may become a real obsession, leading to destruction of mental and physical health, to insanity, or to suicide.

It will thus be seen that this first abuse of the sexual faculty given to us by our Creator—viz., the practice of masturbation—is a special danger to the very young as well as a temptation of the adult, and that it is an injury to mind as well as body, through the inseparable union of the moral and physical elements of our human constitution.

[Pg 44]

The second abuse of sex to be dwelt on by the Christian physiologist is the practice of fornication. One broad distinction separates this form of vice from masturbation—viz., that it necessarily affects two persons instead of only one. Its effects upon the mental and physical development of both the male and female must therefore engage the attention of the physiologist. This necessity of considering the effects produced by a joint act upon two separate individualities greatly complicates the inquiry.

It is so much easier for the popular mind to regard any act performed by an individual or by one sex as exclusively affecting one particular individual or sex engaged in its performance that it is extremely difficult for most persons to fix their minds steadily upon the inseparable double character of this exceptional human act. It requires a certain amount of generalizing power to do this; and the power of generalization, which leads to the recognition of abstract truth and to the perception that a true [Pg 45] principle is of far higher value than any number of phenomena, is an advanced attainment of human beings. Abstract truth commonly seems vague as compared with a material fact.

We are also so accustomed in using all our other senses, sight, hearing, etc., to regard them as individual possessions, that it is difficult to separate the sexual sense from all others. Yet it distinctly belongs to a different class from all our other senses, because its ultimate expression is not a simple individual performance, but is a social act of vital importance to the race. The imperfection of our intelligence, which makes it easier to consider a joint act in its diversity than in its unity, has led to very imperfect observation of physiological facts and many false deductions from such imperfect observation. Very grave social errors, leading even to the general debasement and ultimate destruction of national life, flow from the hitherto rudimentary condition of our human intelligence in relation to the sexual powers.

Fornication is the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. It is the yielding to the domination of the simple physical impulse of sex, with no perception or acceptance of the mutual responsibility involved in the relation, and with no regard to a fundamental aspect of this relation—viz., the well-being of offspring. Fornication is the attempt to divorce the moral and physical elements of human nature, and to ignore the inseparable results of joint action.

In considering this subject from a medical point [Pg 46] of view, we are at once brought face to face with a conflict nineteen hundred years old. Christianity, springing up when the Roman Empire was perishing through its vices, stamped fornication as the gravest of social crimes. There is nothing more strongly marked in the earlier records of this religion than the stern, even awful, condemnation of whore-mongers. The sin of sexual impurity is denounced as the essence of hatred and fraud. We observe that wherever the Christian Church becomes hypocritical and cowardly, and fails to reprobate this sin alike in men and women, in high and low, in the State and in the family, or fails to be the leader of the people against organized evil, there the Christian Church begins to fall into contempt, and the vox populi condemns it.

The Christian physiologist, pondering the inexorable law of purity as shown by history, is compelled to re-examine the physical and moral facts of the human constitution, on which the rise and fall of races depend. The question distinctly arises, Is Christianity a superstition, dying out in the nineteenth century of science and material development; or does it contain within itself a principle whose transforming power has been hitherto unrecognised, but which will now come into play, and lead the nations into renewed and more permanent vigour of life?

One of the first subjects to be investigated by the Christian physiologist is the truth or error of the assertion so widely made, that sexual passion is a [Pg 47] much stronger force in men than in women. Very remarkable results have flowed from the attempts to mould society upon this assertion. A simple Christian might reply, ‘Our religion makes no such distinction; male and female are as one under guidance and judgment of the Divine law.’ But the physiologist must go farther, and use the light of principles underlying physical truth in order to understand the meaning of facts which arraign and would destroy Christianity.

It is necessary, therefore, to determine what is meant by strength and what is meant by passion. In one sense a bull is stronger than a man, and many of the inferior animals are superior in muscular force or keenness of special sense to human beings, yet man is more powerful than the animal world which he dominates to his will. Any assertion that the animal is stronger than the human being fails to recognise the very essence of humanity—viz., mental or moral strength.

Again, in one sense, the whirlwind or the earthquake is stronger than the creative action of Nature; their rapid devastation strikes the terrified imagination, yet at the very moment of their ravage reparative and creative force is being exerted all over the world with immeasurably more power than any sudden outbreak of destruction.

In determining the strength of races and the strength of individuals, the various elements which constitute vital power must be considered. Endurance, longevity, special aptitudes with the proportionate [Pg 48] amount of vital force given to their fulfilment—these are all elements of relative strength.

In any attempt to settle the comparative strength of man and woman, therefore, all these elements must be weighed. Thus the powers of endurance which are demanded by each kind of life must be accurately measured; the care of a sick child must be balanced against the anxiety of business, the ceaseless cares of indoor life against the changes of outdoor life, etc. The impossibility of so weighing the burden which each sex bears in the various trials and difficulties of practical life shows the futility of attempting to measure the amount of vital power possessed by men or by women separately.

Any attempt at a comparison of absolute sexual power between men and women will be found to be equally futile. The varying manifestations of the sexual faculties, as exhibited in their male and female phases, make the relative measurement of this vital force in men and women quite impossible. Considering, however, the enormous practical edifice of law and custom which has been built up on the very sandy foundation of the supposed stronger character of male sexual passion, it is necessary to examine closely the facts of human nature, and challenge many erroneous conclusions. Any theory which proposes two methods of judgment or two measures of law, in consequence of a supposed difference of vital power, is emphatically uncertain, and lays itself open to just suspicion of dangerous error.

The equal numbers of men and women, their [Pg 49] equal longevity, and consequently equal power of enduring the wear and tear of life, prove the equal general vital power of the sexes.

In considering further the special sexual manifestations of the two sexes, we observe that the power of reproduction commences at an earlier age in women than in men. The physical life of the sexual faculties at the same early age is more vigorous in the female than in the male, and all those social interests which centre round sex in the human race are in the young woman stronger; whilst at the same age the experience and intellectual development which should give dignity and profundity to the noble object of sex—parentage—are not yet attained. The ‘eagerness for a romance’ and the unconscious impulse towards parentage are developed earlier, and absorb a larger proportion of vital force in the girl than in the boy.

At a later age, when physical sex is fully developed in the young adult, we are still struck by the greater proportion of vital force demanded from or given by women to all that is involved in sexual life. The physical functions of sex weigh more imperiously upon the woman than the man, compel more thought and care, and necessitate more enlightened intelligence in the general arrangements of life. Physical sex is a larger factor in the life of the woman, unmarried or married, than in the life of the man, and this is the case at every period of the full vigour of life. In order to secure the perfect health and independent freedom which is the birthright of every rational human being, larger wisdom is required for [Pg 50] the maintenance of perfect physical health in the woman than in the man, this function being a more important element in the one than in the other.

If this be true of the physical element of sex, it is equally true of the mental element. No careful observer can fail to remark the larger proportionate amount of thought and feeling, as compared with the total vital force of the individual, which we find given by women to all that concerns the subject of sex. Words spoken, slight courtesies rendered, excite a more permanent interest in women. That which may be the mere passing thought or action of the man, at once forgotten by him, obliterated by a thousand other intellectual or practical interests in his life, often make a quite undue impression upon the woman. Incidents are thought of over and over again, and are supposed to mean much more than they do mean. A romance or a scandal, a tale of true or false love, will always excite interest, where business, politics, science, or philosophy will fall upon deaf ears. All that concerns the mental aspect of sex, the special attraction which draws one sex towards the other, is exhibited in greater proportionate force by women, is more steady and enduring, and occupies a larger amount of their thought and interest.

The frivolity and ephemeral character of the seducer’s impulses, as compared with the earnestness of the seduced, illustrates the profounder character of sexual passion in woman.

Wide-spread unhappiness, social disturbance, and [Pg 51] degradation continually arise from the vital force of human sex in woman, unguarded, unguided, and unemployed.

Passion and appetite are not identical. The term ‘passion,’ it should always be remembered, necessarily implies a mental element. For this reason it is employed exclusively in relation to the powers of the human being, not to those of the brute. Passion rises into a higher rank than instinct or physical impulse, because it involves the soul of man. In sexual passion this mental, moral, or emotional principle is as emphatically sex as any physical instinct, and it grows with the proportional development of the nervous system.

This mental element of human sex exists in major proportion in the vital force of women, and justifies the statement that the compound faculty of sex is as strong in woman as in man. Those who deny sexual feeling to women, or consider it so light a thing as hardly to be taken into account in social arrangements, confound appetite and passion; they quite lose sight of this immense spiritual force of attraction, which is distinctly human sexual power, and which exists in so very large a proportion in the womanly nature. The impulse towards maternity is an inexorable but beneficent law of woman’s nature, and it is a law of sex.

The different form which physical sensation necessarily takes in the two sexes, and its intimate connection with and development through the mind (love) in women’s nature, serve often to blind even [Pg 52] thoughtful and painstaking persons as to the immense power of sexual attraction felt by women. Such one-sided views show a misconception of the meaning of human sex in its entirety.

The affectionate husbands of refined women often remark that their wives do not regard the distinctively sexual act with the same intoxicating physical enjoyment that they themselves feel, and they draw the conclusion that the wife possesses no sexual passion. A delicate wife will often confide to her medical adviser (who may be treating her for some special suffering) that at the very time when marriage love seems to unite them most closely, when her husband’s welcome kisses and caresses seem to bring them into profound union, comes an act which mentally separates them, and which may be either indifferent or repugnant to her. But it must be understood that it is not the special act necessary for parentage which is the measure of the compound moral and physical power of sexual passion; it is the profound attraction of one nature to the other which marks passion, and delight in kiss and caress—the love-touch—is physical sexual expression as much as the special act of the male.

It is well known that terror or pain in either sex will temporarily destroy all physical pleasure. In married life, injury from childbirth, or brutal or awkward conjugal approaches, may cause unavoidable shrinking from sexual congress, often wrongly attributed to absence of sexual passion. But the severe and compound suffering experienced by many [Pg 53] widows who were strongly attached to their lost partners is also well known to the physician, and this is not simply a mental loss that they feel, but an immense physical deprivation. It is a loss which all the senses suffer by the physical as well as moral void which death has created.

Although physical sexual pleasure is not attached exclusively, or in woman chiefly, to the act of coition, it is also a well-established fact that in healthy, loving women, uninjured by the too frequent lesions which result from childbirth, increasing physical satisfaction attaches to the ultimate physical expression of love. A repose and general well-being results from this natural occasional intercourse, whilst the total deprivation of it produces irritability.

On the other hand, the growth in men of the mental element in sexual passion, from mighty wifely love, often comes like a revelation to the husband. The dying words of a man to the wife who, sending away children, friends, every distraction, had bent the whole force of her passionate nature to holding the beloved object in life—‘I never knew before what love meant’—indicates the revelation which the higher element of sexual passion should bring to the lower phase. It is an illustration of the parallelism and natural harmony between the sexes. The prevalent fallacy that sexual passion is the almost exclusive attribute of men, and attached exclusively to the act of coition—a fallacy which exercises so disastrous an effect upon our social arrangements—arises from ignorance of the distinctive [Pg 54] character of human sex—viz., its powerful mental element. A tortured girl, done to death by brutal soldiers, may possess a stronger power of human sexual passion than her destroyers.

The comparison so often drawn between the physical development of the comparatively small class of refined and guarded women, and the men of worldly experience whom they marry, is a false comparison. These women have been taught to regard sexual passion as lust and as sin—a sin which it would be a shame for a pure woman to feel, and which she would die rather than confess. She has not been taught that sexual passion is love, even more than lust, and that its ennobling work in humanity is to educate and transfigure the lower by the higher element. The growth and indications of her own nature she is taught to condemn, instead of to respect them as foreshadowing that mighty impulse towards maternity which will place her nearest to the Creator if reverently accepted.

But if the comparison be made between men and women of loose lives—not women who are allowed and encouraged by money to carry on a trade in vice, but men and women of similar unrestrained and loose life—the unbridled impulse of physical lust is as remarkable in the latter as in the former. The astounding lust and cruelty of women uncontrolled by spiritual principle is a historical fact.

The most destructive phase of fornication is promiscuous intercourse. This riotous debauchery introduced the devastating scourge of syphilis into [Pg 55] Western Europe in the fourteenth century. Promiscuous intercourse can never be made ‘safe.’ The resort of many men to one woman, with its results, is against nature.

The special structures of the female body, which are endowed with the elasticity necessary for the passage of a child, rich in secreting glands, in folds, in power of absorption, cannot be treated as a plane surface, to be washed out and labelled ‘safe.’ Physical danger will always be connected with unnatural use of the body; neither party engaged in promiscuous intercourse can be pronounced clean.

This is not the place to speak of the moral danger inseparable from a corrupt bargain which debases the highest function, the creative, to the low status of trade competition, but the Christian physician is bound to consider this.

Some medical writers have considered that women are more tyrannically governed than men by the impulses of physical sex. They have dwelt upon the greater proportion of work laid upon women in the reproduction of the race, the prolonged changes and burden of maternity, and the fixed and marked periodical action needed to maintain the aptitude of the physical frame for maternity. They have drawn the conclusion that sex dominates the life of women, and limits them in the power of perfect human growth. This would undoubtedly be the case were sex simply a physical function.

The fact in human nature which explains, guides, and should elevate the sexual nature of woman, and [Pg 56] mark the beneficence of Creative Force, is this very mental element which distinguishes human from brute sex. This element, gradually expanding under religious teaching and the development of true religious sentiment, becomes the ennobling power of love. Love between the sexes is the highest and mightiest form of human sexual passion.

The mental element in human sex, although as distinctly a part of sexual passion as the physical element, does not necessarily imply good use. The woman who employs the arts of dress to bring the physical peculiarities of sex into prominence, and uses every method of coquetry and flirtation to excite the attention and awaken the physical impulses of men, is abusing her sexual power. The degree in which she employs these arts, measures the extent to which her own nature is dominated by brute sexual instinct, and the unworthiness of the use to which she puts this instinct.

This power of sex in women is strikingly shown in the enormous influence which they exert upon men for evil. It is not the cold beauty of a statue which enthrals and holds so many men in terrible fascination; it is the living, active power of sexual life embodied in its separate overpowering female phase. The immeasurable depth of degradation into which those women fall, whose sex is thoroughly debased, who have intensified the physical instincts of the brute by the mental power for evil possessed by the human being, indicates the mighty character of sexual power over the nature of woman for corruption. [Pg 57] It is also a measure of what the ennobling power of passion may be.

Happily, in all civilized countries there is a natural reserve in relation to sexual matters which indicates the reverence with which this high social power of our human nature should be regarded. It is a sign of something wrong in education, or in the social state, when matters which concern the subject of sex are discussed with the same freedom and boldness as other matters. This subject should neither be a topic of idle gossip, of unreserved publicity, nor of cynical display. This natural and beneficial instinct of reserve, springing from unconscious reverence, renders it difficult for one sex to measure and judge the vital power of the other. The independent thought and large observation of each sex is needed in order to arrive at truth. Unhappily, however, women are often falsely instructed by men, for a licentious husband inevitably depraves the sentiment of his wife, because vicious habits have falsified his nature and blinded his perception of the moral law which dominates sexual growth.

Each sex has its own stern battle to fight in resisting temptation, in walking resolutely towards the higher aim of life. It is equally foolish and misleading to attempt to weigh the vital qualities of the sexes, and measure justice and mercy, law and custom, by the supposed results. It is difficult for the child to comprehend that a pound of feathers can weigh as much as a pound of lead. Much of our thought concerning men and women is as [Pg 58] rudimentary as the child’s. Vast errors of law and custom have arisen in the slow unfolding of human nature from failure to realize the extent of the injury produced by that abuse of sex—fornication. We have not hitherto perceived that, on account of the moral degradation and physical disease which it inevitably produces, lustful trade in the human body is a grave social crime.

In forming a wiser judgment for future guidance, it must be distinctly recognised that the assertion that sexual passion commands more of the vital force of men than of women is a false assertion, based upon a perverted or superficial view of the facts of human nature. Any custom, law, or religious teaching based upon this superficial and essentially false assertion, must necessarily be swept away with the prevalence of sounder physiological views.

It is a fact that the brain and nervous system are the media of sensation, and that pleasure, physical or mental, in whatever way it may be aroused, must be measured by the keenness of nervous life in both sexes, not by any special act of one sex.

It has also been shown that the secretion of semen does not necessitate a resort to sexual congress, but that there is a distinct and healthy provision for the removal of unneeded secretions in each sex which leaves the individual the power of self-guidance. Physiology condemns fornication by showing the physical arrangements which support the moral law. There is no justification in the physiological [Pg 59] structure of humanity for the destructive practice of fornication. We thus see by the light of sound physiology, and the advanced thought of the nineteenth century, the profound insight of the founders of Christianity, who denounced in one equal and awful condemnation the whoremonger and the whore.

[Pg 60]

The most fundamental work which rests upon the medical profession is the spread of physiological truth in its practical application to the education of both boys and girls. The sexual instinct, being a primitive elementary instinct, exists alike in men and women. It is the necessary impulse leading to parentage, an impulse which the great Creative Force has laid down as a law of our present human life. But chastity and continence are not primitive instincts in either sex; they are the higher growth of reason, and of the religious and legal guidance by which in every age it has been found indispensable to direct the impulse of sex.

The way in which this instinct may be exercised to the permanent advantage of a progressive community is a gradual discovery of the human race. It is a development or differentiation of the primitive instinct; but the instinct and the wise method of educating or of exercising it are separate facts.

In the savage stage, in semi-barbarous countries, [Pg 61] and in the slums of all great towns, both men and women are grossly unchaste.

It is by the growth and expansion of human nature under a knowledge of providential law, that the necessity of guiding the exercise of the original instinct is perceived. Thus, varying institutions gradually arise out of the varied methods employed to guide the sexual impulse. Different circumstances, different systems of education, law, and religion, produce varying results. But all these results spring from a perception that the sexual instinct requires guidance, and cannot, without danger to society, be left in its primitive ignorance.

In the gradual growth of thought which leads to ever higher forms of society, the physiologist has very important aid to render. It is his part to show how the two great forces of Habit and Heredity are the powerful physiological factors in the growth or degeneracy of the human race. In these two great facts—viz., the ability to form habits and the power of transmitting the tendencies produced by habits—the mind and body are inseparably blended, and through them a nation becomes chaste or unchaste. Habit can so change the nature as to make what was difficult easy; it can so strengthen the tendencies in directly opposite directions as to both govern, and to a great extent change, the action of the physical organization itself, and the fact of heredity will transmit these changed tendencies to succeeding generations.

It is impossible in the long-run to ignore these [Pg 62] two facts which so powerfully govern sexual passion, because Nature has established them. Short-sighted views may exist as to the trivial character of the relations prevailing between the sexes. It may be considered of slight importance whether lust or love rule these relations. The slow or remote nature of the evils produced by the violation of Nature’s laws, and the apparent escape of some offenders from immediate penalty, confuse the short sight of the irreligious. But Nature disregards our short-sightedness, sweeps away our theories and self-indulgence, and inexorably avenges the violation of law by gradual but inevitable degeneration of the race.

The power which habit exercises over human nature depends upon the physiological character of the nervous system itself, through which our will and thought act.

It has been well said by Michel Lévy that periodicity is the law of the nervous system. [4] It is a law which both regulates its physiological action and controls the course of its diseases.

Impressions made upon the brain by external objects or by internal sensations modify the condition of the brain. This modification is slight at first, but increases by repetition. When an impression is first made upon the brain, it has to overcome the inertia or unaccustomed state of the organization to receive that kind of impression. But with each repetition this resistance diminishes and a habit is formed. [Pg 63] Owing to the rule of periodicity which governs the nervous system, the brain tends to repeat the change which it has once experienced, to recall sensations, and solicit a repetition of changes which have been frequently impressed upon it.

Passing impressions may produce little effect in changing the condition of the brain, but when such impressions are often repeated and prolonged, when the attention is fixed upon them and the will engaged in recalling them, then the nervous system itself undergoes modification, and a new disposition of the organization itself is acquired from the continuation and frequent repetition of the same impressions.

It is in this way, through a change in the nervous system itself, that habit becomes literally a second nature; and in this way habits most opposite to the natural or rudimentary state are introduced into our human organization, and ‘nature is dominated by or absorbed in habit.’

The power of habit is seen even in the action of organs withdrawn from the will, as in the powers of adaptation to all kinds of food, to various kinds of atmosphere and climate. It is, however, in that portion of our nature directly connected with and governed by the brain that the remarkable transforming power of habit is seen, and in the sexual system this enormous power is most signally displayed.

Habits may become so much a part of our nature that they are exercised unconsciously, the impression which first excited the brain being no longer noticed, though still exerting its modifying influence.

[Pg 64]

But when the attention is constantly aroused, the brain acts with sustained and increasing energy; the senses are thus strengthened or perfected, and new and higher powers are developed in the individual, which through inheritance may be transmitted to a succeeding generation.

It is in this way that the practice of continence or of incontinence gradually forms a distinctive characteristic of social and national life.

This distinctive faculty possessed by the nervous system of modifying its own sensations, and even acquiring new aptitudes, is the physiological basis of human progress. ‘It is the foundation of education, of the power of law, of the influence of custom, and the necessary condition of hygienic improvement.’

Habits, when formed in accordance with physiological law, do not tend to indifference. By the constant repetition of impressions a new relation is gradually established between the organs or faculties affected and the cause which produces the effect. As the keenness of first sensations producing transitory pleasure diminishes, habit strengthens the important relation which grows up between faculties and the objects which modify them. It is the superior power of the new relation thus established by habit between the individual and the objects that have modified his nature, that have even caused the Swiss mountaineer to die of home-sickness, or the bereaved partner in a lifelong union to follow the beloved object to the grave.

It will thus be seen how the idea and the practice [Pg 65] of chastity have grown up from a physiological basis, and may be inseparably interwoven with the essential structure of our physical organization. Chastity is the government of the sexual instinct by the higher reason or wisdom— i.e. , by our perception of the providential law which governs our human nature. Customs, and the laws concerning marriage and the relations of the sexes which represent them, are checks or guides imposed upon the blind sexual impulse by the enlightened common-sense of mankind. These customs and laws, acting slowly but persistently upon society, generation after generation, modify the habits of thought in the adult, and the methods of education in the child. It is thus that the idea of chastity arises, and its practice becomes possible and easy. It springs as a physiological habit from the effects for good and evil which are produced by the modifications of our nervous system through education and custom.

The universal experience of the world has proved that directly human beings join in societies, they are compelled to impose guides upon the exercise of the sexual powers, in the interest of society itself. This check upon the blind, unrestrained use of the sexual impulse is a necessity imposed by our physiological structure for the well-being and continuance of the race.

The most important practical results flow from obedience to the physiological law of chastity thus imposed upon our sexual nature. The necessary mutual aid and respect of the sexes, procreative [Pg 66] vigour and the production of a fine race, and the extirpation of the loathsome disease caused by promiscuous intercourse, are all subject to the guidance of chastity.

The tremendous power of creative law, which is quite beyond our reach, demands that the blind instinct of sex be governed and enlightened by this inevitable higher control, and that human law be moulded upon Divine law.

The mighty and transforming physiological power of habit, with its tendencies transmitted by both men and women to their offspring, shows the method by which the law of chastity must gradually extend its sway over the human race. The choice between inevitable degeneracy and sure improvement is left to our relatively free will, but the law which governs results is beyond our reach. Race after race has perished from blind or wilful ignorance, or neglect of the inexorable moral law bound up with our physiological structure.

The importance of the truths now insisted on can be more fully realized in their wide bearings by experienced and religious physicians than by any other class in the community. If they will learn to trust to the sacredness of the maternal instinct, and instruct mothers, as well as fathers, in these vital truths concerning our sexual structures, they will exercise a mighty influence in the elevation of our race.

To the younger members of the profession I wish to offer some farther hints on the direct practical bearing of the foregoing truths. The facts of our [Pg 67] human organization should not only guide the medical advice given in the consultation-room, but caution us respecting the methods to be adopted in dealing with the poor, and suggest the direction in which national sanitary measures should proceed.

The immense power of this passion of sex in the human race must never be ignored in relation to either men or women. The beneficent control which the human mind can exercise over the passion points out that item in the human materia medica , which more than any other the physician must strive to secure for the benefit of his patient, viz.—force of will. He is bound to declare the sovereign efficacy of this natural specific, and enforce the methods of securing it. All physical and hygienic means must be called upon to develop and support that power of will and that mental purity which alone can govern wisely the human sexual nature.

There is another point which cannot be too strongly insisted on. The personal modesty of patients—that elementary virtue in Christian civilization—must be carefully cherished by the physician, who, more than any other, is acquainted with its influence on the sexual nature. The common resort to sexual examination is an evil grown up in medical practice of comparatively modern date. The use of the speculum should be strictly limited by absolute necessity. Its reckless use amongst the poor is a serious national injury. I know from fifty years’ medical experience amongst the poor, as well as the rich, that this custom is a real and growing evil. It should be a last [Pg 68] resort of medical necessity, and it is so regarded by thoughtful physicians. That it is sometimes necessary is unhappily true; and when a poor sufferer learns from her trusted adviser that such investigation is quite unavoidable, acceptance of such judgment is the part of wisdom and true modesty. But it is essential that the medical judgment thus rendered should be final—the result of age and special experience. The wise custom of many physicians to decline practice in which a very special training has not given them the positive knowledge of an expert should be a universal rule. It is a social wrong when the serious character of this branch of medicine is not conscientiously acknowledged. The natural sentiment of personal modesty is seriously injured amongst respectable people by the resort to a succession of incompetent advisers.

A really serious and national evil results from the thoughtless treatment of the poor. In dispensary and hospital, and wherever medical assistance is rendered to the exposed and helpless classes, the first duty of the physician is to respect personal modesty, or to instil it if the habit has been lost. Every physician, man or woman, is bound to cherish with reverence the great conservative principle of society, personal modesty and self-respect. This is a point on which the medical practitioner cannot avoid a moral responsibility. Physicians are the special guardians of health from infancy onward. They possess the means of acquiring the fullest knowledge of the double elements of human nature—the interaction [Pg 69] of mind and body. From their culture, their social position, and the authority which they legitimately exercise, the weighty responsibility of rightly guarding the human faculties rests chiefly upon them. In all those points where the physical health of a nation is inseparably connected with its moral health, they are more responsible than any other class of the community for the moral condition of their country.

All medical advice and all medical measures must, therefore, be guided by the positive fact that human sex differs from brute sex in the possession of a mental element which is capable of elevating and controlling it, and which must never be lost sight of in dealing with human beings.

To the rising members of our noble profession I earnestly present the foregoing facts for their Christian and patriotic consideration, believing that when they fully realize these great truths they will embrace them with the generous enthusiasm of youth. Thus, while guiding their future practice by sound principles in relation to the care of our human organization, they will enforce these truths by the strongest of all arguments—the true manliness of their own lives.

[Pg 70]

All thoughtful members of the medical profession will appreciate the power of education exercised by law, particularly on the rising generation. As students of human physiology, knowing the inseparable connection of mind and body, they can more fully understand how the laws of a country mould social customs, and recognise the gradual but widespread deterioration of social morality resulting from unjust laws.

In all legislation which endeavours to protect and improve national health the medical profession is necessarily consulted. The advice of experts is indispensable in framing measures which affect such important subjects as wholesome food-supply, the healthy housing of a people, the prevention and spread of epidemic diseases, etc. Indeed, so important is the connection of a sound body with a sound mind, and so linked together are all classes of society, that common-sense and rational foresight will more and more recognise that health regulations [Pg 71] are a subject of national concern as well as of individual instruction, and the advice of the medical profession will be increasingly needed.

It is, however, equally certain that with the advance of intelligence, of education, and of political power amongst all members of a community, the great principle of Justice must become the foundation on which all legislation, which is to prove of permanent benefit to a nation, will rest. Expediency, regardless of justice, may sometimes seem to offer an easy solution of difficult practical problems, but it is a delusive seeming. The temporary adoption of such expedients, when contrary to the inexorable requirements of far-seeing or sympathetic justice, will always degrade, and in the end destroy, the society which persists in resting upon expediency instead of principle.

For this reason slavery and polygamy are always found to hinder the progress of any nation that is founded upon them. In our own country the unjust condonation of adultery, by law, in 1857, against the strenuous opposition of far-seeing statesmen, has educated more than one generation in a false and degrading idea of physiology.

In all sanitary legislation, where the authority of the medical profession is recognised by an appeal to any of its members for guidance in respect to practical regulations, the counsel given affects the honour of the whole profession, and it is vital to the authoritative status of the profession that the advice rendered shall be based upon a sound knowledge of [Pg 72] the creative laws which govern our complex human nature. Superficial or one-sided statements, made on so momentous an occasion as an appeal by legislation to medicine, degrade the profession; and practical measures founded upon unsound knowledge may debase legislation and intensify the evils they are intended to diminish.

The most serious of all the subjects on which the advice of the medical profession is required concerns the legislative enactments or municipal regulations which affect the relations of the sexes.

The importance of these relations cannot be overrated. They deal with the very source of society. They may affect the soundness of both body and mind. If legislation fosters immoral customs which spread disease and death, then such legislation, corrupting a nation’s life, is treachery to human nature, and the false counsel that has been given is defiance of Divine law.

A great physiological fact which requires now to be faced is that promiscuous intercourse cannot be made physically healthy. The reasons for this have already been stated. [5] But no practical measures are sound which do not steadily repress this dangerous and debasing practice in men and women.

This great problem of sexual evil has never hitherto been studied from the two sides which Nature presents to us. But sound physiology requires that the parallel functions and equal attraction in the two halves of humanity be considered. A Christian nation [Pg 73] must recognise that the purchase of the weaker by the stronger is a cruel and debasing trade which must be checked, and that the substitution of promiscuous intercourse for Christian marriage is a physical and moral degradation to each half of the human race.

When the facts are fully grasped—1st, that men are not made dependent upon women for the maintenance of individual health and vigour; 2nd, that women violate a law of nature when they fail to reverence their potential motherhood—the great principle which should guide sex legislation will be established.

In all practical measures required to check sex disorders in our midst, the co-operation of experienced men and women is essential.

Whether it be for the maintenance of good order in the streets, for purification of the slums, for reduction of brothels, for reform of marriage laws, or for the extirpation of venereal disease, no regulations will unite expediency with justice, which do not proceed from the united wisdom of earnest men and women.

There are encouraging signs in the present day that such a source of hopeful practical reform will become possible, and that men and women of large experience are rising into that reverential recognition of the Creative Power entrusted to the human race, which will enable them to consult together, and thus gain the wisdom necessary for practical action.

The awful aberrations of our sexual nature, which [Pg 74] produce such profound social disorder and exercise such degrading influence on the relations of men and women, result from ignorance of physiological laws and the adaptation of human physical structure to the maintenance of those laws.

It is through the recognition of these facts by the medical profession, and their instruction of parents in the truths of physiology, that the most powerful impetus to human growth may now be given. The medical profession can prove, through its knowledge of the physical and mental structure of the human race, that the great Christian doctrine of one equal standard of morality for our race is true doctrine based upon our human constitution.

Our noble profession is summoned to a mighty warfare in the present deadly strife between good and evil. If as Christian physicians, believing in a beneficent Creative Power, and imbued with the spirit of the Master, they recognise the Divine unity manifested through the compound nature of all life, they will become the vanguard of that growing army of truth which seeks to know and obey Divine law.

[Pg 75]

Human procreation possesses a double relation—viz., first , a relation to the race; and, second , a relation to the individual. In the former character, as the inevitable method of continuing the race, it is a great providential law whose mysteries we by no means comprehend, and which is placed quite beyond the control of the human will; but in the latter, the exercise of this great power of procreation possesses the distinctive mark of self-control, and as an individual act our power and responsibility are great. In this important subject of procreation, no one can speak with scientific precision and lay down absolute rules respecting its complete method of action. It has been wisely said by one of the most skilful and experienced French physicians: [6] ‘No opinions put forth reconcile all facts. We are obliged to confess that there is a mystery in this subject, that our most ingenious theories fail to enlighten.’

In considering this subject in its relation to the individual, the beneficent educational uses of parentage to the individual must be realized, and the irreparable [Pg 76] loss that human society would sustain from the absence or serious diminution of the parental relation. Parentage is the most potent and persistent civilizer and educator of our race. There is no other influence that will compare with the deep-seated and unique power of parentage in breaking down the narrow, unsocial barrier of exclusive individual selfishness. Much has always been said and written about maternal love, but there is a very deep significance in the persistence with which the Hebrew Scriptures exalt the power, the supreme beneficence of fatherhood; and there is a profound reason why universal Christendom is taught to address, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ It is a special lesson to men. The mother, by the inevitable facts of her nature, when that nature is not corrupted, is moulded into tenderness and providential watchfulness over the weak and helpless; her nature is a harmonious whole, and, as a beneficent general rule, all women are potential mothers. But Nature does not so inevitably educate men. It is only when his first-born child is laid in his arms that the man awakens fully to the wonder and infinite tenderness of paternity. The character of the childless woman does not suffer from the absence of that beneficent discipline and development which come from parentage as does the character of the man. It is very instructive to observe how unmarried or childless women replace by adoptions or by pets their unexercised natural affections.

Any failure to realize the Divine purpose in this [Pg 77] joining together of cause and effect amongst the mass of mankind, any efforts which tend to diminish respect for the parental relation and destroy the perception of its essential sacredness, must be disastrous to the welfare of a nation.

The educational influence of parentage as a fundamental fact in human progress must be borne in mind with all the reverence which is due to it, when we seek to remedy the hideous perversions of natural sentiment, which we find in our unhuman slums. It is not by destroying parentage, but by teaching its responsibilities and by restoring its educational influence upon the adult, that we must hope for progress.

In seeking to bring into the freedom of humanity, not only the swarms of poor fellow-creatures sweltering in city slums, but all classes of human beings struggling in the slough of unrestrained lust, we must reverently study Nature’s laws as they are gradually discovered in relation to parentage, by which the Creator gradually develops even the lowest forms of mankind through parentage.

The fact established by Raciborsky, the famous German physician, in a former generation is that ‘the period when conception is most likely to take place is near the time of menstruation, either just before it or during a few days after the time.’ It is not asserted that conception in the human race is necessarily limited to this interval of time, for it is true that great stimulus of the organs produced at any period of the month may bring about a similar congestion or special aptitude for conception. [Pg 78] But the periodic character of the woman’s constitution regulates the probability of conception to so great an extent that by this law higher and lower sentient beings are brought into harmony, and woman assumes her due place as the regulator of sexual intercourse. Throughout the animal world procreation is governed by the will of the female. Not violence, but gentleness, is shown by the male to the female. Her refusal or desire guides sexual intercourse amongst the lower animals. To raise the human race to this higher animal level from which it has fallen is a special task of advanced physiology, which can show the physical method and reason of this redemption.

Human marriage must be regarded as a life companionship, in which the satisfaction of physical desires forms a secondary, not a primary, part. When so entered upon, love will direct its relations for the good of the two joined together in this unique union. The man joins himself to the woman in loving companionship, and her constitution henceforward must determine the times of the special act of physical union.

The foregoing physiological law is a truth full of hope and promise of infinite progress, for nations have hitherto perished in large measure through the abuse and degradation of women. The regulation of sexual intercourse in the best interests of womanhood is the hitherto unrecognised truth of Christianity, towards which we are slowly groping. When it is fully accepted, a fresh spring of vigour will have been discovered for the human race.

[Pg 79]

The following sound advice on sexual physiology from the Lancet should be widely known:

[Pg 83]

[Pg 84]

Having been invited to speak to you on ‘The Responsibility of Women Physicians in relation to the Contagious Diseases Act,’ I have considered it a duty to accept this invitation for several reasons.

It is twenty-seven years since my attention was first imperatively called by our philanthropist, Miss Mary Carpenter, to the subject of regulating or organizing the immorality of women. Since that time I have necessarily given much thought to this subject.

I have always felt that the National Repeal Societies made a mistake in relaxing effort after the first check which the Contagious Diseases Acts suffered in 1886. The fact that, in a House of 670 members, only 245 voted on the side of a great moral question, and that 289 absented themselves, was worthy of note. It showed that the great campaign against perverted sex was then only beginning. After that first defeat the mighty forces of evil, of selfishness, of ignorance, of timidity, of hypocrisy, and of lust were sure to rally, and many genuine but short-sighted philanthropists, seeing the shocking results of unrestrained evil, would grope about for a remedy, and probably [Pg 86] again be misled by a plausible but impossible method of cure.

On studying carefully the important Government Reports just published—viz., Representations from the Royal College of Physicians, from the Secretary of State for India, from the Departmental Committee, from the Army Sanitary Commission, and from Lord George Hamilton’s despatch—I recognised more fully than ever before the great and growing danger which is arising from sexual vice. That danger exists, not only through our army in India, but also through the present condition of all standing armies. Thus, by the systematic perversion of the sexual instinct, the gradual destruction of so-called Christian civilization is taking place.

I felt, moreover, that the reference made in these Reports to the employment and training of women in India to examine and treat Indian prostitutes in the military hospitals under the medical officer demanded the notice of women physicians.

Since 1870 a body of highly educated and reliable women physicians has grown up in Great Britain and Ireland—a body recognised by the State as of equal standing with their professional brethren. During that period also a most important and beneficent medical movement for the help of our Indian sisters has been established in India, known as the Dufferin Fund, and promoted by our European women physicians. All women physicians willingly help the most degraded persons who voluntarily seek their help. But any proposition that women [Pg 87] should be medically trained in order to prepare the most helpless class of Her Majesty’s subjects—poor Indian women—for the use of vicious soldiers would be so gross an insult, as well as extreme folly, that I felt sure that the responsible gentlemen who authorized the Government Reports could not realize the meaning of their suggestion. But it laid upon disciplined and far-seeing medical women, who must carefully consider any practical measures which concern the relation of the sexes, the imperative duty of helping in the solution of an urgent and most difficult problem.

It is for these reasons that, as the oldest woman physician, I have thought it right to accept this invitation, and I earnestly desire to be aided in what I may suggest by the serious thought of every experienced physician.

I propose to say a few words under the three following heads:

[Pg 88]

The Royal College of Physicians—our highest medical authority—makes the following statement:

‘The increase of venereal disease appears to us to be a matter of serious moment, and to call for the gravest consideration. The constitutional form of the disease is one of the most serious, insidious, and lasting of all the contagious diseases that afflict humanity. Other contagious complaints— e.g. , smallpox or scarlatina—are transmissible only for a limited time, and not by inheritance. With syphilitic disease it is far otherwise: it is the most lasting in its effects, and most varied in the character of its specific manifestations; it frequently gives rise to consequences far removed from its initial symptoms, most seriously implicating and affecting various organs of the body; it complicates other diseases; its contagious properties extend over lengthened periods of time, during which the sufferers are often a source of danger to innocent people, while they may be, and frequently are as parents, the source whence specific infection is transmitted to their children....

‘About 13,000 soldiers return to England from India ever year, and of these, in 1894, over 60 per cent. had suffered from some form of venereal disease.’ [7]

[Pg 89]

Lord George Hamilton’s despatch quotes from a War Office Report:

‘Of the fatal character of this form of disease’ (syphilis) ‘the committee, after a visit to the military hospital at Netley, where invalids from India are sent for treatment, have drawn a dreadful picture. During their short term of military service a great part (in some cases more than half) of their time has been spent in hospital, either in India or at home. Before reaching the age of twenty-five years these young men have come home presenting a most shocking appearance: some lay there having obviously but a short time to live; others were unrecognisable from disfigurement by reason of the destruction of their features, or had lost their palates, their eyesight, or their sense of hearing; others, again, were in a state of extreme emaciation, their joints distorted and diseased. Not a few are time-expired, but cannot be discharged in their present condition, incapacitated as they are to earn their livelihood, and in a condition so repulsive they could not mix with their fellow-men. Their friends and relatives refuse to receive them, and it is inexpedient to discharge them only to seek the asylum of the poor-house, so they remain at Netley in increasing numbers.’

The Government Departmental Committee (p. 11) [Pg 90] uses almost the very words of the French surgeon Diday, who, in writing some years ago of the dangerous prevalence of venereal disease, so widespread in Paris, warns his readers how this most insidious disease may be spread by ordinary contact, by wet-nurses to infants, or by infants to nurses, by public conveniences, by unsuspected touch, and even by the kiss of relations.

These reports show that wherever a standing army exists, either in Europe or America, whether in temperate or tropical climates, at home or abroad, there exists a focus of the most insidious and dangerous diseases that afflict human beings—diseases which specially injure the procreative power, and which are annually spread in varying amounts amongst the civil population, notwithstanding the most rigorous measures which the wit of the military mind has been able to devise—measures which often trample under foot every principle of justice and mercy.

When we consider also that not only are the standing armies of every civilized country nurseries of the various forms of venereal disease, but that the same dangerous diseases prevail in all our large towns, the gravity of this scourge, which is sapping the vitality of Christendom, is evident.

The more careful study of venereal disease in its two forms of gonorrhœa and syphilis is especially incumbent upon women physicians, on account of the result of important modern researches. These show that many of the female complaints which have so [Pg 91] largely increased, and which we are naturally called upon to treat, are now considered by experienced and clear-headed physicians to be often due to gonorrhœal infection derived from husbands of former loose life—infection conveyed either directly or from recrudescent and insidious forms of trouble hitherto unsuspected. [8]

Before I venture to criticise any procedure or suggestion of the Government, I ask your consideration of certain scientific axioms which must be laid down as necessary data before any wise course of practical action can be initiated with rational hope of success. The first refers to the causes of disease.

Axiom 1.

‘In combating serious disease it is essential to ascertain the chief cause of the disease, which must be directly attacked and steadily removed, or no cure is possible.’

We may as well expect to cure typhoid fever whilst allowing sewer gas to permeate the house, [Pg 92] or cholera whilst bad drinking-water is being taken, as try to cure venereal disease whilst its chief cause remains unchecked.

I shall show later that Promiscuous Intercourse, or the resort of many men to one woman, is a prolific source of venereal disease.

The second axiom refers to the physiological rank and scope of our human faculties.

Axiom 2.

‘The sexual organs are not essential to individual life, although they are essential to the continuance of the race. Neither is their full exercise by sexual congress indispensable to individual health.’

The blind obstinacy with which these scientific facts are ignored in education, in social sentiment, and in Government organizations, is a potent cause of national degeneracy, of impaired procreative power, and enfeebled offspring.

Hunger is the primary instinct and indispensable condition of human life. It is that which insures the continuance of the individual. The sexual instinct, with all its grand power to perpetuate the race, is only a later development, growing with the unfolding of the intellectual and moral nature. It is shared equally under varying aspects by each of the two necessary factors in procreation, woman as well as man.

This fact of the powerful sexual attraction necessarily existent and dominating in woman, as mother of the race, seems to be quite overlooked. In any [Pg 93] true meaning of the word ‘strength,’ this potent social force in women demands far more serious study than it has yet received, although it may exhibit itself in less spasmodic form than in men. [9]

There are two branches of the medical art which urgently require fuller consideration. These are:

The susceptibility of our sexual nature to mental control and direction to noble ends is a great and encouraging scientific truth.

From these data of true physiology the possibility of continence is evident. With further physiological study, its great advantage, up to the full consolidated adult age, can be proved. By scientific study of the biological facts that underlie these data, it can be shown from positive medical experience that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes, or the resort of many men to the same woman, cannot be made physically safe. The gradual elimination of this destructive practice is essential to the progress of the race.

These statements are supported both by historical experience and sound medical knowledge.

The human race, in advancing through lower stages of development, passes from polygamy and [Pg 94] concubinage to the higher state of Christian marriage. The scientific basis which underlies this advance has not yet been realized.

Polygamy, although morally degrading to both parties from its injustice, tyranny, and impairment of vigour, does not produce the special physical curse of syphilitic disease.

But promiscuous intercourse inevitably tends to give rise to varying forms of venereal disease, no matter what precautions may be taken.

In the female subject, irritation, congestion, or inflammation of the parts are the result of unnatural repetition of the sexual act. By such irritation the natural and healthy secretions of those organs are rendered morbid.

The natural secretions of the male organs also become morbid in licentious men, developing into blennorrhagia, or purulent gonorrhœa, and thus the danger of promiscuity is intensified.

Neither is it possible, when such injurious practices are allowed, to cleanse or disinfect the female parts as if they were a plane surface. The woman’s structure is designed for the passage of a child’s head. It is consequently composed of immensely distensible or elastic tissue, forming folds or rugæ, which may retain diseased products. It is also abundantly supplied with active secretory and absorbent glands, whose action may become unhealthy.

The special danger of specific disease also arising from the congress of different races is a well-known [Pg 95] fact. The alarming epidemic of venereal disease, which spread like the plague through Europe in the fifteenth century, was brought from America by the licentious conquerors of Peru. This gravest form of racial injury is now being emphasized by the contrast between the condition of our white and coloured troops in India.

Although medical investigation has failed to determine precisely the originating cause of the specific virus which produces the form of venereal disease named syphilis, yet it is always connected more or less directly with promiscuous intercourse, especially with the advance of armies. [10]

We know, however, that morbid changes may take place in the natural secretions of the male and female organs under impure sexual intercourse, leading to advanced forms of degeneration in the various results of gonorrhœa, producing, particularly when the epidermis is abraded, sores, ulcers, etc. And the poison of diseased secretion is thus conveyed from one to the other partner in vice.

Nor can the presence of infectivity, once acquired, be detected by inspection; and no infected immoral person, still carrying on impure sexual relations, can ever be pronounced healthy or ‘sound’ by means of examination or ocular investigation. Neither can the absence of the so-called venereal germ gonococcus be relied on as proving health. Its specific significance is denied by many competent investigators, [Pg 96] and it is absent in some of the worst forms of disease.

‘Mediate contagion’ is also an important and well-established medical fact. Thus a famous French harlot, called ‘Casse-noix,’ presented none of the grosser signs of venereal disease, yet continued to infect the men who resorted to her.

When to the difficulty of pronouncing the parts with their secretions healthy, is added the existence of uncleanliness, of drunkenness, etc., in either party, the danger of these promiscuous relations is evident.

Now, these positive medical facts appear to be unknown in their full significance to our Government advisers, judging from the latest reports and proposals with regard to disease in the Indian army, which seemed designed to allay national panic rather than to reach the source of the evil. A mistake was certainly made by Government in withdrawing a subject of such vital importance to the nation, from full consideration by our Parliamentary representatives, on account of its painful character. The consequence is that an active but irresponsible Press has thrown a mass of unsifted and shocking statistics broadcast amongst the people, creating widespread alarm.

The army statistics imperatively demand a far more searching examination, both into facts and their causes, than has yet been given, before rational or permanent legislation can be adopted. Any thoughtful person examining the reports referred to, will see that such facts as the following require [Pg 97] elucidation: the actual number of individuals affected (not the repeated return of the same soldier) and the varying category of their complaints; the variations in different cantonments, with the causes of such difference; the effect produced by the introduction of the short-service system and by increased restrictions on marriage; the closure of voluntary hospitals and dispensaries; the influence of malaria and tropical climate on the constitution; the mixture of different races; and the causes which have produced the improved health results which are obtained in the army in England.

These points have not been sufficiently investigated by unprejudiced inquiry. The well-meaning effort of Government to meet a very serious state of things must inevitably fail, because the necessary bases for legislation are not yet established.

It is clear that, until all these essential facts have been carefully looked into by a competent Commission and the results presented to Parliament, no legislation—which apparently destroys the foundations of morality, which perverts and weakens our youth, and which, under the misleading phrase ‘voluntary submission,’ reduces our helpless Indian sisters to virtual slavery of the most destructive character—can be permanently accepted by the British nation. We must look forward, therefore, to a longer and more arduous struggle than the one that was prematurely quieted in 1888. Neither can the struggle between right and wrong methods of practical action be confined to our Indian army. It [Pg 98] concerns our work in Great Britain as well as in India and in Africa. The dire diseases in question are connected with all large towns as well as with every military station, and as physicians we must study them in these two relations.

On this vast subject I can only refer to-day to two practical methods of gradually extirpating venereal disease from our army in India.

The first is the steady discouragement by Government of promiscuous intercourse.

The second is the removal of the idleness which curses our soldiery in an army of occupation.

The first indispensable condition in the prevention of disease is the steady discouragement of promiscuous intercourse.

Now, I assert positively that such discouragement has never been seriously and steadily tried in the army by Government, but only by unofficial efforts—efforts which are most valuable, but which are entirely lacking in the force of organization and in the important recognition and help which Government alone can afford.

In the ‘Memorandum of the Army Sanitary Commission,’ No. 2, published this year, on the first page appears the following noteworthy statement—so [Pg 99] utterly misleading as to amount to virtual falsehood:

‘The efforts to teach the soldiers habits of self-control having so signally failed, those responsible for the maintenance of the efficiency of the army in India may well be excused if they look about for some effective means of arresting the progress of the disease and preserving their battalions fit for service.’

Now, what are the Government efforts here referred to which are said to have failed?

In examining the circulars issued from the Quartermaster-General’s Department from 1870 to 1884 for the adoption of stringent measures ‘to reduce the chances of venereal disease,’ it is found that the recommendation consists in instructing the soldiers how to cleanse themselves after dangerous sexual indulgence! No circular is issued from the Quartermaster’s Department requiring that the soldier shall be taught how to control his ignorant instincts and honouring such control ( that is left to scattered individual effort), but official instruction is confined to the vain endeavour of teaching him how to satisfy lust without extreme risk! Surely this is adding hypocrisy to culpable disregard of the national welfare.

It is encouragement to continence which the young soldier needs; and remember that numbers of these soldiers are enlisted between eighteen and twenty-five years of age—an age when every physician knows that the male organization is being consolidated, [Pg 100] and when continence is invaluable in helping the physical forces to build up a fine strong manhood. Encouragement to self-control, therefore, must be afforded from the soldier’s first introduction to Her Majesty’s service.

It must begin with the recruiting sergeants, who should be moral men, and understand that continence in the soldiers will be regarded with the highest honour, as preservative of physical efficiency and moral bravery.

The inspectors of recruits, and especially the medical staff, must give the important instructions needed by soldiers of how to restrain their passions.

The sexual organs are not a permissible subject of trade, and purchase of the female body should be discouraged in all the manifestations that official influence or human law can legitimately reach. The army surgeons must themselves know the physical reasons why the practice of immorality can never be rendered safe, and by object-lessons taken from the military hospitals they can teach ignorant soldiers that no death is to be feared in comparison with the shocking results of incontinence. They can indicate the rational means of physical exercise and mental discipline by which the eager passions of youth can be controlled, whilst at the same time they insist upon the necessity of a non-stimulating diet in tropical climates.

The chaplains of the army have the next and still higher duty to perform towards each undisciplined youth who is given up body and soul to the [Pg 101] absolute direction of the army authorities. No chaplain should be appointed to our Indian army who is not only himself a moral man, but who has also learned the physical possibility and immense advantage of self-control, and is thus able from the basis of physiological knowledge to rise to the higher plane of religious instruction. Without such physiological knowledge, as a sound support of well-grounded spiritual faith, his sacred calling may seem a badge of hypocrisy, more deadly and destructive from the profound responsibility of the position which he has ventured to fill.

The immense influence which commanding officers may exert by their own example and sympathy cannot be enlarged on here. But until such influences are brought to bear on the recruits by the Government , it is not true to state that efforts to teach self-control have signally failed, for they have not been made. [11]

Our responsibilities to the people of India, where England has become the paramount Power, are very weighty. These responsibilities are due to its women as well as to its men. It is stated that, according to the last census, there were the enormous number of 38,047,354 girls under fifteen years of age in our Indian Empire. What is the duty of a Christian Government to this helpless mass of human beings? The formation of poor young Indian women into a class purchasable by white soldiers—a class despised [Pg 102] by their own people, with no refuge before them, but when used up turned out to die—is a dire and dastardly disgrace to any Government calling itself civilized. The removal of temptation by forbidding our soldiers to purchase our young Indian sisters, and, if necessary, excluding them entirely from the cantonment, is a distinct duty on the part of any Government that seriously means to banish venereal disease from our army.

The second urgent preventive measure which should engage our military authorities is the removal of that dangerous idleness which is a constant temptation to the soldiers through so many weary hours of every day. This subject can only be referred to here, for, although of extreme importance, its practicability and adaptations must first of all be thoroughly discussed by military men intimately acquainted with the exigencies of army life. But it is a paramount duty to provide constant useful employment and healthy recreation for our soldiers in every army of occupation, during the cooler hours of the evening in tropical climates, when such employment becomes possible as well as imperative.

The remarkable organization of an army is the most powerful training-school, in good or evil, for the poorer classes of men, that we possess. The conversion of an army of occupation into a school of the industrial arts needed in its maintenance—with rewards for industry, sobriety, and self-control—must surely be in the power of any Government that resolutely determines to accomplish such a noble transformation. [Pg 103] The saving in health and even in money would be a great economic gain. The Government that carried out such a grand result would be a mighty benefactor to our race.

It is impossible now to go fully into the various branches of this vital subject, but I would say to my younger medical sisters, who will carry on here the grand work of medicine when I have entered upon another sphere of life, that I most earnestly counsel them to recognise that the redemption of our sexual relations from evil to good, rests more imperatively upon them than upon any other single class of society. It will be a cowardly dereliction of duty to refuse any longer to study this grave subject of venereal disease now again forced upon our attention, because the subject—which concerns both sexes equally—is a repulsive one.

To us medical women, the special guardians of home life, has been opened the path of scientific medical knowledge, which, as science, embraces both mind and body; and it is by our advance, independently but reverently, in that path, guided by our God-given womanly conscience, that we shall be able to detect clearly the errors in relation to sex, which lie at the root of our present degeneracy.

It is not conspicuous public action that is required from us, but the thorough realization of true physiology.

We must ourselves recognise the truth, and instruct parents, that it is a physiological untruth to suppose that sexual congress is indispensable to male health. [Pg 104] We must warn our young men that no loose woman picked up in the streets, or in a brothel, or in her own house, can be pronounced physically safe, no matter how attractive she may seem to be. We must warn our poor young women patients that yielding to the solicitations of a supposed lover may unfit them to become healthy wives and mothers. We must persistently arouse the conscience of parents to the very grave risks that their daughters run in uniting themselves to men of former loose life.

This is the confidential but imperative duty of true physicians. It is by quiet but never-ceasing effort to spread the true view of scientific medicine amongst our patients, and wherever the opportunity occurs, that our influence as Christian physicians will gradually permeate society, and cause truth to prevail over error.

If you perceive that the principles I have laid down are sound, then hold to them firmly as the most precious truth.

Meet together to mature practical applications of those principles by intercommunication of experience and mutual encouragement, feeling sure that where two or three meet together in the everlasting Spirit of the Christ , you will find, as I have found during a long life, that light and strength will be given you, and as earnest followers of the Great Physician you will take part in that mighty work of regeneration, which from our present small beginnings will, I fully believe, grow and transfigure the twentieth century.

[Pg 105]

‘Until the last twenty years specific urethritis was regarded, in the male, as an affection of the most trivial import, as rapidly passing off, leaving few serious sequelæ, and offering itself as an excellent subject for jest and good-natured badinage. About two decades ago, Dr. Emil Noeggerath published a dissertation upon this affection, which will for ever preserve his name in the list of those who have accomplished good for mankind, and give him claim to the title of benefactor of his race. This observer declared, first, that out of growing young men a very large proportion prior to marriage have specific urethritis; second, that this affection very generally causes urethral stricture, behind which a “latent” or low-grade urethritis is for many years prolonged; third, that even as late as a decade after the original disease had apparently passed away the man may transmit it to a wife whom he takes to himself at that time; [Pg 106] and fourth, that the disorder affects, under these circumstances, the ostium vaginæ and urethra, and thence passes up the vagina into the uterus, through the Fallopian tubes, where it creates specific catarrh, and by this disease produces oöphoritis and peritonitis, which becomes chronic, and often ends in invalidism, and sometimes even in death. For this essay Dr. Noeggerath was assailed by ridicule and by contradiction. The matter has now been weighed in the balance, and admitted to its place among the valuable facts of medicine.

‘My estimate of specific urethritis as a factor in the diseases of women—and I take no peculiar or exaggerated views concerning the matter—will be vouched for by all progressive practitioners of gynæcology to-day. Specific vaginitis, transmitted to virtuous women by men who are utterly ignorant of the fact that the sins of their youthful days are at this late period bringing them to judgment, is one of the most frequent, most active, and most direful of all the causes of serious pelvic trouble in women—one which meets the gynæcologist at every turn, and one which commonly proves incurable except by the dangerous procedure of cœliotomy.

‘Think for a moment of the terrible position in which a high-minded, upright, and pure man finds himself placed without any very grave or unpardonable fault on his part. At the age of nineteen or twenty, while at college, excited by stimulants, urged on by the example of gay companions, and brought under the influence of that fatal trio lauded by the [Pg 107] German poet—“Wein, Weib, und Gesang”—the poor lad unthinkingly crosses the Rubicon of virtue! That is all! On the morrow he may put up the prayer, “Oh, give me back yesterday!” But yesterday, with its deeds and its history, is as far beyond our reach as a century ago, and returns at no man’s prayer.

‘Four or five years afterward this youth goes to the marriage bed suffering, unknowingly, from a low grade of very slight latent urethritis, the sorrowful memento of that fatal night, which has existed behind an old stricture, and a result is effected for the avoidance of which he would most gladly have given all his earthly possessions.

‘All this sounds like poetry, not prose; like romance, not cold reality. But there is not a physician in this room who does not know, and who will not at once admit, that every word that I have uttered is beyond all question true, and even free from exaggeration.

‘I mentioned, in speaking of the grave duties demanded by puberty, that one of the important functions of the physician in regard to the development of the girl during the thirteen years which precede it, is to instruct her and her guardians how to prepare her for the approaching issue. In language no less strong I would here insist upon the physician’s duty to instruct men in all stations of life as to the importance of a “clean bill of health” in reference to gonorrhœa, both acute and chronic, before the marriage contract be entered upon.

‘Until a very late period the plan universally [Pg 108] followed has been this: The man about to be married went to his physician, told him the history of a gonorrhœa, and asked if, now that all discharge appeared to have ceased, any danger would attend his consummating the tie. The physician would ask a few questions, examine the virile organ carefully as to discharge, and, if the “outside of the platter” appeared clean, give his consent to the union. The evil which has resulted from this superficial and perfunctory course has been as great as it has been widespread. To-day the question of stricture, a slight, scarcely perceptible “latent gonorrhœa,” with its characteristic “gonococcus,” is looked into, and not until all trace of disease is eradicated is permission given for the union. A marital quarantine is as necessary to-day in social life as a national quarantine is for contagious diseases in general.

‘Few men, however eager for matrimony they may be, would run the great risks attendant upon precipitancy if they only knew of them clearly and positively. In no field of medicine is the old adage, “Prevention is better than cure,” more important than in this one. If physicians would do their duty fully in the matter, how many unfortunate women now languishing from “pyosalpinx” would in the next generation be saved!’

[Pg 109]

Memorandum by the Commander-in-Chief.

‘It will be the duty of company officers to point out to the men under their control, and particularly to young soldiers, the disastrous effects of giving way to habits of intemperance and immorality; the excessive use of intoxicating liquors unfits the soldier for active work, blunts his intelligence, and is a fruitful source of military crime.

‘The man who leads a vicious life enfeebles his constitution, and exposes himself to the risk of contracting disease of a kind which has of late made terrible ravages in the British army.

‘Many men spend a great deal of their short term of service in the military hospitals, the wards of which are crowded with patients, a large number of whom are permanently disfigured and incapacitated from earning a livelihood in or out of the army.

‘Men tainted with this disease are useless to the [Pg 110] State while in the army, and a burden to their friends after they have left it.

‘Even those who do not altogether break down are unfit for service in the field, and would certainly be a source of weakness to their regiments and discredit to their comrades if employed in war.

‘It should not be beyond the power of company officers to exercise a salutary influence in these matters, more particularly over the younger men. Many of these join the army as mere lads, and are taken away early in life from the restraints and influences of home. They should be encouraged to look to their superiors, both officers and non-commissioned officers, but more especially to the officers commanding their troops, batteries, and companies, for example and guidance amid the temptations which surround them.

‘The Commander-in-Chief expects officers and non-commissioned officers to be always ready and willing to afford them sympathy and counsel, and to spare no effort in watching over their physical and moral welfare.

‘Officers should do their utmost to promote a cleanly and moral tone amongst the men, and to insure that all rowdyism and obscenity in word or action is kept in check. In no circumstances should public acts or expressions of indecency be tolerated, and if in any case there is reason to suspect that immorality is carried on in barracks or other buildings which are under the control of the military authorities, vigorous steps should be taken by surprise visits [Pg 111] or otherwise to put a stop to such practices. All persons implicated in them, whatever may be their rank or position in the Service, should be punished with the utmost severity.

‘Nothing has probably done more to deter young men who have been respectably brought up from entering the army than the belief, entertained by them and by their families, that barrack-room life is such that no decent lad can submit to it without loss of character or self-respect.

‘The Commander-in-Chief desires that in making recommendations for selection for promotion regard should be had to the example set to the soldier. No man, however efficient in other respects, should be considered fit to exercise authority over his comrades if he is of notoriously vicious and intemperate habits.

‘The Commander-in-Chief is confident that officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in the Queen’s service will spare no pains to remove from the army the reproach which is due to a want of self-restraint on the part of a comparatively small number of soldiers, and that officers of all ranks will do their utmost to impress on their men that, in the important considerations of morality and temperance, soldiers of Her Majesty’s army should, as befits their honourable calling, compare favourably with other classes of the civil population.

‘ War Office ,
‘ April 28, 1898 .’

[Pg 112]

An Address given at the Conference of Rescue Workers held in London, June, 1881

The letter inviting me to take part in your deliberations proposed many important subjects for discussion, and, amongst others, the subject of venereal disease amongst the fallen. On this point I was asked more especially to give information. I esteem it a privilege to aid in any way your very important work. I will begin by stating certain propositions which are fundamental in rescue work, and which are susceptible of ample proof.

First. By prostitution is meant mercenary and promiscuous sexual intercourse, without affection and without mutual responsibility.

Second. Its object is on one side pecuniary gain, on the other side the exercise of physical lust. It is the conversion of men into brutes and of women into machines.

Third. So far from its being necessary to humanity, it is the destruction of humanity. It is the production of disease, of gross physical cruelty, of moral death.

Lastly. It should be checked by legislative enactment, and destroyed by social opinion.

[Pg 116]

Now, to amplify and enforce the foregoing propositions would require a longer space than it would be right for one person to claim in a general conference, and would prevent the special consideration of the subject of disease. I will, therefore, simply offer them for consideration as fundamental propositions. I will only beg you to observe the distinct statement in the above, that it is the sexual intercourse without affection and without responsibility that I have spoken of. I say nothing about the exercise of the sexual faculties in legitimate or illegitimate single unions, where affection and responsibility may enter as elements. However injurious, therefore, illegitimate but single unions may be to the welfare of society, I leave them entirely aside in these remarks, as not coming under the head of prostitution. I speak of the conversion of soulless lust into a business traffic—of the system of brothels, procurers, and so-called Contagious Diseases Acts—the system which provides for, not checks, vice. I solemnly declare that so far from this system being a necessary part of society, it is the greatest crime that can be committed against our common humanity.

Let me now lay bare to you the root of the whole evil system, because, as a physician acquainted with the physiological and pathological laws of the human frame, and as one who has lived through a generation of medical practice amongst all classes of the community, I can speak to you with a positive and practical knowledge rarely possessed by women. The central point of all this monstrous evil is an audacious [Pg 117] insult to the nature of men, a slander upon their human constitution. It is the assertion that men are not capable of self-control, that they are so inevitably dominated by overwhelming physical instincts, that they can neither resist nor control the animal nature, and that they would destroy their mental or physical health by the practice of self-control. Now, it is extremely important that you should understand exactly the nature of this dangerous falsehood. It is that most dangerous of all kinds of falsehood—the perversion of truth. I think it was Swedenborg who said: ‘I saw a truth let down into hell, and forthwith it became a lie.’ I have often thought of this bold image when observing in the present day the audacious lie which is announced as truth, in relation to that grand and universal force of humanity, the sexual power.

When you see a poor drunkard reeling about the streets, when you recognise the crimes and misery produced by intemperance, you do not say that drunkenness is necessary to men, and that it is our duty to provide clean and attractive gin-shops and any amount of unadulterated alcohol to meet the craving appetites of old and young. On the contrary, you form a mighty crusade against intemperance. And how do you go to work? You recognise the absolute necessity which exists in human nature for amusement, social stimulus, refreshment, change, and cheerful hilarity; and so you provide bright entertainments, bands of hope and excursions for the young, attractive coffee palaces and clubs for the [Pg 118] adults. In your entertainments you substitute wholesome drinks for ‘fire-water’; you repress the sale of alcohol by legislative enactments, you arrest drunken men and women, and you establish inebriate asylums for their voluntary cure. You recognise that drunkenness is a monstrous perversion of legitimate human necessities, and you set to work to reform public opinion and social customs. Whilst on the one hand you legislate, on the other hand you educate. You perceive that the distinctive feature of humanity is its power of intellectually guiding life, and you train boys and girls in the exercise of this specially human faculty, moral self-control.

Now, my friends, lust, unchecked, untransfigured by affection, is like fiery alcoholic poison to the human constitution. It constantly grows by indulgence; the more it is yielded to, the fiercer it becomes; an instinct which at first was governable, and susceptible of elevation and enlightened direction and control, becomes through constant indulgence a vicious domination, ungovernable and unrestrainable. When unsubdued it injures the health, produces disease, and grows into an irresistible tyrannical possession, which converts human beings into selfish, cruel, and inhuman devils. This is what the great universal force of sexual passion becomes when we resolutely ignore it in childhood and youth, refuse to guide it, but subject it to accumulated vicious influences in manhood; and when even our churches and religious organizations are afraid or ashamed to deal with this most powerful force of our God-created [Pg 119] human nature, we suffer lust to grow into a rampant evil, a real drunkenness, and then we have the audacity to say in this nineteenth century, ‘This is the nature of men; they have not the human power of intelligent self-control; women must recognise this fact, and unbridled lust must be accepted and provided for.’

Now, I say deliberately, speaking as a Christian woman, that such a statement and such a belief is blasphemy. It is blasphemy on our Creator who has brought our human nature into being, and it is the most deadly insult that has ever been offered to men. Do not accept this falsehood. I state to you as a physician, that there is no fact in physiology more clearly known than the constantly increasing power which the mind can exercise over the body either for good or evil. If you let corrupt servants injure your little children, if you allow your boys and youths to practise self-abuse and fornication at school and college, if you establish one law of divorce for a man and another for a woman, if you refuse to protect the chastity of minors, if you establish brothels, prostitutes, and procurers, you are using the power of the mind over the body for evil. You are, indeed, educating the sexual faculty, but educating it in evil. Our youth thus grows up under the powerful influence of direct education of the sexual instincts in vice; but so far, even in our so-called Christian civilization, we are ashamed to attempt direct education of those faculties for good.

I have made the above remarks as bearing directly [Pg 120] on the subject of disease, as well as to call your attention to the proper place which ‘rescue work’ must occupy in humanitarian work. As prostitution is the direct result of unbridled licentiousness, you may as well attempt to ‘mop up the ocean’ as attempt to check prostitution, unless at the same time the root of the evil—viz., licentiousness—is being attacked. Let it be distinctly understood, however, that I would encourage, not discourage, rescue work. I honour the self-denial and beneficence even of those who cannot see the source of the evil they are trying to mitigate; but I would much more strongly encourage those who, being engaged in this work, do at the same time clearly recognise that the warfare against licentiousness is the more fundamental work, and who, whilst themselves engaged in rescue work, bid God-speed and give substantial encouragement to all others who are directly engaged in the great struggle against every form of licentiousness—against every custom, institution, or law that promotes sexual vice. Such earnest rescue workers are not simply mopping up the ocean, they are also helping by their encouragement of other fundamental work to build up a strong dyke which will resist the ravages of destructive evil forces. Thus, any efforts that can be made to teach personal modesty to the little boys and girls in our Board schools all over the country form a powerful influence to prevent prostitution. Attention to sexual morality in educational establishments everywhere, in public and private schools and colleges, amongst young men and young women, is [Pg 121] of fundamental importance. Also efforts to secure decency in the streets, in literature, in public amusements, form another series of efforts which make a direct attack upon licentiousness, and cut away another cause of prostitution. Again, the abolition of unjust laws and the establishment of moral legislation form another series of effort, and a vital attack upon the roots of prostitution. Always remember that the laws of a country possess a really terrible responsibility through the way in which they influence the rising generation. Inequality between the sexes in the law of divorce, tolerance of seduction of minors, the attempt to check sexual disease by the inspection of vicious women, whilst equally vicious men are untouched—all these striking examples of the unjust and immoral attitude of legislation will serve to show how law may become a powerful agent in producing prostitution through its direct attitude towards licentiousness. Now, every encouragement afforded by those engaged in rescue work to fundamental efforts to check licentiousness, either through subscription of money, through expressed sympathy, or through active work, is also aid to rescue work, because such fundamental efforts attack the causes of prostitution. Having thus stated distinctly the aspect under which rescue work must always be regarded—as a precious outgrowth of Christian charity, but not as a fundamental reform—I will speak more fully on those points upon which my opinion has been particularly asked for—viz., the question of venereal disease as affecting individuals [Pg 122] and posterity, and the effect of late legislation on prostitution.

This subject of venereal disease is a very painful one to the non-professional mind, and I would not bring it before an ordinary audience. But this is an assembly of experienced women dealing directly with the vicious classes of society. I think such persons are bound to inform themselves on this subject. It is needed to their effective work, and I consider it an honourable duty to furnish what necessary medical knowledge I can.

Venereal diseases, syphilis, gonorrhœa, are all names distinctively used for the diseases of vice, which exist in various forms. All forms of these diseases are injurious to the health of the diseased individuals. All forms also are injurious to the health of the partner in sexual intercourse. But only one form of such disease is transmissible to offspring. I shall not enter upon the question of the extent to which these diseases endanger the health of the community. My long public and private medical observation leads me entirely to concur in the opinion of Sir John Simon (formerly Medical Officer of the Privy Council), as to the exaggerated statements that have been made respecting the extent of these diseases. I fully recognise, however, the very grave character of venereal disease, and as a hygienist I consider that any danger from such a cause should be checked.

These diseases are called the diseases of vice because they spring directly from the promiscuous [Pg 123] intercourse of men and women. Syphilis never arises from the single union of a healthy man and woman. We do not know the exact conditions under which promiscuity produces these diseases. Dirt and excess of all kinds favour their production; but we also know that, however apparently healthy the individuals may be who give themselves up to indiscriminate debauch, yet these diseases will speedily arise amongst them. Now, I wish to point out with emphasis (to you who are engaged with the criminal classes) this chief originating cause of disease—viz., promiscuity. It is a cardinal fact to notice in studying this subject, for it furnishes a solid basis of observation from which you may judge legislation and all proposed remedial measures. If you will bear in mind that unchecked licentiousness or promiscuity contains in itself the faculty of originating venereal disease, you will possess a test by which you may judge of the good or evil effects of any proposed measure. Ask yourself whether any particular legislative Act tends to check licentiousness in both men and women; if not, it is either useless or injurious to the nation, because it does not check that source of constantly increasing danger—viz., promiscuity. The effect of brothels and Contagious Diseases Acts, of establishments and laws which do not tend to check promiscuous intercourse, is to facilitate, not stop, such vice, and cannot eradicate the diseases of vice which spring from such intercourse. The futility of any system which leaves the causes of disease unchecked, and only tries to palliate [Pg 124] its effects, is evident. The futility of such a false method would remain, even if it compelled the inspection of vicious men as well as women. But when a system attempts only to establish an examination of women, leaving men uninspected, and allowing free scope to the licentiousness of all, it becomes a direct encouragement to vice. It tends to facilitate that brutal custom of promiscuous intercourse without affection and without responsibilities which is the disgrace of humanity—the direct source of physical disease as well as of measureless moral evil.

But I do not advocate letting disease and vice alone. There is a right way as well as a wrong way of dealing with venereal disease. I consider that legislation is needed on this subject. It is unwise to propose to do nothing because legislation has unhappily done wrong. It is out of the question to suppose that in this age, when we justly boast of the progress of hygiene or preventive medicine, so great an evil as the unchecked spread of venereal disease should be allowed to continue. It was the necessity of providing some check to the spread of disease which operated a few years ago, when the unjust and immoral Contagious Diseases Acts were so unhappily introduced into England by those who certainly could not have realized their injustice and immorality. All legislation upon the diseases of vice which can be durable— i.e. , which will approve itself to the conscience of a Christian people—must be based upon two fundamental principles—the principles, [Pg 125] viz., of equal justice and respect for individual rights. These principles are both overturned in the Contagious Diseases Acts—Acts which are, therefore, sure to be abolished in a country which, however many blunders it makes, is equally distinguished for its love of justice and its love of liberty. Respect for individual rights will not allow compulsory medical examination and treatment. The right of an adult over his or her own body is a natural fundamental right. We should uproot our whole national life, and destroy the characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race, if we gave up this natural right of sovereignty over our own bodies.

Society, however, has undoubtedly the right to prevent any individual from injuring his neighbour. Interference to prevent such injury is just. The same sacredness which attaches to individual right over one’s own person exists for one’s neighbour over his or her own person. Therefore, no individual suffering from venereal disease has a right to hold sexual intercourse with any other person. In doing so he goes outside his individual right and injures his neighbour. The wise principle on which legislation should act in dealing with venereal disease is therefore perfectly clear. Society has a right to stop any person who is spreading venereal disease; but it has no right to compel such a person to submit to medical treatment. It is of vital importance to recognise the broad distinction between these two fundamental points—viz., the just protection which society must [Pg 126] exercise over its members, and the inherent right of self-possession in each of its members.

Accepting, therefore, one essential legislative principle so strongly emphasized by the Contagious Diseases Acts—viz., that the State has a right to interfere with sexual intercourse when its vicious action injures society—what we must strive for is an enlightenment of public opinion which will insist upon a just , practical law upon this subject. The contagious diseases legislation indicates that the time has arrived when the intervention of law is needed to place greater restraint upon the brutal lust which tramples on the plainest social obligations. A law wisely enforced, making the communication of venereal disease by man or woman a legal offence, would place a necessary check on brutal appetite. Such a law would not be the introduction of a new principle into legislation. The principle of considering sexual intercourse for the good of society has always been recognised, and must necessarily be developed with the growth of society. It was reaffirmed, but in an injurious manner, a few years ago.

It is the just and moral application of this principle that must be insisted on, instead of an unjust, immoral, and tyrannical perversion of the principle. The necessary safeguards in the working of such a law, the special inquiry, the protection of innocence, the avoidance of public scandal, etc., must be sought for with care. But the people have a right to require that legislators shall seek for and find the [Pg 127] right method of enforcing any law which is just in principle and necessary for the welfare of society. It is not only a duty, it is the greatest privilege of enlightened statesmen to embody the broad common-sense and righteous instinct of a Christian people in the institutions of a nation.

A law which makes it a legal offence for an individual suffering from venereal disease to hold sexual intercourse with another person, and a ground for separation, is positively required in order to establish a true principle of legislation, a principle of just equality and responsibility which will educate the moral sense of the rising generation and protect the innocent. Any temporary inconveniences which might arise before the wisest methods of administering the law had been established by experience, would be as nothing compared with the elevating national influence of substituting a right method of dealing with the diseases of vice for the present unjust and evil method. The first direct means, therefore, for checking venereal disease is to make the spreading of this disease a legal offence.

Secondly, a necessary regulation to be established in combating the spread of this disease is its free treatment in all general dispensaries and hospitals supported by public or charitable funds. Such institutions have hitherto refused to receive persons suffering from disgraceful diseases, or have made quite insufficient provision for them. This refusal or neglect has left venereal diseases more uncared for than ordinary diseases. It was a perception of this [Pg 128] neglect which induced the establishment of special institutions for the cure of such disease. But no general hospitals, supported by charitable funds given to cure the sick, have a right to refuse to make adequate provision for any class of curable suffering which is not infectious— i.e. , dangerous to the health of the other inmates. The rigid exclusion in the past of venereal diseases from our general medical charities, on the ground of their disgraceful nature, has done great mischief by producing concealment or neglect of disease. This mischief cannot be repaired in the present day by establishing special or so-called Lock hospitals. A strong social stigma will always rest on the inmates of special venereal hospitals, a stigma we ought not to insist upon inflicting, but no such stigma rests on the inmates of a general hospital. These hospitals are established for the purpose of relieving human suffering, and such suffering constitutes a rightful claim to admission not to be set aside.

While thus advocating the careful framing of a law to make communication of venereal disease by man or woman a recognised legal offence, and whilst insisting upon the claim of this form of physical suffering to free treatment in all general medical charities, I would most earnestly caution you against the dangerous sophism of attempting to treat women as prostitutes. Never do so. Never fit women for a wicked and dangerous trade—a trade which is utterly demoralizing to both men and women and an insult to every class of women. The time is coming when [Pg 129] Christian men and women will see clearly that this hideous traffic in female bodies, this frightful danger of promiscuous intercourse, must be stopped. Men themselves will see that they are bound to put a check upon lust, and forbid the exercise of physical sex to the injury of another individual. Serious consideration will then be given to the ways in which sexual power may be rightfully exercised, and preserve its distinctly human features of affection and mutual responsibility. Whilst social sentiment is growing towards such recognition, it is our duty as women unflinchingly to oppose prostitution— i.e. , mercenary indiscriminate sexual intercourse—and to refuse utterly to countenance it. The tenderest compassion may be shown to the poor creature who ceases to be a prostitute; the most beneficent efforts may be exerted, and sympathy for the individual human soul shown in the merciful endeavour to help every woman to leave this vile traffic, but never fit her for it.

Let no one countenance this human trade in any way by assisting to make vice itself attractive and triumphant over our human nature. I therefore earnestly counsel all those engaged in rescue work to keep this rule clearly in mind. Plead earnestly and affectionately with the female prostitute to leave her vile trade. Offer her remunerative occupation—every rescue worker should be able to do this. [12] If she [Pg 130] has children whom society may justly remove from her deadly influence, work upon her maternal feeling to induce her to become worthy of the care of the innocent and regain her children; but do nothing to raise the condition of prostitutes as such, any more than you would try to improve the condition of thieves as thieves.

There is, however, another suggestion which I will present to you, because it bears directly upon your way of dealing with the vicious and enforcing law, and I believe that its acceptance is only a question of time. I refer to the introduction of a certain number of superior women into the police organization, to act, amongst other duties, as heads of stations where women offenders are brought. I know the scenes which station-houses witness. I know that policemen themselves often dread more to arrest a half-drunken woman than a man, and that it requires more than one man to overpower the maniac who, with tooth and nail and the fury of drink, fights more like a demon than a human being. I know that such wretched outcasts rage in their cells like wild beasts, filling the air with shrieks and blasphemy that make the blood run cold. Nevertheless, wherever a wretched woman must be brought, there a true woman’s influence should also be brought. When the drink is gone, and only the bruised, disfigured womanhood remains, then the higher influence may exert itself by its respect for the womanhood which still is there.

There are many special advantages to be derived [Pg 131] from the introduction of a few superior women into the police-force. I think that the services of a lady like the late Miss Merryweather, for instance, would be invaluable, both for the actual service such a woman would render in the management of female offenders, and also for the higher tone that such appointments would infuse into the police force itself. It is only the appointment of a few superior women that I should recommend, and these must be solely responsible to the highest head of the organization. The introduction of ordinary women corresponding to the common policeman, or in any way subordinate to lower officials, would be out of the question and extremely mischievous. But to secure the insight and influence of superior and proved women in dealing with female offenders, by placing them in positions of authority and responsibility, would be a great step made towards the solution of some of the most difficult problems of society. The problems which grow out of the relations of the sexes have hitherto proved insoluble, the despair of legislation. With the most conscientious endeavour to act wisely, even our ablest statesmen do not know how to deal with them. It is impossible that men alone can solve these sexual problems, because there are two human elements to be considered in such questions, which need the mutual enlightenment which can only result from the intelligent comparison of those two elements. The necessary contribution of wise practical suggestion which is needed from the intelligence of women, can only come through the enlarging experience [Pg 132] gained by upright women. The reform now suggested is one of the steps by which this necessary experience may be reached—viz., the placing of some superior women in very responsible positions in the police organization—positions where their actual practical acquaintance with great social difficulties may enlighten as well as stimulate their intelligent devotion in the search for remedies. [13]

Let me, in conclusion, heartily bid God-speed to the noble efforts of your rescue societies, and to all those engaged in reinstating our fallen womanhood. I hail with deep satisfaction the meeting of this Conference. It is a brave and sincere action on the part of Christian women to meet together and hold serious counsel upon the wisest methods of overcoming the deep practical heathenism of our society—the heathenism of tolerating and protecting mercenary promiscuous sexual intercourse.

[Pg 134]

The object of this work is to show the real meaning of those relations of the sexes, which are commonly known under the term of ‘ordinary immorality.’

Customs in the midst of which we are brought up often befog the vision. Nations, like individuals, may journey on unsuspicious of danger, if no fresh wind lift the veil which hides the fatal precipice towards which they are rapidly moving.

Much has been heard of late respecting criminal immorality— i.e. , the abuse of the sexual powers, which human law recognises as crime. The boundary of criminal immorality has of late been extended in the hope of protecting young girls. When fathers and mothers begin to realize what the destruction of their children by lust really means, natural horror is felt at the corruption or torture of young children of either sex, and a storm of righteous indignation compels an attempt to provide a remedy. But at the same time the very causes which directly lead to and produce the monstrous crimes, are not clearly seen. Horror at effects, diverts attention from vicious customs which lie at the root of evil, and [Pg 136] which inevitably produce crime. Many of those who are most actively engaged in devising safeguards for the very young, draw at the same time a radical distinction between so-called ordinary immorality and what, at that particular epoch, has been labelled criminal by process of law.

It is a fatal imperfection of human laws that, being only an endeavour to enforce fragments of Divine Law, they carry the evil of such disruption with them, and whilst checking wrong in one direction strengthen it in another.

This evil is shown in the broad distinction now drawn between different kinds of sexual immorality, and the results which follow such distinction.

Some persons who would shrink from the guilt of being the authors of a first seduction, or of running the risks of legal prosecution, will not hesitate to engage in ‘ordinary immorality’—that is, they will without scruple purchase the temporary use of a consenting woman for a little money; they will justify the transaction by the plea that what women will sell men may buy; they may even consider that they show a little contemptuous kindness to women in such buying, as industrial conditions press most heavily on women. Women also accept false theories of human nature that blaspheme their Creator, and degrade their exalted rank of motherhood by welcoming profligates and sacrificing their daughters in mercenary marriages.

Until the higher law of human relations is more clearly understood, great confusion of thought will [Pg 137] necessarily exist as the result of ignorance and selfishness. But as old errors are gradually proved, an inevitable and growing discussion will arise in the present age as to the natural relations of the sexes. The most contradictory theories are even now brought forward and actively spread abroad, and in the course of this unavoidable growth of the mental faculties, the necessity or expediency, the wisdom or the guilt, of what is called ordinary immorality must finally be brought before the highest court of public opinion— i.e. , the enlightened conscience of men and women.

Although, however, the widest diversity of opinion may still exist on abstract questions, there is one practical point on which all persons are compelled to agree. It is this—viz., if temporary bargains are made, either expressly or tacitly, by which one party gives money to another for a certain return, such a bargain is trade. If few such bargains are made it is a limited trade, if many it is an extensive trade, but in each case the transactions are equally trade, and are necessarily subject to the laws which govern trade. If, therefore, women are made the subjects of temporary purchase they become the subjects of trade. Now, trade is always directed by the rules and customs prevailing at the time, and the economic aspect requires to be studied; for the laws which govern trade are not fanciful theories, but very real practical facts, which lie at the foundation of our social institutions and silently mould our every-day life.

This is seen clearly by the effects which trade in [Pg 138] land produces, for the methods by which land is held and treated will alter the character of a people as well as change the face of a country. The thrifty farms of New England help to create a sturdy, self-respecting people, whilst the Bonanza machine-managed land monopolies of the West create luxurious absentees and permanent paupers or tramps. Extensive enclosure of hills and commons will destroy the country tastes and habits of generations, whose walks are confined to dusty high roads, and the destruction of a hamlet fills the slums of a city. So the Custom-houses and protective tariffs which municipalities create within their limits, hamper productive industry and help to produce paupers. Even such a modern practice as bicycling has created an extensive trade, with dress and habits and various arrangements, all acting and reacting on the life of the younger generation. Whatever becomes an article of trade, will become at once subject to the methods and regulations of trade, with the ever-widening circle of effects which belong to all industrial action.

Every civilized nation is compelled to cope with the most difficult of all social problems—viz., sexual evil—and the great modern development of benevolence and reform has created a new force endeavouring to solve the same problem. The most varied methods of action have been called forth. Religion and morality, physiology and expediency, pity and severity, have all been invoked in turn to rescue the fallen and to restrain the vicious.

[Pg 139]

But the subject of ordinary immorality as a trade necessity, governed by the economic laws which regulate trade, has not been seriously examined in the light of political economy, nor has the inevitable effect which trade in women must exercise on the character of a nation, been clearly shown.

There is widespread mental evasion or unconscious hypocrisy on this subject. So many wrongs in our social state require to be dealt with, that reformers willingly avoid the painful consideration of sexual evil. Hope is felt that some of the great reforms of the day, in which all thoughtful individuals take a special interest, will prove fundamental in their curative effects, and heal this gravest of our diseases. Thus free access to land, co-operation and abolition of interest, total abstinence, universal suffrage, emigration, arbitration, State-socialism, etc., are all amongst the popular panaceas of the present day, each important reform or theory being chiefly relied on by its special advocates, to change all social relations and eradicate any serious social disorder.

Favourable, however, as improved material or legislative conditions may undoubtedly be to the extension of health and morality amongst a people, these reforms can only be palliative, not curative, if the fundamental conditions of growth and freedom to use them be not guaranteed to all portions of a people. Every really curative measure which will insure the healthy growth of society presupposes a recognition of the needs of our human constitution and an adaptation of our social methods to [Pg 140] those needs. It is only by such recognition and such adaptation that any human measure becomes an embodiment of Divine law. Our conscience must recognise this law, and our Will must render it obedience, in both individual and collective life, for there is no other possible method of securing durable and progressive growth. No human effort can change the supremacy of law written on the human constitution. Human perversity is free to thwart it temporarily, with delusive results which serve to bewilder our short vision; but the law is rewritten with wonderful persistency on each fresh generation of men, and it remains inexorable in its demand for obedience.

If trade in women be contrary to the Divine law written on the human constitution, it will destroy society. Insignificant as the needs of women’s lives may seem to superficial politicians or self-worshipping wordlings, yet these apparently weak lives, because God-created, will prove stronger than all their unstable laws and customs. No arrogant rebellion against the methods of moral progress, however splendid in its material force and its money-worship, can change the awful reality of Divine law.

Is the trade in women such a violation? Does it destroy the freedom, and therefore the necessary conditions of growth, in one-half the human race?

The time has certainly come when earnest reformers should consider to what extent trade in the human body exists in this civilized and Christian nation, and what its effect upon the nation is.

In a subject so vital to human welfare as the [Pg 141] social relations which are established between men and women, it is pusillanimous to refuse to examine them. If the human conscience, slowly awakening, discovers that the necessary laws of progress have been ignorantly violated during the gradual development of humanity, none but pessimists will fold their hands in despair, none but the partially blind will continue to rebel against the Divine law of growth.

[Pg 142]

The wealth of a nation is that which contributes to its real and lasting well-being, which makes it powerful in the present, and durable and progressive in the future. A happy and intelligent people, with just and far-seeing rulers or guides amongst them, is a rich nation, and one that is fulfilling its duty by carrying on the gradual growth and ever higher development of the human race.

Political economy is the study of wealth, and particularly of those results of human activity, which spring from the necessary physical relation of human beings to their surroundings. It is this relation which makes the firm foundation on which political economy rests.

The subject leads to three great branches of inquiry—viz., the things which constitute wealth, the method of their production, and the way in which they are distributed.

The study of wealth must always take in this large scope in any lasting system of political economy, [Pg 143] because the many special branches which the subject includes are all connected together. Every part is built up on the sure foundation of the relation of human needs to their surroundings. If our knowledge of this relation is unsound, the edifice will in time fall down.

In seeking truth in any branch of political economy, whether it be the relations of labour and capital, land tenure, or free trade, etc., examination must be made of this foundation of knowledge. Artificial arrangements which do not recognise the primitive needs of human nature can only lead at last to misery.

Reason shows us that physical needs are imperative in a material world where mind works through matter. They come first in order of growth as the primary condition of life, through which and out of which the higher moral and intellectual forces grow. They are like the first gasping inspiration of the infant, which sets in motion the astonishing mechanism of conscious human life. Trade and commerce are a necessary first outcome of a nation’s physical needs; the nature of its trade and commerce and the methods by which they are carried on are inextricably woven in with social life, and stamp the character of a nation.

Trade and commerce being the direct result of human needs in relation to the material world will be governed by fixed laws respecting the production and distribution of wealth.

The term ‘law,’ however, is often erroneously [Pg 144] applied to temporary phases in the arrangements of human industry, which vary with age and country. But a fixed law in political economy can only become such when, and because, it expresses the necessary relation between human growth or nature, and the conditions which promote it. It is only the result of this necessary relation that can claim the name of Law.

Political economy must, therefore, necessarily be a progressive study, because, although human desires are unlimited, human power or ability to discover law is much more limited. This power grows with intelligence, and intelligence is of slower development than the motive-spring of human life, which is desire, emotion, will.

The methods of producing and distributing wealth must, therefore, necessarily vary. The interval of growth between the Esquimaux bartering his skins, and the Englishman exporting machinery is great. Even the objects and definition of wealth change with race and epoch. There can be no such thing as finality in the applications of human knowledge, because the law of progress—progress of individuals and of races—is stamped on our nature. Political economy, as every other subject of knowledge, must be revised, extended, and re-adapted from age to age.

Although the methods of producing and distributing wealth may vary, the creative Divine laws which determine the welfare of the human race cannot vary. Below the changing phenomenon of epoch, country, and race are fixed principles on [Pg 145] which trade (which may be designated human) must be based. The search for these necessary or fixed laws, and their discrimination from temporary arrangements or adaptations, is not only a legitimate but an indispensable subject of inquiry. It affects not only the foundation, but also the whole edifice of life, which is built upon it in every stage of its construction, helping or injuring each individual of the community, as well as that collective mass of individuals which we vaguely style the nation.

No religious teacher, any more than the (technically styled) social reformer, can afford to ignore this great subject of political economy. A knowledge of its objects, and of the laws which must govern industry, in its march to the promised land of human welfare, constitute a Divine revelation. It is a revelation gradually made through the honest use of our intellectual faculties, and constantly grows from imperfect beginnings, to clearer guidance under an earnest search for truth.

A distinct recognition of the different kinds of wealth must precede any wise or efficient regulation of trade and commerce; for the same method of production and distribution cannot be applied to all. We can neither produce air nor sunshine, nor legitimately attempt to make them the subject of trade, as, being essential to life, they are necessarily supplied free to all. Neither can we produce earth, which (as far as it is essential to life) cannot be made a subject of trade on exactly the same methods, as products which can be indefinitely multiplied. [Pg 146] Neither can strength, energy, or character, which constitute a valuable part of a nation’s wealth, be grown in a similar way to corn, or thrown off by machinery like calico. Education is a different process from printing, and if reduced to the mechanism of manufacture, or converted into a system of money-getting, is self-destructive, frustrating the object of education—viz., the drawing out of the infinitely varied human faculties.

The growth of reason and conscience in the leading nations of the world, is more and more differentiating the various kinds of wealth; data are thus being collected from which the progressive laws of political economy can be deduced. By the leading nations, of course is here meant those communities where a large number of unselfish and thoughtful men, inspired by truth, find their teaching accepted by the uncorrupted though crude intelligence of a patient multitude. Unfortunately, the so-called ruling classes in these nations, are now too often the creators or the creatures of the barbarous and savage hordes which false methods of political economy have produced in our midst. But the possession of a band of honest truth-seekers with earnest listeners eager to be guided, marks the really progressive nation.

It will be found that a true system of political economy must rest upon a moral basis. Trust, freedom, and gradually evolved sympathy are the foundations on which all systems of industry are built up that permanently civilize races.

[Pg 147]

Trust. —Trust is the beginning of exchange. Nordenfeld, in his record of observation round the Arctic circle, relates how money or articles were left in perfect safety, and faithfully replaced by equivalent articles in exchange. A striking instance of the necessity of re-creating trust as the foundation of industry where it has been lost by long-continued oppression, is related by a gentleman who many years ago went as mineral viewer to the Nerbudda Valley. Almost alone, and far removed from the possibility of obtaining white labour, the natives refused to dig for him. He felt compelled to capture a few men and enforce a day’s work, which he at once honestly paid for with the copper currency of the region. But it seemed to the natives the grossest folly on his part that, having gained the labour, he should pay for what he had already obtained, and feeling sure that he would not repeat such folly, they hid away on the following day. The capture had to be repeated during many successive days, and the heavy coin brought at great inconvenience for the daily payment, before the habit of trust could be fairly established; then an oversupply of willing workers crowded round the encampment.

Freedom. —A great advance was made in the onward march of humanity, when the reasons for abolishing slavery became clear to the conscience of the minority, those nations who lead the van of human progress. The production and sale of human beings as articles of merchandise can be made extremely profitable as a money-making trade. It [Pg 148] has been truly said that ‘if the reproduction of capital is the one great means of a nation’s wealth’; if demand and supply, the employment of labour by capital, and profits limited only by the wages of maintenance, are laws of political economy and the right guides of industry, ‘why should sentimental notions about justice and abstract rights of freedom interfere with the national good? Why not grow corn on the sweating system? Why not buy slaves? There is no reason, on so-called economic grounds, why slaves should not be bred like cattle—bred to the exact wants of the agriculturist, and when no more wanted melted down in the sulphuric acid tank and drilled in with the root crops. Any farmer who would have courage to carry on the economy of labour and the reproduction of capital in that way, would farm at a splendid profit.’

For long ages the trade in human beings has been, and is still, carried on. It has only very gradually dawned upon human intelligence, that short-sighted trading customs which destroy the conditions of human development, injure equally the sellers and the sold, and gradually degrade and destroy the societies that practise them. This second foundation of political economy—freedom—still remains unrecognised by the large majority of the human race. But when the destructive character or essential wrong of human slavery was once thoroughly understood by a portion of our nation, they never rested from the fight until it was abolished. The abolition of slavery was the revolt of conscience and intelligence [Pg 149] against a false mercantile system which converts everything into money value.

The wisdom of Wilberforce and his heroic band made a great step in advance by laying down a permanent law for the guidance of human industry. They saw that the human being belongs to a different category of creation from the subjects of his industry, and that he may not be made a thing of trade, that he owes duties to himself and to his neighbours, and that he can neither sell another adult, nor his child, nor himself; that the purpose of human life and the methods of attaining it, are both destroyed when the condition of human freedom is violated by converting human bodies into chattels. The abolition of slavery forbade henceforward the purchase or sale of any individual, whether adult or child.

The same uprisings against injustice in the kindred nation of the United States, has produced a similar advance in intelligent conscientiousness. However much the American Revolution may be misunderstood, the facts remain which prove the great moral movement which preceded it—two generations of united and resolute lovers of freedom, although a minority, had fought to the death for the cause of justice, and prepared the way for the great Emancipation Act of 1863.

It could not be denied that temporary phases of political economy were being set at nought by the abolitionists. There was no flaw in the logic of maintaining slavery as a money-making machine. Vast tracts of land were to be cultivated, useful [Pg 150] products raised, craving desires satisfied, great profits realized, and a clever, energetic race was able to abuse a weak, childish one. But the abolition of slavery united the two leading branches of the Anglo-Saxon race in setting a limit to trade. They established the law that no human being may be bought or sold. They recognised the fundamental conditions of human industry, trust, and freedom, and thus established that higher law that removes human beings from the operations of a mercantile system which measures all things by the standard of money.

Sympathy. —Another great step in advance has been made by the dawn of the Co-operative movement amongst us. As Abolition set a limit to the subjects of trade, so Co-operation is setting a limit to its methods. True co-operators clearly see that to arrest the slave-owner and the slave-dealer by the strong arm of the law, is but a first step to human progress; it is only compelling a necessary condition, not insuring a good end.

But co-operation will secure gradually the third necessary basis of progressive and durable human industry—viz., sympathy.

Doubtless this statement will at once bring to mind not only the selfish combinations of Civil Service supply, but the multifarious quarrels and departure from principle, in the great body of working people distinctively called co-operators.

Nevertheless, the statement is true that co-operation is a new development of practical Christianity, which can introduce that essential element of true [Pg 151] political economy, sympathy, the hitherto missing guide of human industry.

The few friends who met in a small chamber in 1828 and initiated the Manchester and Salford Co-operative Schools were fired by enthusiasm. The poor weavers of Toad Lane, who saved their hard-earned pence and divided their first chest of tea, were filled with pity for their suffering brethren, and eagerly gave the poor room, the precious time, the exhausting thought—all they had to give—to establish the brotherly principle of mutual help. And the large-hearted leaders of the movement, who changed the name of Christian Socialist to Co-operator—Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, Hughes, and many another of the first noble little band—laid down a spiritual basis as the essential foundation of durable material success.

It has been said of the labouring classes ‘that they are unfit for any order of things which would make any considerable demand on either their intellect or their virtue.’ The enlightened co-operator perceives that this is true of all classes of men, rich or poor, in a state of things where industry is ruled by unlimited competition, and trade subjects everything to the domination of money. Where all restrictions are removed, but no sympathy developed, new forms of oppression and revenge arise.

Co-operation, therefore, announces a fundamental law of durable political economy. It adopts mutual aid instead of antagonism in industry, extends a share of the results of labour in equitable proportion to [Pg 152] all who produce them, and replaces competition in money-getting by emulation in superiority of production.

Thus sympathy, the first necessary foundation of industry and social union, is being slowly evolved by the trials, the failures, but the ultimately assured success of the Co-operative movement.

This gradual recognition of the necessary basis of progressive political economy—trust, freedom, and sympathy (here slightly hinted at)—is itself founded upon a rock—viz., the immutability of the Creator’s law of Moral Government, the adaptation of the human constitution to its surroundings, the only method by which steady growth can be secured. The waves of selfishness and false theories dash themselves vainly against this rock, and race after race perishes in the foolish attempt to set aside the Moral Law.

The hopeful light thrown upon the future by the revelation of freedom and co-operative sympathy, as fundamental laws of true political economy, can only be fully perceived by those who have measured the evils of slavery and sounded the fearful depths of misery produced by unlimited competition. The revelations of the results of this phase of competition in which we are living are all around us, in every class of society, in every quarter of the globe. The mercantile system, which makes wealth and money synonymous, and reduces every interest to a subject of trade, spares no relation of life, and desecrates every rank of society. We need not go back to the [Pg 153] crimes which Warren Hastings committed to fill his treasury. The same methods of crushing the weak for money, of bartering honour and conscience in the lust of gain, are going on at this moment in Asia and Africa, in the islands of the Pacific, in uncontrolled America, and enchained Russia. Its effects are seen in the Legislature and the courts of law, in all professions and trades, in the mansion and the lodging-house. Corruption and cruelty inevitably resulting from a false system of political economy, are barring the progress of the human race.

In the present day we prostitute the superior strength gained by us from the principles of Christianity, to the debasement of human beings. Money being considered identical with wealth, sensuality reigns supreme. Money having under this system become the great means of gratifying material desires, the strife to obtain it becomes ever fiercer. The statesman regards it as a highest duty to open new channels of commerce for national activity, quite regardless of the conditions of mutual freedom and sympathy which make commerce legitimate. Whisky, opium, and gunpowder bring rich returns from the ignorant peoples to whom their use was hitherto unknown, and this wicked abuse of our superior intelligence is in strict accord with the short-sighted teaching of the political economy accepted by trade. [14] This species of trade, [Pg 154] carried on without limitation, without the large intelligence of religious insight, must produce a fall of any race equal to the height of its development; for although ‘religion without science is a purblind angel, science without religion is a full-blown devil.’

It is into the last possible phase of limitless competition in buying and selling, that our nineteenth century has entered, by permitting one-half the race to become the merchandise of the other half.

Under a specious hypocrisy, falsely styled freedom of contract, a modern phase of slavery is still exercising its influence in our midst; for the slave-holding principle that the human body may be an article of merchandise is still applied to women, and conscience is still dead to the essential principle of freedom—viz., the sacredness of the human body, through which the soul must grow.

[Pg 155]

It is necessary to define clearly the practical form of evil which is now under consideration, and to the effects of which the consciences of men and women must be roused. Ordinary immorality is not the demoralization of the slums—that horrible result of monopoly and speculation in land, where human beings are herded together like pigs—a condition into which the bargains of trade hardly enter. Neither is it the practice of free lust—a practice where unlimited liberty is claimed by both men and women to indulge the impulses of sexual caprice. Ordinary immorality is the distinct, deliberate application to women of the trading system of money values governed by unlimited competition. In this system activity, opportunity, and cleverness carry the day; conscientiousness and spiritual aspiration are out of place; innocence and ignorance constitute weakness, and, of course, go to the wall.

Ordinary immorality or fornication, assuming the female body to be an article of merchandise, necessarily [Pg 156] subjects this merchandise to those fluctuations of the market, those variations in demand and supply, and that tyranny of capital over labour which destroy freedom of contract.

It may be urged that women ‘consent’ to be purchased, and that therefore there is a radical difference between the purchase of the bodies of men and women, which the anti-slavery movement has pronounced illegal, and the purchase of women by men which we are now considering. The sophistry of such evasion will be apparent if the question of ‘consent’ and the specious hypocrisy generally involved in freedom of contract be closely examined. Freedom of contract can only take place between those who in certain essential particulars are equals. The parties to any contract must be so far equals in intelligence, that they can equally understand any risks that may be run, and clearly foresee the probable results of the bargain; and they must be so far equals in social position, that neither party is compelled by the pressure of circumstances or the fear of want, to accept conditions which are unjust or unwise. No freedom of contract is possible where this degree of intellectual and practical equality does not exist. Freedom implies responsibility. There is no freedom if both parties are not free. Any insistence upon consent to a bargain ignorantly or forcibly made is fraud. It is fraud darkened by varying degrees of cruelty, proportioned to the superiority of intelligence and independence possessed by the stronger party in the bargain.

[Pg 157]

The grave error of excusing purchase by the plea of consent, is fully shown when the relations of capital to labour in the present system of competitive industry are understood. We are now so far removed from the primitive trade of barter, where values were determined by necessities, that first principles are commonly lost sight of. Generations have passed, during which ideas about wealth have become confused through complicated exchanges, stored-up labour inherited by those who no longer labour, violent seizures in the past or cunning ones in the present, with constantly changing standards or ideals. The quite new standard of converting everything into a money value, and measuring its value by money, has taken the place of older methods. As a result, money has become the autocrat of industry. Character, talent, activity still possess their uses, but only as the servants of money or capital, which have practically become interchangeable terms. The weaker portions of the human race are ever more and more deeply crushed down by the misery of a limitless competitive system, which is not based on the legitimate foundations of trust, freedom, and sympathy, and which consequently, by placing money as the irresponsible governor of the industrial world, makes the hypocrisy of so-called ‘freedom of contract’ the most bitter mockery.

It is necessary to realize the overwhelming and illegitimate power of money in the present day, if the condition of any grade is to be justly judged, and the responsibilities for the evils of a vicious [Pg 158] trade rightly apportioned. In the terrible trade which converts the human body into a marketable commodity, it is no figure of speech, but a very weighty fact, that vicious men are the capitalists. The responsibility of that position must be recognised.

In judging either of the parties concerned in the trade, the question, ‘Who are the capitalists or paymasters?’ is the point to be insisted on. This is the fundamental fact to be steadily borne in mind—whether we consider the demoralized women who consent to the conversion of their bodies into merchandise; or the wholesale traders who organize to meet a demand increasing beyond the power of individuals to supply; or the State which connives at the trade; or society which condones it—the capital on which this nefarious traffic rests is supplied by licentious men. This is the great economic fact on which the whole system rests. All legislation and all benevolent effort that do not recognise this fundamental fact, will hopelessly wander in the labyrinth of evil trade, with no clue to direct their energies aright. From this unnatural employment of capital, two other economic evils directly arise—viz., first, the discouragement of honest industry; second, an unfair competition with male labour.

The discouragement of honest industry is a very serious economic evil. Any discouragement to patient industry, thrift, and self-control is direct encouragement to reckless improvidence, vicious indulgence, and the creation of a dangerously increasing [Pg 159] predatory horde. Through obstacles to honest labour, our prisons are now filled with criminals, our streets with the vicious, and our work-houses with paupers. The industrious workers are taxed beyond endurance to support the institutions rendered necessary by the suicidal policy of degrading labour.

The discouraging difficulties which now surround all honest industry press with increased force upon women’s labour, and compel a moral heroism to resist the special temptation which crowds upon them.

It is now a fact that in every large city, no woman with any pretension to natural attractiveness can fail to meet a purchaser. There are men who think it neither shame nor wrong to purchase for shillings or pounds, as the case may be, a temporary physical gratification, without reflection upon the inevitable results, individual and social, of their temporary action. The knowledge that money may be gained so easily, spreads from woman to woman. The contrast between the ease with which the wages of sin may be gained, and the laborious, even crushing methods of honest industry, becomes an ever present and burning temptation to working women.

It is undoubtedly true that the numerical excess of women in Great Britain, with other economic facts, intensifies most heavily upon woman the grinding pressure of our present industrial system. All rescue workers seeking to help their fallen sisters are constantly confronted with the appalling answer, ‘Give [Pg 160] me work; I cannot starve.’ The awful extent of woman’s industrial misery would now be more fully realized, had not well-meant benevolent efforts called in the harsh hand of the police to suppress begging, and thus crush it out of sight.

The increasing and perplexing flood of women in the streets, begging to be bought, is a strange commentary on the effect of the stern repression of begging for alms. If in the future, in addition to the suppression of ordinary begging by men and women, another edict goes forth forbidding women to present themselves for sale, but not forbidding men to purchase them, gross injustice to women will be added to a cruel abuse of power, and fresh impulse given to male vice. Certainly, if it were in the nature of women to become murderous criminals, any increasingly harsh and unjust attempts to crush their misery and degradation out of sight, would drive them into violent crime.

But it is not the seamstress slowly starving in her garret, nor the mass of struggling poverty that is alone, or even chiefly, beset by the fiery temptations of gain, and the enticing pleasures which money can provide. The deterioration of character, which is the gravest result of a false system of political economy, extends to much wider circles of society. This serious fact is sufficient to prove the error of those who look to the industrial independence of women, as the chief means of destroying licentiousness. Although freedom to obtain decent remunerative employment will secure an important condition [Pg 161] for checking social evil, it will be a means only, it can never attain the end.

The great army of domestic servants, whether in public or private dwellings, are surrounded by constant temptations to supplement their wages or relieve their monotonous labour by selling themselves. When we remember the conditions under which the vast mass of servants have grown up, the exposures and privations of their homes, their undeveloped mental state in relation to social duties, the exhausting work upon which the majority of them enter in hotels, lodging-houses, struggling households, or the special danger of rich, careless establishments, and realize both the condition under which their service drags on and the natural instincts of the human being, then it is easy to understand why to a frightfully increasing extent they yield to the solicitations to which they are exposed. The five shillings secretly gained at night becomes an important addition to scanty wages, the stolen pleasures an intoxicating relief to drudgery. The economic effect of thus bringing the lightly-earned wages of vice into competition with the hard-earned wages of honest industry is to discredit the latter, and to produce discontent and careless, unwilling service in industries for which women are naturally better fitted than men; for the same state of things that is injuring domestic service, exists in dress-making, millinery, and all peculiarly feminine industries.

If we take the wider range of labour in which [Pg 162] women compete more directly with men in the labour market, it will be found that this practice of purchasing women introduces an unfair element in remuneration of labour. The introduction of the slave principle (the purchase of the human body) in cheapening women’s labour, has a formidable effect in depressing the wages of working-men. In all systems of industry carried on by slaves the cost of maintenance is, as a rule, the limit of expenditure, the equivalent of wages. Also in the industrial systems of so-called free industry, the maintenance of the labourer again forms a limit beyond which profit cannot be extracted, for no man will consent to labour for less wages than will keep him alive. But this is not the case in regard to women’s labour. As was proved a generation ago in France, and can be amply verified in other civilized countries, women’s wages are forced down below subsistence point.

This important fact, with its cause, has evidently not been fully realized even by so close and impartial an observer as Mill. He says: ‘The wages at least of single women must be equal to their support, but need not be more than equal to it; the minimum in their case is the pittance absolutely requisite for the sustenance of one human being. Now, the lowest point to which the most superabundant competition can permanently depress the wages of a man is always somewhat more than this. The ne plus ultra of low wages can hardly occur in any occupation which the person employed has to live by, except the occupation of a woman.’ Mill is [Pg 163] evidently uncertain as to the causes of the under-payment of women in cases of equal efficiency with men, and is inclined to attribute it to injustice and to overcrowding in a few employments. He remarks: ‘When the efficiency is equal but the pay unequal, the only explanation that can be given is custom, which, making almost every woman an appendage of some man, enables men to take the lion’s share of whatever belongs to both.’

But in this generation, which has thrown open the broad gates of education to women, and which has enormously extended the range of employments into which they are invited to enter, the causes which Mill suggests (overcrowding, injustice, etc.) do not seem to give a sufficient economic reason. One powerful and growing cause of derangement in the natural rewards of labour has been overlooked—viz., the unequal competition with male labour which must result, when the wages given by vice are allowed to supplement the under-payment for honest work, and the street-door key makes up for the deficient salary. Whilst this phase of human slavery exists, and the female body remains an article of merchandise, the increasing competition with male labour will make itself more severely felt as wider fields of industry are extended to women and they develop increasing ability to enter them. The wages of women can never permanently rise to a just scale of labour value, until this slavish principle is eliminated, because this purchase introduces an uneconomical element into the remuneration of labour which [Pg 164] destroys any legitimate effect of demand and supply. It enables competitive employers solely intent on profit to beat down the price of male as well as female labour indefinitely. Indeed, we have by no means reached the limits of this injustice. The practice of purchase is still more dangerous in an economic point of view, because whilst the labour of all women tends to sink to the lowest point of remuneration, this lowest point can be reached in the labour of the young and strong, who are most eagerly sought for as merchandise.

The increasing employment of less remunerated female labour while male labour stands idle, is an alarming fact. The family is barely held together by the earnings, of a daughter, whilst father and brother lounge about the pot-house. The results of any sudden stoppage of a factory where large amounts of this cheap labour has been employed (as in the Barking jute factory, where 800 girls were suddenly thrown out of employment) is an object-lesson in the suicidal policy of degrading women.

The natural order of industry by which the man is the chief material support of the family, is disturbed and destroyed by this unnatural practice.

The purchase of young women adds cruelty to fraud. Youth must always fail to realize results which are only known through the experience of age. No amount of cautious or theoretic teaching given to the young can ever place them on an equality with the experienced adult. Moreover, it [Pg 165] is Nature’s law for youth that sexual attraction is quite out of proportion to intellectual development. The fact of this great natural law of slower mental growth is the Creator’s imperative command laid upon the older generation, to protect and guide the youth of both sexes. The corruption of the young by the adult is not only fraud, it is dastardly cruelty.

Moreover, Nature has laid upon woman the more important share in the great work of continuing the race. It is not therefore pity, but justice which requires that reverent and grateful aid should be rendered by men, in the grand duty of creating an ever nobler race.

Trust, freedom, and sympathy form the bases of true relations between men and women, as they are also the moral foundations of political economy.

The depth of that sin against human nature—fornication or purchase—is seen in the results which follow from tempting women away from the paths of honest industry. These effects necessarily extend to the whole position and character of one-half the race, when any portion of women are turned into human merchandise. They are seen, by a careful study of those reckless or hardened ones who have become so direful a problem in all our large towns. How is that growing army of shameless women created who, with their companions, so fearfully avenge all social injustice on our boys and girls and our young men and maidens?

It is well known that there are thousands of ‘fallen women’ in London. What does this general [Pg 166] statement in relation to women mean in detail? What is involved in living by the sale of the human body? The woman, however ‘fallen,’ is still a human being with its desperate clinging to life. Let it be realized what is involved in thousands of women living to the age of three-score years and ten, who must feed themselves three times a day, and provide lodging, clothing, and the satisfaction of all human needs by the repeated sale of their bodies—thousands of women, with all the craving and ever active necessities of the human being, bodies and souls to be kept alive by the money of their buyers, and who are compelled to use every art of corruption to find the fresh purchasers through whom they have learned to live—women to whom lust and drink rapidly become a second nature, and sloth and falsehood habitual; women driven on by ceaseless material needs to lower and lower phases of misery and vice, in whom a bitterness is engendered that revenges itself on the weakness and innocence of youth, tempting the lad when the adult ceases to purchase; women who—terrible fact—finally losing their own marketable value, and scourged by their own daily recurring needs, throw away the last remnants of womanly instinct, and drag down young girls into their hell of life.

The grave fact must be borne in mind that each one of these thousands of marketable women—although once an innocent infant—now forms a centre of ever-widening corrupt influence in the varied relations of life. Each one, with father and [Pg 167] mother, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances, servants and tradespeople, is exercising a fatal influence, desecrating the sanctity of sexual relations, proving the ease with which the rewards of vice are gained, bewildering the conscience of the innocent, and transmitting sensual tendencies to their descendants.

From these bought women come those enemies of social progress, who enslave our young men of the higher classes, our future statesmen, those who should be the leaders of the nation. From Skittles to Cora Pearl, our generation has witnessed the enslaving power of these tyrants of lust. They have dried up the generous enthusiasm of our youth, and destroyed those principles of trust, freedom, and sympathy which should guide our domestic and foreign policy.

Who is guilty of this appalling conversion of women into demons, this contagion of evil which in ever-widening circles is destroying our moral health, and injuring the modesty, freedom, and dignity of all womanhood? The immediate cause is the man, whether prince or peasant, who purchases a woman for the gratification of lust. It is this purchase which draws women into the clutches of a godless, money-making machine, which never loosens its hold of the feeble creature until the essential features of womanhood are crushed out of recognition. The irresponsible polyandry of prostitution, with its logical acceptance and regulation of brothels, has replaced in the West the polygamy [Pg 168] of the East. In both, degradation, discouragement of marriage, and injustice to women create a fatal barrier to permanent national progress. But there is a more insidious source of evil than the direct purchaser. The conversion of women into merchandise, whilst it produces a dangerous deterioration of female character, unavoidably reacts upon male character. This evil tends in women to produce the vices of the slave—deceit, falsehood, and servility; in men it tends to foster the vices of the slave-holder—arrogance, selfishness, and cruelty. In both it engenders that deadly sin—hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the vice which, above all others, our Lord denounces with the most awful condemnation, raising the drunkard and the harlot, with His far-seeing, merciful purity, and thrusting the Scribe and Pharisee—secret fornicators—into their place. ‘He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’ Hypocrisy is the vice which distinguishes in the most marked degree those nations which dare to call themselves Christian, but who practically deny every principle of Christ’s teaching in the conduct of public and, to a great extent, private affairs. It is under this reign of hypocrisy that a more dangerous condition of sexual evil has grown up amongst us than has ever existed amongst heathen nations. When a savage tribe enslaves its enemies and trades in human flesh it does not trade against its conscience. In its rudimentary condition of slow emergence from brutish ignorance it knows no higher standard than a savage display of muscular force. [Pg 169] When a polygamous nation buys both men and women, or endeavours to enforce the physical chastity of women by harem imprisonment, it obeys the highest authority it knows of, its religion, believed in, although erroneous in its teaching. The bitterest hatred and undying hostility felt by Mohammedan as well as savage communities to their Western invaders is due to the violation of their women, and the treatment of those women according to the hypocritical customs of their lustful conquerors. However false the standard of the savage or semi-barbarous peoples may be, they possess one, and strive to realize it. But the corruption which the latest and intensest phase of competitive money values has introduced into the most enlightened nations, is unexampled in the history of the race. The deliberate reasoning out and justification of the conversion of women into things is the abuse of our highest faculties, our power of reason and conscience.

The cruel vice of fornication, protected by hypocrisy, is sowing moral scrofula broadcast, and, like an insidious poison, producing generations of feeble, rickety wills and maniacal monsters. It is the degeneracy of the race. The palliation of this vice is shaking the foundation of our civilization, by destroying the moral basis on which alone progressive society can rest. The purchaser of a woman is directly guilty, but a deeper source of evil influence is the man or the woman who excuses and sanctions the purchase of women, by upholding [Pg 170] a double standard of morality for the sexes. In the present age, while the actively licentious are following evil customs like sheep, some of their intellectual and spiritual leaders are throwing a veil of hypocrisy over these customs. The God-given faculties for creating literature, investigating science, and promoting religion are being perverted to the justification or palliation of lust.

Our brothers have hitherto been the rough and active pioneers of human progress, first moulding the material framework of society, then becoming its leaders and teachers—teachers of those fundamental moral relations on which human society rests.

But a time has come in the development of the race, when much of the teaching and judgment formed by one-half the race alone, is seen to be liable to error, and requires to be weighed and approved by the other half of mankind.

The women half is necessarily slower in development, from being appointed to bear that great altruistic burden, maternity. But the very shackles or sufferings thus undergone for the sake of the race tend gradually to produce in women special adaptations to the higher spiritual ends of creation.

When we now inquire into and weigh the value of the teachings offered to women as the guide of their human relationship to men, we are struck with its amazing contradictions. All classes and sections bring forth their varying opinions. The scientist and the theologian, the physician, the lawyer and [Pg 171] the journalist, the literary and the business man, the official and the man of leisure, are all seen carrying their load of heterogeneous materials to help build up the Babel of advice to women. All assert their knowledge of ‘Nature and Instinct,’ of ‘Science and History,’ or ‘the tragical plea of material necessity,’ to justify opinions founded on misunderstood data. But the sectional opinions of a portion of the race must necessarily be either imperfect, arrogant, or sentimental, and God confounds the Tower which foolish mortals strive to raise to heaven. All those, both men and women, who retain their reverence for sex, turn away from this unseemly Babel of conceit and short-sightedness, and ponder these things in hearts earnestly seeking truth.

The great question now at issue is the Unity of the Moral Law. This unity is being attacked by the intellectual short-sightedness or unconscious intellectual dishonesty of those who should be its most enlightened upholders.

One of our leading family journals has lately stated that ‘the modern notion of equality impairs the responsibility of special classes for special virtues.’ There is a sense in which special classes may be said to hold special responsibility. Women who are so vitally affected by the relations of the sexes are especially called on to strengthen and guide the sexual virtue of a people. They must consider the conditions essential to such virtue, and when they clearly see the truth, an army of noble men will [Pg 172] zealously help in shaping truth in practice. The great truth which women are now learning is the necessity that every man should be chaste. This is the truth so long unrecognised, but at last discovered as the solution of the great social problem. Without male chastity, female chastity is impossible.

Virtue is not self-righteousness. It is unconscious of self, because it has become a mode of individual existence, and it maintains its vitality by care for others. A chaste woman does not think of her own purity; she thinks of the poor girl drudging in cellars, or hurrying at night, waylaid by tempters, to her poor home, or ‘drilled’ in the rich man’s shop; she thinks of her cherished sons with their noble and innocent young manhood exposed to the influence of the corrupt adult. Women’s responsibility for the purity of society commands her to announce the conditions of purity, and unmask with a relentless justice—which is now the truest mercy—those destroyers of national purity, the upholders of a double standard of sexual morality. The fact that so many cultivated intellects resort to fallacy or metaphysical abstraction to palliate the destructive abuse of our sexual powers, is a direct call on women to help in spreading truth.

There cannot be one moral law for human beings, which is at the same time of unequal application to them. Moral law is not the creation of mediæval art, which, substituting a symbol for entity, represents the Great Creator as an aged man with long gray beard seated upon clouds. The moral law is [Pg 173] not the arbitrary dictum of a man. The authority of the moral law springs from its adaptation by the Creator, to the nature of the beings subjected to it. It is the guide to the highest end of that nature, the necessary method by which its welfare is secured. Its authority is absolute, not relative, because it is the method of highest growth. Divine law admits of no exception, it cannot contradict itself. It is equally binding on the weakest as on the strongest, on the man as on the woman, or it is not law. If men are so constituted that they can grow to the full stature of manhood without obedience to the law of purity, then the moral law of purity does not exist for them, because it is not a necessary method of growth to their highest human development; their nature is not adapted by the Creator to the moral law; its influence over them is thus weakened, its absolute authority destroyed.

To profess to accept the unity of the moral law, but at the same time seek to avoid its consequences, is hypocrisy. The moral law cannot be evaded by any metaphysical creation of ‘noble moral paradoxes.’ [15] Any attempt to define purity as unequally binding on the sexes by being ‘more for women, but not less for men,’ is worse than nonsense, it is dangerous sophistry. It is a confusion of right and wrong, placing men and women on diverging paths which will lead them ever farther apart. It is a strange spectacle, the nineteenth-century Adam cowering under the overpowering justice of the [Pg 174] moral law, seeking refuge behind a paradox! But the weak and erring children of one Great Creator, bound to live together and help or injure one another, must not be turned away from each other by the arrogance or ignorance of any portion of the race. What mortal can determine the varying kind and quality of temptations which assail another mortal life? Who shall dare to say to another, You are not tempted as I am? Who can measure the weakness or the strength of another soul, and measure out judgment by shifting standards of right and wrong? Only by humility can we gain wisdom. Only by doing the will of the Creator shall we learn the doctrine of truth.

[Pg 175]

[Pg 177]

Age after age brings forward varying phases of thought, when some particular facts of life are thrown into unusual prominence, such special development of thought serving to mould the society of that generation, giving it a special stamp, and thus advancing the progress of humanity one step forward. Of all the ideas gradually worked out and gained as the permanent possession of human society, the slowest in growth is the idea of the true relations of the sexes. The instinct of sex always exists as the indispensable condition of life and the foundation of society. It is the strongest force in human nature. Whatever else disappears, this continues. Undeveloped, no subject of thought, but nevertheless as the central fire of life, Nature guards this inevitable instinct from all possibility of destruction. But as an idea, thought out in all its wide relations, shaped in human practice in all its ennobling influences, it is the latest growth of civilization. In whatever concerns the subject of sex, customs are blindly considered sacred, and evils deemed inevitable. The mass of mankind seems moved with anger, fear, or [Pg 178] shame, by any effort made to consider seriously this fundamental idea. It must necessarily come forward, however, in the progress of events, as the subject of primary importance. As society advances, as principles of justice and humanity become firmly established, as science and industry prepare the way for the more perfect command of the material world, it will be found that the time has come for the serious consideration of this first and last question in human welfare, for the subject of sex will then present itself as the great aid or obstacle to further progress. The gradually growing conviction will be felt that, as it is the fundamental principle of all society, so it is its crowning glory. In the relations of men and women will be found the chief cause of past national decline, or the promise of indefinite future progress.

The family, being the first simple element of society—the first natural product of the principle of sex—the whole structure of society must depend upon the character of that element, and the powers that can be unfolded from it. Morality in sex will be found to be the essence of all morality, securing principles of justice, honour, and uprightness in the most influential of all human relations, and as it is all-important in life, so it is all-important in the education which prepares for life. A great social question lies, therefore, at the foundation of the moral education of youth, and influences more or less directly each step of education. It becomes indispensable to consider the relation of this subject to the various stages of education, and the methods [Pg 179] by means of which education may guide and strengthen youth in their entrance into wider social life.

The principles which should guide the moral education of our children—our boys and girls—must necessarily depend upon the views which we hold in relation to their adult life, as men and women; these views will unavoidably determine the course of practical education. Two great questions, therefore, naturally present themselves at the outset of every careful consideration of moral sexual education—

1. What is the true standard for the relations of men and women—the type which contains within itself the germ of progress or continual development?

2. How can this standard be attained by human beings?

The endeavour to ascertain the true answer in its bearing upon the growth of the young and the welfare of family life is the object of this essay.

[Pg 180]

The very gradual growth of mankind from lower to higher forms of social life, makes the study of the relation of the sexes a very complicated one; but a sure guide may be found in the great truths of physiology, viewed in their broad relation to human progress, and it is on the solid foundation of these truths that correct principles of education must be based. The tendency of our age, in seeking truth, is to reject theories and study facts—facts, however, on the largest and most comprehensive scale. Every physician knows that nothing is more stupid than routine practice; nothing more unreliable than theories unsupported by well-observed facts; and, at the same time, nothing more misleading than partial facts. The laws of the human constitution itself, as taught by the most comprehensive investigations of science, must be carefully studied. We must learn what reason, observing the facts of physiology, lays down as the true laws which should [Pg 181] govern the relations of men and women—laws whose observance will secure the finest development of our race, and serve as a guide in directing the education of our children.

The relations of human beings to each other, depend upon the nature and requirements of individuals. It is, therefore, essential to know what the nature of the individual human being really is; how it grows and how it degenerates. Such knowledge must necessarily form the basis of all true methods of education.

We find throughout Nature, that every creature possesses its peculiar type, towards which it must tend, if it is to accomplish the purpose of its creation. There is a capacity belonging to the original germ, which, if the necessary conditions are presented, will lead it through the various stages of growth and of development, to the complete attainment of this type.

This type or pattern is the true aim of the individual. With the process by which it is reached, it constitutes its nature.

In order to determine the nature of any creature, both the type it should attain and the steps by which alone that type can be attained, must be taken into consideration, or we are led astray in our judgment of the nature of the individual. Thought is often confused by a vague use of the term ‘nature.’ The educated man is more natural than the savage, because he approaches more nearly to the true type of man, and has acquired the power of transmitting increased capacities to his children. What is [Pg 182] popularly called a state of nature, is really a state of rudimentary life, which does not display the real nature of man, but only its imperfect condition.

Striking instances of unusual imperfection may often be observed in the physical structure of the individual, for there are blind as well as intelligent forces at work, in the long and elaborate process of forming the complete human being. Thus, sometimes we find that the developmental process of the body goes wrong, and produces six fingers instead of five through successive generations, or the formative power of some organ runs blindly into excess, producing the diseased condition of hypertrophy. Arrest of development, also, may take place at any stage of youthful life as well as before birth, the consequence being deficiency of organic power, or even defective organs, although in such cases growth and repair continue, and even long life may be attained. These conditions are not natural, because, although they exist, they are contrary to the type of man. For the same reason the cannibal must be regarded as unnatural.

In studying the individual human type, we find some points in which it resembles the lower animals, some points in which it differs from all others, and some temporary phases during which it passes from the brute type to the human. If it stop short at any stage of the regular sequence or development, it fails in its essential object, and, although living, it is unnatural.

When we seek for the distinguishing type of the [Pg 183] human being—the type for which the slow and careful elaboration of parts is necessary—we find it in the mental, not in the physical, capacity of man. Physical power and the perfection of physical instincts are attained by the lower animals in a higher degree than by man. It is only when we observe the uses and education of which the physical powers are susceptible, and the development of which the mental powers are capable, that we perceive the immense superiority of the human race, and recognise the type—viz., the true nature of man, towards the attainment of which all the elaborate processes of growth are directed. The more carefully we examine the intellectual growth of the lower animals, tracing the reflex movements and instinctive actions of the invertebrata, through the intelligent mental operations of the dog or the elephant, the more clearly we perceive the distinguishing type of Man. This type is that union of truth and good which we name Reason. Reason is the clear perception of the true relation of things, and the love of their harmonious relations. It includes judgment, conscience—all the higher intellectual and moral qualities.

Reason, with the Will to execute its dictates, is the distinguishing type of man. It is towards this end that his faculties tend; in this consists his peculiarity, his charter of existence. Any failure to reach this end, is as much an arrest of development as is a case of spina bifida, or the imperfect closure of the heart’s ventricles. We cannot judge of the Nature of man, without the clear recognition of this distinctive [Pg 184] type, and it is impossible to establish sound methods of education, without constantly keeping in view, both the true nature of man and the steps by which it must be reached. These steps— i.e. , the method by which man grows towards his distinctive type in creation—constitute the fundamental question in the present inquiry.

One distinguishing feature of human growth is its comparative slowness. No animal is so helpless during its infancy, none remains so long in a state of complete dependence on its parents. During the first few years, the child is quite unable either to procure its own food, or to keep itself from accidents, and it attains neither its complete bodily nor mental development, until it is over twenty years of age. We find this slow growth of faculties to be an essential condition of their excellence. It is observed to be a law of organized existence that the higher the degree of development to be reached, the slower are the processes through which it is attained, and the longer is its period of dependence on parental aid.

The forces employed in the elaboration of the human being, differ in their manifestation at various stages of its growth. There are two marked forces to be noted, often confounded together, but important to distinguish—viz., the power of growth and the power of development, the former possessed throughout life, the latter at certain epochs only. The capacity for growth and nutrition, by means of which the human frame is built up and maintained [Pg 185] out of the forces derived from food and other agents, is shown until the last breath of life, by the power of repair, which continues as long as the human being lives. All action of the organism, every employment of muscular or nervous tissue, uses up such tissue. The body is wasted by its own activities, and it is only by the exact counterpoise of these two forces—disintegration and repair—that health and life itself are maintained. In youth, in connection with very rapid waste of tissue, exists a great excess of formative power, which excess enables each complete organ to enlarge and consolidate itself. The reduction of this excess of formative power to a balance with the waste of tissue, marks the strength of adult life. Its diminution below the power of repair marks the decline of life.

The force of development , however, is shown, not in the enlargement and maintenance of existing parts, but in the creation of new tissues or organs or parts of organs, so that quite new powers are added to the individual. After birth these remarkable efforts of creative force belong exclusively to the youth of the individual. They are chiefly marked by dentition, by growth of the skeleton and the brain, and still more by the addition of the generative powers. With this work of development the adult has nothing to do; it is a burden laid especially upon the young: it is a work as important and exclusively theirs, as child-bearing is the exclusive work of the mother.

One of the first lessons, then, that Physiology [Pg 186] teaches us in relation to the healthy growth of the human being, is the slow and successive development of the various faculties. Although the complete type of the future man exists potentially in the infant, long time and varying conditions are essential to its establishment, and the type will never be attained, if the necessary time and conditions are not provided.

The second physiological fact to be noted is the order observed in human development. The faculties grow in a certain determined order. First, those which are needed for simple physical existence; next, those which place the child in fuller relations with Nature; and, lastly, those which link him to his fellows. As digestion is perfected before locomotion, so muscular mobility and activity exist before strength, perception before observation, affection and friendship before love. The latest work of Nature in forming the perfect being is the gift of sexual power. This is a work of development, not simply of growth. There are new organs coming into existence, and the same necessary conditions of gradual consolidation and long preparation for special work exist as in the growth of all the organs of animal life. At the age of puberty, when the special life of sex commences, the other organs of relation—skeleton, muscles, brain—are still carrying on their slow process of consolidation. ‘At eighteen the bones and muscles are very immature. Portions of the vertebræ hardly commence to ossify before the sixteenth year. After twenty, the two thin plates [Pg 187] on the body of the vertebræ form, completing themselves near the thirtieth year. Consolidation of the sacrum commences in the eighteenth year, completing after the twenty-fifth. The processes of the ribs and of the scapula are completed by the twenty-fifth year; those of the clavicle begin to form between eighteen and twenty; those of the radius and ulna, of the femur, tibia, and fibula, are all unjoined at eighteen, and not completed until twenty-five. The muscles are equally immature; they grow in size and strength in proportion to the bones, and it is not until twenty-five years of age, or even later, that all epiphyses of the bones have united, and that the muscles have attained their full growth.’ [16]

As a necessary consequence of this slow order of natural growth, the individual is injured when sufficient time for growth is not allowed, or when faculties which should remain latent, slowly storing up strength for the proper time of unfolding, are unduly stimulated or brought forward too soon. The writer above quoted remarks: ‘It is not only a waste of material, but a positive cruelty, to send lads of eighteen or twenty into the field.’ [17] The evil effect of undue stimulation to a new function is twofold. The first effect is to divert Nature’s force from the consolidation of faculties already fully formed, and, second, to injure the substantial growth of the later faculty, which is thus prematurely brought forward. Thus the child compelled to carry heavy [Pg 188] burdens will be deformed or stunted; the youth weighed down by intellectual labour will destroy his digestion or injure his brain. So, if the faculty which is bestowed as the last work of development, that which requires the longest time and the most careful preparation for its advent—the sexual power—be brought forward prematurely, a permanent injury is done to the individual, which can never be completely repaired.

The marked distinction which exists between puberty and nubility should here be noted. It is a distinction based upon the important fact that a work of long-continued preparation takes place in the physical and mental nature, before a new faculty enters upon its complete life. Puberty is the age when those changes have taken place in the child’s constitution, which make it physically possible for it to become a parent, but when the actual exercise of such faculty is highly injurious. This change takes place, as a general rule, from fourteen to sixteen years of age. Nubility, on the other hand, is that period of life when marriage may take place, without disadvantage to the individual and to the race. This period is generally reckoned, in temperate climates, in the man at from twenty-three to twenty-five years of age. About the age of twenty-five commences that period of perfect manly vigour, that union of freshness and strength, which enables the individual to become the progenitor of vigorous offspring. The strong constitution transmitted by healthy parents between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five indicates [Pg 189] the order of Nature in the growth of the human race. The interval between these two epochs of puberty and confirmed virility, is a most important period of rapid growth and slow consolidation. Not only is the lifelong work of the body going on at this time, with much greater activity than belongs to adult life— i.e. , the work of calorification, nutrition, and all that concerns the maintenance of the body during its unceasing expenditure of mechanical and mental force—but the still more powerful actions of development and growth are being carried on to their last and greatest perfection. Although, as will be shown later, the influences brought to bear upon the very young child strongly affect its later growth in good or evil, yet this period between fourteen and twenty-five is the most critical time of preparation for the work of adult life.

Another important fact announced by physiological observation, is the absolute necessity of establishing a proper government of the human faculties, by the growth of intelligent self-control. Reason, not Instinct, is the final guide of our race. We cannot grow, as do the lower animals, by following out the blind promptings of physical nature. From the earliest moment of existence, intelligence must guide the infant. At first this guiding intelligence is that of the mother, and through all the earlier stages of life, a higher outside intelligence must continue to provide the necessary conditions of growth, until the gradual mental development of the child fits it for independent individual guidance. The great difficulty [Pg 190] of education lies in the adjustment of intelligence, for there are antagonisms to be encountered. There is first of all to be considered the adaptation of parental intelligence to the large proportion of indispensable physical instinct, with which each child is endowed by Nature. There is next the adjustment of the two intelligences, the parental and filial. These relations are constantly changing, and the true wisdom of education consists in meeting these changes rightly.

It is very important to observe that each new phase of life, each new faculty, begins in the child-like way—that is to say, there is always a large proportion of the blind, instinctive element which absolutely needs a higher guidance. The instinctive life of the body always necessarily exists, and, therefore, constantly strives to make itself felt. This life of sensation will (in many different ways) obtain a complete mastery over the individual, if Reason does not exist, and grow into a controlling force. This danger of an undue predominance of the instinctive force is emphatically true of the life of sex. It begins, child-like, in a tumult of overpowering sensations—sensations and emotions which need as wisely-arranged conditions and as high a guiding influence as does the early life of the child. At this period of life, an adjustment of the parental and filial intelligence is required, quite as wisely planned as in childhood, in order to secure the gradual growth of intelligent self-control in the young life of sex. If we do not recognise this necessity, or fail to exercise [Pg 191] this directing influence, we do not perceive the crowning obligation of the older to the younger generation. However much parents may now shrink from this obligation, and, owing to incorrect views of sex, be really unable to exercise the kind of influence required, the necessity for such influence, nevertheless, exists as a law of human nature, unchangeable, rooted in the human constitution. It is Nature’s method, that every new faculty requires intelligent control from the outset, but only gradually can this guidance become self-control.

This necessity is seen more clearly as we continue our physiological inquiry. The preceding considerations refer chiefly to the slow processes by which the various parts of the body must be built up step by step, under the guidance of outside intelligence, which furnishes the proper conditions of physical growth. Equally certain, and within the legitimate scope of true physiology, is the influence which the mind of the individual exercises upon the growth of the body. This difficult half of the subject presents itself in increasing importance as science advances. The particular theory of mind held by individuals does not affect our inquiry. Everyone understands the term, and gives to its influence a certain importance. Our perception of the degree of power exercised by the mind over the body, and the importance of that power, will continually grow as we observe the facts around us. It is a fact of every-day experience, that fright will make the heart beat, that anxiety will disturb digestion, that sorrow will depress all the [Pg 192] vital functions, whilst happiness will strengthen them. How often does the physician see the languid, ailing invalid converted from mental causes—through happiness—into a bright, active being! Medical records are full of accumulated facts showing the extent to which such mental or emotional influence may go; how the infant has been killed when the mother has nursed it during a fit of passion, or the hair turned gray in a single night, through grief or fright.

We find that the mind, acting through the nervous system, affects not only the senses and muscles—the organs of animal life, under the direct influence of the cerebro-spinal axis—but that it may also extend its influence to those processes of nutrition and secretion which belong to the vegetative life of the body. Emotion can act where Will is powerless, but a strong Will also can acquire a remarkable power over the body. It has been remarked ‘that men who know that there is any hereditary disease in their family, can contribute to the development of that disease, by closely directing their attention to it, and so throwing their nervous energy in that direction.’ It was a remark of John Hunter ‘that he could direct a sensation to any part of his body.’

‘As in the case of other sensations, the sexual, when moderately excited, may give rise to ideas, emotions, and desires of which the brain is the seat, and these may react on the muscular system through the intelligence and Will. But when inordinately excited, or when not kept in restraint by the [Pg 193] Will, they will at once call into play respondent movements, which are then to be regarded as purely automatic. This is the case in some forms of disease in the human subject, and is probably also the ordinary mode of operation in some of the lower animals.... In cases, however, in which this sensation is excited in unusual strength, it may completely over-master all motives to the repression of the propensity, and may even entirely remove the actions from volitional control. A state of a very similar kind exists in many idiots, in whom the sexual propensity exerts a dominant power, not because it is in itself peculiarly strong, but because the intelligence being undeveloped it acts without restraint or direction from the Will.’ [18]

The mental power exercised by the Will over the body is strikingly shown in the control exerted by human beings over the strongest of all individual cravings—the craving of hunger. The exigencies of human society have caused this tremendous power of hunger to be kept so completely in check, that the gratification of it, except in accordance with the established laws (of property, etc.), is considered as a crime. In spite of the terrible temptation which the sight of food offers to a starving man, society punishes him if he yield to it. Still stronger than the established laws are those unwritten laws which are enforced by ‘public opinion,’ in obedience to which, countless people in all civilized countries [Pg 194] suffer constant deprivation—even starving more or less slowly to death—rather than transgress universally accepted principles, and subject themselves to social condemnation by taking the food which does not belong to them. Another curious and important illustration of mental action is shown in the accumulating instances of self-deception, of contagious hallucination, and of emotional influence acting upon the physical and mental organizations, so strikingly depicted by Hammond and other writers in the accounts of pretended miracles, ecstasies, visions, etc.

Of all the organic functions, that of secretion is the one most strongly and frequently influenced by the mind. The secretion of tears, of bile, of milk, of saliva, may all be powerfully excited by mental stimuli, or lessened by promoting antagonistic secretions. This influence is felt in full force by those of the generative system, ‘which,’ writes a distinguished author, ‘are strongly influenced by the condition of the mind. When it is frequently and strongly directed towards objects of passion, these secretions are increased in amount to a degree which may cause them to be a very injurious drain on the powers of the system. On the other hand, the active employment of the mental and bodily powers on other objects, has a tendency to render less active, or even to check altogether, the processes by which they are elaborated.’ [19]

[Pg 195]

That the mind must possess the power of ruling this highest of the animal functions, is evident, from its uses, and from the nature of man. The faculty of sex comes to perfection when the mind is in full activity, and when all the senses are in their freshest youthful vigour. Its object is no longer confined to the individual, it is the source of social life, it is the creator of the race. Inevitably, then, the human mind (the Emotions, the Will) must control this function more than any other function. It assumes a different aspect from all other functions, through its objective character. The individual may exist without it—the race not. Every object which addresses itself to the senses or the mind acts with peculiar force upon this function. Either for right or for wrong, the mind is the controlling power. The right education of the mind is the central point from which all our efforts to help the younger generation must arise. It will thus be seen that the standpoint of education changes in childhood and in youth, the first period being specially concerned with the childhood of the body or of the individual, the second period representing more particularly the childhood of sex or of the race. In neither childhood nor youth must either of the double elements of our nature—mind and body—be neglected, but in childhood the body comes first in order, in youth the mind.

The higher the character of a function and the wider its relations, the more serious and the more numerous are the dangers to which it is exposed. [Pg 196] A physiologist remarks, ‘In youth the affinity of the tissues for vital stimuli seems to be greater when the development is less complete.’ That which the strong adult may endure with comparative impunity destroys the growing youth, whose nature, from the very necessities of development, possesses a keener sensitiveness to all vital stimuli. This important remark is true of mental as well as physical youth, and applies with especial force to the prevention of the dangers of premature sexual development. More care is needed to secure healthy, strengthening influences for the early life of sex than for any other more simply physical function.

In the preceding considerations, the faculty of sex has been regarded chiefly in its individual aspect, and the principles laid down by means of which the largest amount of health and strength can be secured for each individual. But this half-view is entirely insufficient in considering those physiological peculiarities of the function of sex, which must determine the true aim of education. There are two other physiological facts to be considered—viz., the Duality of Sex, and its Results.

The power we are now considering enters into a different category from all other physical functions, as being, first , the faculty of two, not of one only, and, second , as resulting in parentage. Directly a physical function is the property of two, it belongs to a different class from those faculties which regard solely the individual. That very fact gives it a [Pg 197] stamp, which requires that the relations of the two factors should be considered. No faculty can be regarded in the light of simple self-indulgence, which requires two for its proper exercise. The consideration of such faculty in its imperfect condition as belonging to one-half only is an essentially false view. It is unscientific, therefore, to regard this exceptional faculty simply as a limited individual function, as we regard the other powers of the human body. Its inevitable relations to man, to woman, and to the race must always stand forth as a prominent fact in determining the aim of education. If this be so, the moral education of youth, with the necessary physiological guidance given to their sexual powers, must always be influenced by a consideration of these two inevitable physiological facts—viz., duality and parentage, and the training of young men and women, should mould them into true relations towards each other and towards offspring.

The question of the hereditary transmission of qualities, of the influence of both mind and body in determining the character of offspring, is a question of such vital importance that it cannot be disregarded even in the narrowest view of family welfare, and still less in any rational view of education, which lies at the base of national progress. This great question is still in its infancy, collected facts comparatively few, and the immense power of future development contained in it, hardly suspected by parents and philanthropists. We know already that [Pg 198] various forms of disease, physical peculiarities, and mental qualities may all become hereditary; also that the tendency to drunkenness and to sensuality may be transmitted as surely as the tendency to insanity or to consumption. If we compare the mental and moral status of women in a Mahommedan country with the corresponding class of women in our own country, we perceive the effect which generations of simply sensual unions have produced on the character of the female population. The Christian idea of womanly characteristics is entirely reversed. The term ‘woman’ has become a by-word for untruth, irreligion, unchastity, and folly. [20]

The same observation may be made in so-called Christian countries under Mahommedan rule, in independent countries in close proximity to this degrading influence, and wherever the influence of unions whose key-note is sensuality, prevails. The woman is considered morally inferior. ‘She is man’s help, but not his helpmate. He guards and protects her, but it is as a man guards and protects a valuable horse or dog, getting all the service he can out of her, and rendering her in turn his half-contemptuous protection. He uncovers her face and lets her chat with her fellows in the courtyard, but he watches [Pg 199] over her conduct with a jealous conviction that she is unable to guard herself. It is a modification, yet a development, of the Mussulman idea, and he seems to think if she has a soul to be saved he must manage to save it for her.’ [21] Everyone who has observed society in Eastern Europe must be aware of the constant relation existing between the prevalence of sensuality and this moral degeneration of female character. This influence on the character is due, not only to the customs, religion, and circumstances which form the nation, but also to the accumulating influence of inherited qualities. The hereditary action produces tendencies in a particular direction in the offspring, which renders its development easier in that direction. It is only gradually, through education and the influence of heredity in a different direction, that the original tendency can be removed. But if all the circumstances of life favour its development, the individual, the family, and the nation will certainly display the result of these tendencies in full force.

A striking illustration of this subject has been published in the report of the New York Prison Association for 1876. An inquiry was undertaken by one of the members of the association, to ascertain the causes of crime and pauperism, as exhibited in a particular family or tribe of offenders called ‘The Jukes,’ which for nearly a century has inhabited one of the central counties of the State. The investigation is carried back for some five or six generations, [Pg 200] the descendants numbering at least 1,200, and the number of persons whose biographies are condensed and collated is not less than 709. The facts in these criminal lives, which have grown in a century from one family into hundreds, are arranged in the order of their occurrence and the age given at which they took place, so that the relative importance of inherited tendencies and of immediate influences may be measured. The study of this family shows that the most general and potent cause, both of crime and pauperism, is the habit of licentiousness, with its result of bastardy and neglected and miseducated childhood. This tribe was traced back on the male side to two sons of a hard drinker named Max, living between 1720 and 1740, who became blind in his old age, transmitting blindness to some of his legitimate and illegitimate children. On the female side the race goes back to five sisters of bad character, two of whom intermarried with the two sons of Max, the lineage of three other sisters being also traced. In the course of the century, this family has remained an almost purely American family, inhabiting the same region of country in one of the finest States of the Union, largely intermarrying, and presenting an almost unbroken record of harlotry and crime. ‘The Jukes,’ says the report, ‘are not an exceptional race; analogous families may be found in every county of the State.’ [22]

Conspicuous facts such as these, display in a [Pg 201] striking manner the indubitable influence of mind in the exercise of the highest—the parental—function. We see as a positive fact that mental or moral qualities quite as much as physical peculiarities, tend to reproduce themselves in children. The mental quality or character of the parent must then be considered physiologically, as a positive element in the parental relation; thought, emotion, sensation, are all mental qualities. In human unions this great fact must be borne in mind. Any sneer at ‘sentiment’ proceeds from ignorance of facts. Happiness is as vivifying as sunshine, and is a potent element in the formation of a child. Hence arises the necessity of love between parents—love, the mental element, as distinguished from the simple physical instinct.

To understand the true relations of men and women in their bearing upon the race (relations which must determine the moral aim of education) the duality of sex and the peculiarity of the womanly organization must be recognised. Woman, having a special work to perform in family life, has special requirements and sharpened perceptions in relation to this work. She demands the constant presence of affection, an affection which alone can draw forth full response, and she possesses a perception which is almost a special instinct for detecting coldness or untruthfulness in the husband’s mental attitude towards her. The presence of unvarying affection has a real, material, as well as a moral power on the body and soul of a woman. Indifference or [Pg 202] neglect is instantly felt. Sorrow, loneliness, jealousy, all constantly depressing emotions, exercise a powerful and injurious effect upon the sources of vital action. This physiological truth and the necessity of securing the full assent of the mother in the joint creation of superior offspring, are important facts bearing on the character and happiness of one-half of the human race, and influencing through that half the quality of offspring. These facts have not yet received the attention which so weighty a subject demands.

In pursuing the physiological inquiry, we are met by one remarkable fact which it is impossible to ignore, and which remains from age to age as a guide to the human race. This guide is found in the physiological fact of the equality in the birth of the sexes. This is a clear indication of the intention of Providence in relation to sexual union, a proof of the fundamental nature of the family group. Boys and girls are born in equal numbers all over the world, wherever our means of observation have extended, a slight excess of boys alone existing. Sadler writes: ‘The near equality in the birth of the sexes is an undoubted fact; it extends throughout Europe and wherever we have the means of accurate observation, the birth-rate being in the proportion of twenty-five boys to twenty-four girls.’ [23] The injurious inequality which we so often find in a population is not Nature’s law, but is evidence [Pg 203] of our social stupidity. It proves our sin against God’s design in the existence of brutal wars and our careless squandering of human life. All rational efforts for the improvement of society must be based upon Nature’s true intention—viz., the equality of the sexes in birth and in duration of life, not upon the false condition of inequality produced by our own ignorance. It is essential always to bear in mind this distinction between the permanent fact and the temporary phenomenon.

The foregoing facts illustrate fundamental physiological truths. They show the Type of creation towards which the human constitution tends and the distinctive methods of growth by which that type must be reached. In brief recapitulation, these truths are the following—viz., the slowness of human growth; the successive development of the human faculties; the injury caused by subverting the natural order of growth; the necessity of governing this order of growth by the control of Reason; the influence of Mind— i.e. , Thought, Emotion, Will—on the development or condition of our organization; the necessity of considering the dual character of sex; the transmission of qualities by parents to their children; the natural equality in the creation of the sexes.

These truths, which are of universal application to human beings, furnish a Physiological Guide, showing the true laws of sex, in relation to human progress. We find that the laws of physiology point in one [Pg 204] practical direction—viz., to the family—as the only institution which secures their observance; they show the necessity of the self-control of chastity in the young man and the young woman, as the only way to secure the strong mental and physical qualities requisite in the parental relation, whilst they also prove the special influence exerted by mutual love in the great work of Maternity. The preparation, therefore, of youth for family life should be the great aim of their sexual education.

Experience as well as Reason confirms the direct and indirect teaching of Physiology; they both point to the natural family group as the element out of which a healthy society grows. It is only in the family that the necessary conditions for this growth exist. The healthy and constantly varying development of children naturally constitutes the warmest interest of parents. Brothers and sisters are invaluable educators of one another; they are unique associates, creating a species of companionship that no other relation can supply. To enjoy this interest, to create this young companionship, to form this healthy germ of society, marriage must be unitary and permanent. A constantly deepening satisfaction should exist, arising from the steady growth together through life, from the identity of interest and from the strength of habit. Still farther we learn that such union should take place in the early period of complete adult life. Children should be the product of the first fresh vigour of parents. Everything that exhausts force or defers its freshest exercise [Pg 205] is injurious to the Race. Customs of society or incorrect opinions which obstruct the union of men and women in their early vigour, which impair the happiness of either partner, or prevent the strong and steady growth of their union, impair their efficacy as parents, and are fatal to the highest welfare of our Race.

[Pg 206]

The wide bearing and importance of the truths derived from physiology will become more and more apparent, as we examine another branch of the subject, and ascertain from an observation of facts around us, how far the present relations of men and women in civilized countries, are based upon sound principles of physiology. It is necessary to know how far these principles are understood and carried out from infancy onward, whether efforts for the improvement of the race are moulded by physiological methods of human growth, and what are the inevitable consequences which result from departure from these principles.

According to a rational and physiological view of life, the family should be cherished as the precious centre of national welfare; every custom, therefore, which tends to support the dignity of the family and which prepares our youth for this life, is of vital importance to a nation. Thus the slow development of the sexual faculties by hygienic regime, by [Pg 207] the absence of all unnatural stimulus to these propensities, by the constant association of boys and girls together, under adult influence, in habitual and unconscious companionship, the cultivation in the child’s mind of a true idea of manliness and the perception that self-command is the distinctive peculiarity of the human being, are the ordinary and natural conditions which rational physiology requires. On the contrary, every custom which insults the family and unfits for its establishment, which degrades the natural nobility of human sex, which sneers at it and treats this great principle with flippancy, which tends to kill its Divine essence, all such influences and such customs are a great crime against society, and directly opposed to the teaching of rational physiology.

An extended view of social facts, not only in different classes of our own society, but also in those countries with which we are nearly related, is of the utmost value to the parent. Physiological knowledge would be valueless to the mass of mankind, if its direct bearing upon the character and happiness of a nation could not be shown. So in considering the sexual education of youth according to the light of sound physiology, the social influences which affect the natural growth of the human being are an important part of applied physiology.

The tendencies of civilization must be studied in our chief cities. The rapid growth of large towns during the last half-century and the comparatively stationary condition of the country population show [Pg 208] where the full and complete results of those principles which are most active in our civilization must be sought for. London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, New York, are not exceptions, but examples. They show the mature results towards which smaller towns are tending. Those who live in quiet country districts often flatter themselves that the rampant vice of large towns has nothing to do with villages, small communities, and the country at large. This is a delusion. The condition of large towns has a direct relation to the country.

In these focal points of civilization we observe, as examples of sexual relationship, two great institutions existing side by side—two institutions in direct antagonism—viz., Marriage and Prostitution, the latter steadily gaining ground over the former.

In examining these two institutions, the larger signification of licentiousness must be given to prostitution, applicable to men and women. Marriage is the recognised union of two, sharing responsibilities, providing for and educating a family. Prostitution is the indiscriminate union of many, with no object but physical gratification, with no responsibilities, and no care for offspring. It is essential to study the effects, both upon men and women and upon mankind at large, of this great fact of licentiousness, if we are to appreciate the true laws of sexual union in their full force, and the aims, importance, and wide bearing of Moral Education. We shall only here refer to its effects upon the young.

[Pg 209]

We may justly speak of licentiousness as an institution. It is considered by a large portion of society as an essential part of itself. It possesses its code of written and unwritten laws, its sources of supply, its various resorts, from the poorest hovel to the gaudiest mansion, its endless grade, from the coarsest and most ignorant to the refined and cultivated. It has its special amusements and places of public resort. It has its police, its hospitals, its prisons, and it has its literature. The organized manner in which portions of the press are engaged in promoting licentiousness, reaching, not thousands, but millions of readers, is a fact of weighty importance. The one item of vicious advertisements falls into distinct categories of corruption. Growing, therefore, as it does, constantly and rapidly, licentiousness becomes a fact of primary importance in society. Its character and origin must be studied by all who take an interest in the growth of the human race, and who believe in the maintenance of marriage, and the family, as the foundation of human progress.

Everyone who has studied life in many civilized countries, and the literature reflecting that life, will observe the antagonism of these two institutions: the recognition of the greater influence of the mistress than the wife, the constant triumph of passion over duty and deep, steady affection. We see the neglect of the home for the café, the theatre, the public amusement; the consequent degradation of the home into a place indispensable as a nursery [Pg 210] for children, and for the transaction of common, every-day matters, a place of resort for the accidents of life, for growing old in, for continuing the family name, but too tedious a place to be in much, to spend the evening and really live in. Enjoyments are sought for elsewhere. The charm of society, the keener interests of life, no longer centre in the household. It is a domestic place, more or less quiet, but no home in the true sense of the word. The true home can only be formed by father and mother, by their joint influence on one another, on their children, and on their friends. The narrow, one-sided, diminishing influence of Continental homes amongst great masses of the population, from absence of due paternal care, is a painful fact to witness. That there are beautiful examples of domestic life to be found in every civilized country—homes where father and mother are one in the indispensable unity of family life—no one will deny who has closely observed foreign society. Indeed, any nation is in the stage of rapid dissolution where the institution of the family is completely and universally degraded; but the preceding statement is a faithful representation of the general tone and tendencies of social life in many parts of the Continent. That the same fatal principles, leading to the like results, are at work both in England and America will be seen as we proceed. Licentiousness may be considered as still in its infancy with us, when compared with its universal prevalence in many parts of the Continent; but it is growing in [Pg 211] our own country with a rapidity which threatens fatal injury to our most cherished institution, the pure Christian home, with its far-reaching influences, an institution which has been the foundation of our national greatness.

The results of licentiousness should be especially considered in their effects upon the youth of both sexes, of both the richer and poorer classes; also in their bearing upon the institution of marriage and upon the race. In all these aspects it enters into direct relation with the family, and no one who values the family, with the education which it should secure, can any longer afford to ignore what so intimately affects its best interests. It is to the first branch of the subject that reference will here be chiefly made.

The first consideration is the influence exerted by social arrangements and tone of thought upon our boys and young men as they pass out of the family circle into the wider circles of the world, into school, college, business, society. What are the ideas about women that have been gradually formed in the mind of the lad of sixteen, by all that he has seen, heard, and read during his short but most important period of life? What opinions and habits, in relation to his own physical and moral nature, have been impressed upon him? How have our poorer classes of boys been trained in respect to their own well-being, and to association with girls of their own class? What has been the influence of the habits and companionships of that great middle-class multitude, [Pg 212] clerks, shopkeepers, mechanics, farmers, soldiers, etc.? What books and newspapers do these boys read, what talk do they hear, what interests or amusements do they find in the theatre, the tavern, the streets, the home, and the church? What has been the training of the lad of the upper class—that class, small in number but great in influence, which, being lifted above any sordid pressure of material care, should be the spiritual leader of the classes below them—a class which has ten talents committed to it, and which inherits the grand old maxim, Noblesse oblige ? How have all these lads been taught to regard womanhood and manhood? What is their standard of manliness? What habits of self-respect and of the noble uses of sex have been impressed upon their minds? Throughout all classes, abundant temptation to the abuse of sex exists. Increasing activity is displayed in the exercise of human ingenuity for the extension and refinement of vice. Shrewdness, large capital, business enterprise, are all enlisted in the lawless stimulation of this mighty instinct of sex. Immense provision is made for facilitating fornication; what direct efforts are made for encouraging chastity?

It is of vital importance to realize how small at present is the formative influence of the individual home and of the weekly discourse of the preacher, compared with the mighty social influences which spread with corrupting force around the great bulk of our youth. We find, as a matter of fact, that complete moral confusion too often meets the young [Pg 213] man at the outset of life. Society presents him with no fixed standard of right or wrong in relation to sex, no clear ideal to be held steadily before him and striven for. Religious teaching points in one direction, but practical life points in quite a different way. The youth who has grown up from childhood under the guardianship of really wise parents, in a true home, with all its ennobling influences, and has been strengthened by enlightened religious instruction, has gradually grown towards the natural human type. He may have met the evils of life as they came to him from boyhood onwards, first of all with the blindness of innocence, which does not realize evil, and then with the repulsion of virtue, which is clear-sighted to the hideous results of vice. Such a one will either pass with healthy strength through life, or he may prove himself the grandest of heroes if beset with tremendous temptations; or, again, he may fall, after long and terrible struggles with his early virtue. But in the vast majority of cases the early training through innocence into virtue is wanting. Evil influences are at work unknown to or disregarded by the family, and a gradual process of moral and physical deterioration in the natural growth of sex corrupts the very young. In by far the larger ranks of life, before the lad has grown into the young man, his notions of right and wrong are too often obscured. He retains a vague notion that virtue is right, but as he perceives that his friends, his relations, his widening circle of acquaintance, live according to a different standard, his idea of [Pg 214] virtue recedes into a vague abstraction, and he begins to think that vice is also right—in a certain way! He is too young to understand consequences, to realize the fearful chain of events in the ever-widening influence of evil acts—results which, if clearly seen, would frighten the innocent mind by the hideousness of evil, and make the first step towards it a crime. No one ventures to lift up a warning voice. The parent dares not, or knows not how to enter upon this subject of vital importance. There are no safeguards to his natural modesty; there is no wise help to strengthen his innocence into virtue.

Here is the testimony in relation to one important class, drawn from experience by our great English satirist: ‘And by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is as orally learned at a great public school. Why, if you could hear those boys of fourteen, who blush before mothers and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other, it would be the woman’s turn to blush then. Before he was twelve years old, and while his mother fancied him an angel of candour, little Pen had heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certain points; and so, madam, has your pretty little rosy-cheeked son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing Christmas holidays. I don’t say that the boy is lost, so that the innocence has left him which he had from “Heaven which is our home,” but the shades of the [Pg 215] prison-house are closing very fast over him, and that we are helping as much as possible to corrupt him.’ ‘Few boys,’ says the Headmaster of a large school, ‘ever remain a month in any school, public or private, without learning all the salient points in the physical relation of the sexes. There are two grave evils in this unlicensed instruction: first, the lessons are learned surreptitiously; second, the knowledge is gained from the vicious experiences of the corrupted older boys, and the traditions handed down by them.’

Temptations meet the lad at every step. From childhood onward, an unnatural forcing process is at work, and he is too often mentally corrupted, whilst physically unformed. This mental condition tends to hasten the functions of adult life into premature activity. As already stated, an important period exists between the establishment of puberty and confirmed virility. In the unperverted youth, this space of time, marked by the rush of new life, is invaluable as a period for storing up the new forces needed to confirm young manhood and fit it for the healthy exercise of its important social functions. The very indications of Nature’s abundant forces at the outset of life, are warnings that this new force must not be stimulated, that there is danger of excessive and hasty growth in one direction, danger of hindering that gradual development which alone insures strength. If at an early age, thought and feeling have been set in the right direction, and aids to virtue and to health surround the young man, then this period of time, before his twenty-fifth year, [Pg 216] will lead him into a strong and vigorous manhood. But where the mind is corrupted, the imagination heated, and no strong love of virtue planted in the soul, the individual loses the power of self-control, and becomes the victim of physical sensation and suggestion. When this condition of mental and physical deterioration has been produced, it is no longer possible for him to resist surrounding temptations. There are dangers within and without, but he does not recognise the danger. He is young, eager, filled with that excess of activity in blood and nerve, with which Nature always nourishes her fresh creative efforts.

At this important stage of life, when self-control, hygiene, mental and moral influence, are of vital importance, the fatal results of his weakened will and a corrupt society, ensue. Opportunity tempts his wavering innocence, thoughtless or vicious companions undertake to ‘form’ him, laugh at his scruples, sneer at his conscience, excite him with allurements. Or a deadly counsel meets him—meets him from those he is bound to respect. The most powerful morbid stimulant that exists—a stimulant to every drop of his seething young blood—is advised viz., the resort to prostitutes. When this fatal step has been taken, when the natural modesty of youth and the respect for womanhood is broken down, when he has broken with the restraints of family life, with the voice of Conscience, with the dictates of religion, a return to virtue is indeed difficult—nay, often impossible. He has tasted the physical delights of [Pg 217] sex, separated from its more exquisite spiritual joys. This unnatural divorce degrades whilst it intoxicates him. Having tasted these physical pleasures, often he can no more do without them than the drunkard without his dram. He ignorantly tramples under foot his birthright of rich, compound, infinite human love, enthralled by the simple limited animal passion. His Will is no longer free. He has destroyed that grand endowment of Man, that freedom of the youthful Will, which is the priceless possession of innocence and of virtue, and has subjected himself to the slavery of lust. He is no longer his own master; he is the servant of his passions. Those whose interest it is to retain their victim employ every art of drink, of dress, of excess, to urge him on. The youthful eagerness of his own nature lends itself to these arts. The power of resistance is gradually lost, until one glance of a prostitute’s eye passing in the street, one token of allurement, will often overturn his best resolutions and outweigh the wisest counsel of friends! The physiological ignorance and moral blindness which actually lead some parents to provide a mistress for their sons, in the hope of keeping them from houses of public debauchery, is an effort as unavailing as it is corrupt. Place a youth on the wrong course instead of on the right one, lead him into the career of sensual indulgence and selfish disregard for womanhood instead of into manly self-control, and the parent has, by his own act, launched his child into the current of vice, which rapidly hurries him beyond his control.

[Pg 218]

The evils resulting from a violation of Nature’s method of growth by a life of early dissipation are both physical and mental or moral. In some organizations the former, in some the latter, are observable in the most marked degree; but no one can escape either the physical deterioration or the mental degradation which results from the irrational and unhuman exercise of the great endowment of sex.

Amongst the physical evils the following may be particularly noted. The loss of self-control, reacting upon the body, produces a morbid irritability (always a sign of weakness) which is a real disease, subjecting the individual to constant excitement and exhaustion from slight causes. The resulting physical evils may be slow in revealing themselves, because they only gradually undermine the constitution. They do not herald themselves in the alarming manner of a fever or a convulsion, but they are not to be less dreaded from their masked approach. The chief forms of physical deterioration are nervous exhaustion, impaired power of resistance to epidemics or other injurious influences, and the development of those germs of disease, or tendencies to some particular form of disease, which exist in the majority of constitutions. The brain and spinal marrow and the lungs are the vital organs most frequently injured by loose life. But whatever be the weak point of the constitution, from inherited or acquired morbid tendencies, that will probably be the point through which disease or death will enter.

One of the most distinguished hygienists of our [Pg 219] age writes thus: ‘The pathological results of venereal excess are now well known. The gradual derangements of health experienced by its victims are not at first recognised by them, and physicians may take the symptoms to be the beginning of very different diseases. How often symptoms are considered as cases of hypochondria or chronic gastritis, or the commencement of heart disease, which are really the results of generative abuse! A general exhaustion of the whole physical force, symptoms of cerebral congestion, or paralysis, attributed to some cerebrospinal lesion, are often due to the same causes. The same may be said of some of the severest forms of insanity. Many cases of consumption appearing in young men who suffer from no hereditary tendency to the disease enter into the same category. So many diseases are vainly treated by medicine or regime which are really caused by abuse of these important functions.’ [24] Another of our oldest surgeons writes: ‘Among the passions of the future man which at this period should be strictly restrained is that of physical love, for none wars so completely against the principles which have been already laid down as the most conducive to long life; no excess so thoroughly lessens the sum of the vital power, none so much weakens and softens the organs of life, none is more active in hastening vital consumption, and none so totally prohibits restoration. I might, if it were necessary, draw a painful—nay, [Pg 220] a frightful—picture of the results of these melancholy excesses, etc.’ [25] Volumes might be filled with similar medical testimony on the destructive character of early licentiousness.

Striking testimony to the destructive effects of vice in early manhood is derived from a very different source—viz., the strictly business calculation of the chances of life, furnished by Life Insurance Companies. These tables show the rapid fall in viability during the earlier years of adult life. Dr. Carpenter has reproduced a striking diagram [26] from the well-known statistician Quetelet, showing the comparative viability of men and women at different ages, and its rapid diminution in the male from the age of eighteen to twenty-five. He remarks: ‘The mortality is much greater in males from about the age of eighteen to twenty-eight, being at its maximum at twenty-five, when the viability is only half what it is at puberty. This fact is a very striking one, and shows most forcibly that the indulgence of the passions not only weakens the health, but in a great number of instances is the cause of a very premature death.’ [27] Dr. Bertillon (a well-known French statistician) has shown by the statistics of several European countries that the irregularities of unmarried life produce disease, crime, and suicide; that the rate of mortality in [Pg 221] bachelors of twenty-five is equal to that of married men at forty-five; that the immoral life of the unmarried and the widowed, whether male or female, ages them by twenty years and more.

Many of the foreign health resorts are filled with young men of the richer classes of society, seeking to restore the health destroyed by dissipation. Could the simple truth be recorded on the tombstones of multitudes of precious youth, from imperial families downward, who are mourned as victims of consumption, softening of the brain, etc., all lovers of the race would stand appalled at the endless record of these wasted lives. ‘Died from the effects of fornication’ would be the true warning voice from these premature graves.

The moral results of early dissipation are quite as marked as the physical evils. The lower animal nature gains ever-increasing dominion over the moral life of the individual. The limited nature of all animal enjoyments produces its natural effects. First there is the eager search after fresh stimulants, and as the boundaries of physical enjoyment are necessarily reached, come in common sequence, disappointment, disgust, restlessness, dreariness, or bitterness. The character of the mental deterioration differs with the difference of original character in the individual, as in the nation. In some we observe an increasing hardness of character, growing contempt for women, with low material views of life. In others there is a frivolity of mind induced, a constant restlessness and search for new pleasures. [Pg 222] The frankness, heartiness, and truthfulness of youth gradually disappear under the withering influence. [28]

The moral influence of vice upon social character has very wide ramifications. This is illustrated by the immense difficulties which women encountered in the rational endeavour to obtain a complete medical education. Licentiousness, with all its attendant results, is the great social cause of these difficulties.

The dominion of lust is necessarily short-sighted, selfish, or cruel. Its action is directly opposed to the qualities of truth, trust, self-command, and sympathy, thus sapping the foundations of personal morality. But apart from the individual evils above referred to, licentiousness inevitably degrades society, firstly, from the disproportion of vital force which is thus thrown into one direction, and, secondly, from the essentially selfish and ungenerous tendency of vice, which, seeking its own limited gratification at the expense of others, is incapable of embracing large views of life or feeling enthusiasm for progress. The direction into which this disproportionate vital force is thrown is a degrading one, always tending to evil results. Thus the noble enthusiasm of youth, its precious tide of fresh life, without which no nation can grow—life whose leisure hours should be given to science and art, to social good, to ennobling recreation—is squandered and worse than wasted in degrading dissipation.

[Pg 223]

This dissipation, which is ruin to man, is also a curse to woman, for, in judging the effects of licentiousness upon society, it must never be forgotten that this is a vice of two, not a vice of one. Injurious as is its influence upon the young man, that is only one-half of its effect. What is its influence upon the young woman? This question has a direct bearing on the Moral Aim of Education. The preceding details of physical and moral evils resulting to young men from licentiousness will apply with equal force to young women subjected to similar influences. One sex may experience more physical evil, the other more mental degradation, from similar vicious habits; but the evil, if not identical, is entirely parallel, and a loss of truthfulness, honour, and generosity accompanies the loss of purity.

The women more directly involved in this widespread evil of licentiousness are the women of the poorer classes of society. The poorer classes constitute in every country the great majority of the people; they form its solid strength and determine its character. The extreme danger of moral degradation in those classes of young women who constitute such an immense preponderance of the female population is at once evident. These women are everywhere, interlinked with every class of society. They form an important part (often the larger female portion) of every well-to-do household. They are the companions and inevitable teachers of infancy and childhood. They often form the chief or only [Pg 224] female influence which meets the young man in early professional, business, or even college life. They meet him in every place of public amusement, in his walks at night, in his travels at home and abroad. By day and by night the young man away from home is brought into free intercourse, not with women of his own class, but with poor working girls and women, who form the numerical bulk of the female population, who are found in every place and ready for every service. Educated girls are watched and guarded. The young man meets them in rare moments only, under supervision, and generally under unnatural restraint; but the poor girl he meets constantly, freely, at any time and place. Any clear-sighted person who will quietly observe the way in which female servants, for instance, regard very young men who are their superiors in station, can easily comprehend the dangers of such association. The injustice of the common practical view of life is only equalled by its folly. This practical view utterly ignores the fact of the social influence and value of this portion of society. The customs of civilized nations practically consider poor women as subjects for a life so dishonourable, that a rich man feels justified in ostracizing wife, sister, or daughter who is guilty of the slightest approach to such life. It is the great mass of poor women who are regarded as (and sometimes brutally stated to be) the subjects to be used for the benefit of the upper classes. Young and innocent men, it is true, fall into vice, or are led into it, or are [Pg 225] tempted into it by older women, and are not deliberate betrayers. But the rubicon of chastity once passed, the moral descent is rapid, and the preying upon the poor soon commences. The miserable slaves in houses of prostitution are the outcasts of the poor. The young girls followed at night in the streets are the honest working girl, the young servant seeking a short outdoor relief to her dreary life, as well as the unhappy fallen girl, who has become in her turn the seducer. If fearful of health, the individual leaves the licensed slaves of sin and the chance associations of the streets, it is amongst the poor and unprotected that he seeks his mistress:—the young seamstress, the pretty shop girl, the girl with some honest employment, but poor, undefended, needing relief in her hard-working life. It is always the poor girl that he seeks. She has no pleasures, he offers them; her virtue is weak, he undermines it; he gains her affection and betrays it, changes her for another and another, leaving each mistress worse than he found her, farther on in the downward road, with the guilt of fresh injury from the strong to the weak on his soul. Any reproach of conscience—conscience which will speak when an innocent girl has been betrayed, or one not yet fully corrupted has been led farther on in evil life—is quieted by the frivolous answer: ‘They will soon marry in their own class.’ If, however, this sin be regarded in its inevitable consequences, its effects upon the life of both man and woman in relation to society, the nature of this sophistry will appear in its [Pg 226] hideous reality. Is chastity really a virtue, something precious in womanhood? Then, the poor man’s home should be blessed by the presence of a pure woman. Does it improve a woman’s character to be virtuous? Has she more self-respect in consequence? Does she care more for her children, for their respectability and welfare, when she is conscious of her own honest past life? Does she love her husband more, and will she strive to make his home brighter and more attractive to him, exercising patience in the trials of her humble life, being industrious, frugal, sober, with tastes that centre in her home? These are vital questions for the welfare of the great mass of the people, and consequently of society and of the nation.

We know, on the contrary, as a fundamental truth, that unchastity unfits a woman for these natural duties. It fosters her vanity, it makes her slothful or reckless, it gives her tastes at variance with home life, it makes her see nothing in men but their baser passions, and it converts her into a constant tempter of those passions—a corrupter of the young. We know that drunkenness, quarrels, and crimes have their origin in the wretched homes of the poor, and the centre of those unhappy homes is the unchaste woman, who has lost the restraining influence of her own self-respect, her respect for others, and her love of home. When a pretty, vain girl is tempted to sin, a wife and mother is being ruined, discord and misery are being prepared for a poor man’s home, and the circumstances created out of which criminals [Pg 227] grow. Nor does the evil stop there. It returns to the upper classes. Nurses, servants, bring back to the respectable home the evil associations of their own lives. The children of the upper classes are thus corrupted, and the path of youth is surrounded at every step with coarse temptations. These consequences may not be foreseen when the individual follows the course of evil customs, but the sequence of events is inevitable, and every man gives birth to a fresh series of vice and misery when he takes a mistress instead of a wife. [29]

The deterioration of character amongst the women of the working classes is known to all employers of labour, to all who visit amongst the poor, to every housekeeper. The increasing difficulty of obtaining trustworthy domestic servants is now the common experience of civilized countries. In England, France, Germany, and the larger towns of America, it is a fact of widespread observation, and has become a source of serious difficulty in the management of [Pg 228] family life. The deepest source of this evil lies in the deterioration of womanly character produced by the increasing spread of habits of licentiousness. The action of sex, though taking different directions, is as powerful in the young woman as in the young man; it needs as careful education, direction, and restraint. This important physiological truth, at present quite overlooked, must nevertheless be distinctly recognised. This strong mental instinct, if yielded to in a degrading way (as is so commonly the case in the poorer classes of society), becomes an absorbing influence. Pride and pleasure in work, the desire to excel, loyalty to duty, and the love of truth in its wide significance, are all subordinated, and gradually weakened, by the irresistible mastery of this new faculty. In all large towns the lax tone of companions, the difficulty in finding employment, the horrible cupidity of those who pander to corrupt social sentiment and ensnare the young—all these circumstances combined render vice much easier than virtue—a state of society in which vice must necessarily extend and virtue diminish. We thus find an immense mass of young women gradually corrupted from childhood, rendered coarse and reckless, the modesty of girlhood destroyed, the reserve of maidenhood changed to bold, often indecent, behaviour. No one accustomed to walk freely about our streets, to watch children at play, to observe the amusements and free gatherings of the poorer classes, can fail to see the signs of degraded sex. The testimony of home missionaries, of those [Pg 229] experienced in Benevolent Societies and long engaged in various ways in helping women, as well as the Reports of Rescue Societies, all testify to the dangerous increase and lamentable results of unchastity amongst the female population.

We observe in all countries a constant relation also between the prevalence of licentiousness and degradation of female labour; the action and reaction of these two evil facts is invariable. In Paris we see the complete result of these tendencies of modern civilization in relation to the condition of working women—tendencies which are seen in London and Berlin, in Liverpool, Glasgow— i.e. , in all large towns. The revelations made by writers and speakers in relation to the condition of the working women of Paris, are of very serious import to England. Such terrible facts as the following, brought to light by those who have carefully investigated the state of this portion of the population, must arrest attention. In relation to vast numbers of women it is stated [30] : ‘In Paris a woman can no longer live by the work of her own hands; the returns of her labour are so small that prostitution is the only resource against slow starvation. The population is bastardized to such an extent that thousands of poor girls know not of any relation that they ever possessed. Orphans and outcasts, [Pg 230] their life, if virtuous, is one terrible struggle from the cradle to the grave; but by far the greater number of them are drilled, whilst yet children, in the public service of debauchery.’ The great mass of working women are placed by the present state of society in a position in which there are the strongest temptations to vice, when to lead a virtuous life often requires the possession of moral heroism.

Of the multitude of those who fall into vice, many ultimately marry, and, with injured moral qualities and corrupted tastes, become the creators of poor men’s homes. The rest drift into a permanent life of vice. The injurious effects of unchastity upon womanly character already noted, can be studied step by step, to their complete development in that great class of the population—the recognised prostitutes. Their marked characteristics are recklessness, sloth, and drunkenness. This recklessness and utter disregard of consequences and appearances, a quarrelsome, violent disposition, the dislike to all labour and all regular occupation and life, the necessity for stimulants and drink, with a bold address to the lower passions of men—such are the effects of this life upon the character of women. Unchaste women become a most dangerous class of the community. To these bad qualities is added another, wherever, as in France, this evil life is accepted as a part of society, provided for, organized, or legalized; this last result of confirmed licentiousness is a hardness of character so complete, so resistant of all improving influences, that the wisest and gentlest efforts to [Pg 231] restore are often utterly hopeless before the confirmed and hardened prostitute. [31]

The growth of habits of licentiousness amongst us exerts the most direct and injurious influence on the lives of virtuous young women of the middle and upper classes of society. The mode of this influence demands very serious consideration on the part of parents. It is natural that young women should wish to please. They possess the true instinct which would guide them to their noble position in society, as the centres of pure and happy homes. How do our social customs meet this want? All the young women of the middle and upper classes of society, no matter how pure and innocent their natures, are brought by these customs of society into direct competition with prostitutes! The modest grace of pure young womanhood, its simple, refined tastes, its love of home pleasures, its instinctive admiration of true and noble sentiments and actions, although refreshing as a contrast, will not compare for a moment with the force of attraction which sensual indulgence and the excitement of debauch exert upon the youth who is habituated to such intoxications. The virtuous girl exercises a certain amount of attraction for a passing moment, but the intense craving awakened in the youth for something far more exciting than she can offer, leads him ever farther from her, in the direction where this morbid craving can be freely indulged. This result is inevitable if licentiousness is to be accepted as a [Pg 232] necessary part of society. Physical passion is not in itself evil; on the contrary, it is an essential part of our nature. It is an endowment which, like every other human faculty, has the power of high growth. It possesses that distinctive human characteristic—receptivity to mental impressions. These impressions blend so completely with itself as to change its whole character and effect, and it thus becomes an ennobling or a degrading agent in our lives. In either case, for good or for evil, sex takes a first place as a motive power in human education. The young man inexperienced in life and necessarily crude in thought, but fallen into vice, is mastered by this downward force, and the good girl loses more and more her power over the strong natural attraction of sex which would otherwise draw him to her. The influence which corrupt young men, on the other hand, exercise upon the young women of their own standing in society, is both strong and often injurious. It being natural that young women should seek to attract and retain them, they unconsciously endeavour to adapt themselves to their taste. These tastes are formed by uneducated girls and by society of which the respectable young woman feels the effects, and of which she has a vague suspicion, although, happily, she cannot measure the depth of the evil. The tastes and desires of her young male acquaintance, moulded by coarse material enjoyments, act directly upon the respectable girl, who gives herself up with natural impulse to the influence of her male companion. We thus witness a widespread [Pg 233] and inevitable deterioration in manners, dress, thought, and habits amongst the respectable classes of young women. This result leads eventually, as on the Continent, to the entire separation of young men and women in the middle and upper ranks of life, to the arrangement of marriage as a business affair, and to the union of the young with the old.

The faults now so often charged upon young women, their love of dress, luxury, and pleasure, their neglect of economy and dislike of steady home duties, may be traced directly to the injurious influence which habits of licentiousness are exercising directly and indirectly upon marriage, the home, and society. The subject of dress is one of serious importance, for it is a source of extravagance in all classes, and one of the strongest temptations to vice among poor girls. The creation of this morbid excess in dress by licentiousness is evident. If physical attraction is the sole or chief force which draws young men to young women, then everything which either enhances physical charms, which brings them more prominently forward, or which supplies the lack of physical beauty, must necessarily be resorted to by women, whose nature it is to draw men to them. The stronger the general domination of physical sensation—over character, sympathy, companionship, mutual help, and social growth—becomes amongst men, the more exclusive, intense, and competitive must grow this morbid devotion to dress on the part of women. Did young men seriously long for a virtuous wife and happy home, [Pg 234] and fit themselves to secure those blessings, young women would naturally cultivate the domestic qualities which insure a bright, attractive home. The young man, however, is now discouraged from early marriage; the question soon presents itself to him: ‘Why should I marry and burden myself with a wife and family? I am very well off as I am; I can spend my money as I like on personal pleasures; I can get all that I want from women without losing my liberty or assuming responsibilities!’ The respectable girl is thus forced into a most degrading and utterly unavailing competition with the prostitute or the mistress. Marriage is indefinitely postponed by the young man; at first it may be from necessity, later from choice. The young woman, unable to obtain the husband suited to her in age, must either lead a single life or accept the unnatural union with a rich elderly man.

The grave physiological error of promoting marriage between the young and the old cannot be dwelt on here. It is productive of very grave evils, both to the health and happiness of the individual and to the growth of the Race. The steady decrease of marriage, and at the same time the late date at which it is contracted as licentiousness increases, is shown by a comparison of the statistics of Belgium and France with those of England. We find also that the character of the population deteriorates with the spread of vice—the standard of recruiting for the army is lowered, an ever-increasing mass of fatherless children die or become criminals, and, finally, the [Pg 235] natural growth of the population of the country constantly decreases.

The records of History confirm the teaching of Physiology and Observation in relation to the fundamental character of sexual virtue, as the secret of durable national greatness. The decline of all the great nations of antiquity is marked by the prevalence of gross social corruption. The complex effects of the same cause are strikingly observed in the condition of the Mohammedan and other Eastern races and in all the tribes subject to them. We find amongst these races, as the result of their sexual customs, a want of human charity. This is shown in the absence of benevolent institutions and other modes of expressing sympathy. A great gulf separates the rich and poor, bridged over by no offices of kindness, no sense of the sacred oneness of humanity, which is deeper than all separations of caste or condition. There is no respect shown for human life, which is lightly and remorselessly sacrificed, and punishment degenerates into torture. There is also an incapacity for understanding the fundamental value of truth and honesty, and a consequent impossibility of creating a good government. We observe that bravery degenerates into fierceness and cruelty, and that the apathy of the masses keeps them victims of oppression. It is the exhibition of a race where there is no development of the Moral Element in human nature. These general characteristics and their cause were well described by the celebrated surgeon Lallemand, who says: ‘The contrast between [Pg 236] the polygamous and sensual East and the monogamous and intellectual West displays on a large scale the different results produced by the different exercise of the sexual powers. On one side, Polygamy, harems, seraglios—the source of venereal excesses—barbarous mutilations, revolting and unnatural vice, with the population scanty, inactive, indolent, sunk in ignorance, and consequently the victim of misery and of every kind of despotism. On the other side, Monogamy, Christian austerity, more equal distribution of domestic happiness, increase of intelligence, liberty, and general well-being; rapid increase of an active, laborious, and enterprising population, necessarily spreading and dominating.’

The great moral element of society, which contains the power of self-renewal and continual growth, must necessarily be wanting in all nations where one-half of the people—the centre of the family, out of which society must grow—remains in a stunted or perverted condition. Women, as well as men, create society. Their share is a silent one. It has not the glitter of gold and purple, the noise of drums and marching armies, the smoke and clank of furnaces and machinery. All the splendid din of external life is wanting in the quiet realm of distinctive woman’s work; therefore it is often overlooked, misunderstood, or despised. Nevertheless, it is of vital importance. It preserves the only germ of society which is capable of permanent growth—the germ of unselfish human love and innate righteousness—in [Pg 237] distinction to which all dazzling material splendour and intellectual ability, divorced from the love of Right, is but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. It is for this reason that no polygamous or licentious customs, which destroy the woman’s nature and dry up the deepest source of human sympathy, can possibly produce a durable or a noble and happy nation. The value of a nation, its position in the scale of humanity, its durability, must always be judged by the condition of its masses, and the test of that condition is the strength and purity of home virtues—the character of the women of the nation.

No reference to the lessons of History, however brief, should omit the effect produced by religious teaching. The influence exercised by the Christian religion in relation to sex is of the most striking character. Christian teaching is distinguished from other religious teaching by its justice to women, its tender reverence for childhood, and by the laying down of that great corner-stone, Inward Holiness, as the indispensable foundation of true life. This is all summed up in its establishment of unitary marriage, through the emphatic adoption of the original Law, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.’ The development of this Law by Jesus Christ into its high significance of spiritual purity, whilst it has been a principle of growth in the past, is the great hope of the future. The study of this Christian type, in its radical effect upon national [Pg 238] life, is full of interest and instruction, but is also a study of great difficulty. This teaching of our Lord has never been adopted as the universal rule of practical life by any nation. The results of this law of union can only be judged on a large scale by comparing the condition of so-called Christian countries—where a certain amount of this high teaching has been diffused through the community—with the condition of nations where no such teaching has existed. The great battle between Christianity and Paganism still continues in our midst. The actual practical type prevailing in all civilized nations is not Christian. In these nations the Christian idea of unitary sexual relations is accepted theoretically, as conducive to the best interests of the family and binding upon the higher classes of women; but it is entirely set aside as a practical life for the majority of the community. Christ’s Law is considered either as a vague command, applicable only to some indefinite future, or as a theory which it would be positively unwise to put into practice in daily life. The statement is distinctly made, and widely believed, that the nature of men and women differs so radically that the same moral law is not applicable to the two sexes.

The great lesson derived from History, however, is always this—viz., that moral development must keep pace with the intellectual, or the race degenerates. This moral element is especially embodied by woman, and purity in woman cannot exist without purity in man, this weighty fact being shown by the [Pg 239] facts already stated—viz., the action of licentiousness upon the great mass of unprotected women, its reaction upon other classes, and the accumulating influence of hereditary sensuality.

In the indisputable principles brought forward in the preceding pages, and the mass of facts and daily observation which support them, is found the answer to the first question proposed as a guide to the moral education of youth—viz.: What is the true standard for the relations of men and women, the type which contains within itself the germ of progress and indefinite development?

We see that the early and faithful union of one man with one woman is the true Ideal of Society. It secures the health and purity of the family relation, and is the foundation of social and national welfare. It is supported by sound principles of Physiology, by the history of the rise and fall of nations, and by a consideration of the evils of our present age. The lessons of the past and present, our clearer knowledge of cause and effect, alike prove the wisdom of the highest religious teaching—viz., that the faithful union of strong and pure young manhood and womanhood is the only element out of which a strong and durable nation can grow.

[Pg 240]

The present subject may be summed up in two great questions—viz., First, is Virtue desirable? Secondly, is Virtue practicable?

We have shown in the preceding investigation that the control of the sexual passion and its guidance by Reason—which we name Virtue—is of fundamental importance; that it is essential to individual health, to the happiness of the family, to the purity of Society, and the growth of a strong nation. Virtue, therefore, is desirable. It remains to consider whether it be practicable. No vagueness or doubt should exist in relation to fundamental principles of education. Methods may change; no inflexible rule can be laid down. Enlarging experience, enlightened by love, will vary infinitely the adaptations needed in the education of infinitely varied children, but the aim of education should not vary. Sound knowledge, as well as a steadfast faith and hope, must guide every intelligent parent from the beginning of family life, or confusion, perplexity, and [Pg 241] endless difficulties will be added to the inevitable difficulties of education.

One of the most serious questions to be understood and practically answered by parents in the education of their sons is this: If in relation to sex Chastity be the true moral aim of a young man’s education, can it be secured without injury to his health? Is morality an advantage to the health of young men? [32] It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this question, both to men and women. It touches the most vital interests of both. The family, the relations of husband and wife, the education of children, the rules and customs of society, and the arrangements of practical life will directly depend upon, or be affected by, the answer which we give to the question, Is virtue an advantage to all human beings? Can one moral law exist for all?

Truth must always be accepted. No personal prejudice, no habit of education, must stand in the way of clearly established truth. It is the greatest sin we can commit to try to believe a lie because the truth seems unpleasant, difficult, or contrary to prejudices. If it be true that chastity is a right thing for women, but a wrong thing for men, then the truth, with all its consequences, must be [Pg 242] accepted. If, however, this statement be false—if it be a prejudice of education, a result of evil customs, the most fruitful source of misery to the human race—then the truth, with all its consequences, must equally be accepted. In seeking truth on this subject it is indispensable to examine its practical aspect closely, to study the facts on which existing customs are based, and disentangle the confused web of truth and falsehood, out of which has grown the present widespread belief that a young man cannot lead a chaste life to the age of twenty-five without injury to his health.

That some limit to the indulgence of natural instinct is necessary in both sexes will be evident from the early age at which the sexual movement commences, as well as from the length of time required for its completion. It is not only in children of twelve and fourteen that this instinct is already strongly marked, it may be observed at a much earlier age. Numberless instances of juvenile depravity come under the observation of the physician, and such gross cases are only exaggerations of the refined instincts veiled by modesty and self-respect, which are gradually growing in all healthy children. That this mental instinct tends to express itself in the unformed bodies of children corrupted by evil example, we have only too abundant proof. A chronic evil of boarding-schools, of asylums, and of all places where masses of children are thrown together without wise moral supervision, is the early habit of self-abuse. Long before the boy or girl is [Pg 243] capable of becoming a parent, this dangerous habit may be formed. It is not necessarily the indication of a coarse nature. It is observable in refined, intellectual, and even pious persons, as a habit carried on from childhood, when it was begun in ignorance, or taught, perhaps, by servants, or caught from companions. Many a fine nature in both man and woman has been wrecked, by the insidious growth of this natural temptation, into an inveterate habit. The more common result, however, of this vicious practice is a premature stimulation of the sexual nature, which throws youth of both sexes either into habits of early licentiousness or into a morbid condition of mental impurity. An experienced physician [33] writes: ‘The earliest and most frequent cause of disorder of the generative apparatus is the practice of self-abuse, the tendency to which is strongest about the age of puberty.... Excitement is increased by the conversation and thoughts which are indulged in, and it is apt to be unchecked by the moral control which has not yet acquired its proper influence. Moreover, lads are often induced to the pernicious practice by their companions, who may be as ignorant as themselves of the wrong and mischief they are doing. It would be a very good thing if those who have the charge of boys were less scrupulous in giving warning upon this matter. Much trouble and anxiety might be spared by timely advice seriously and kindly given.... An extensive [Pg 244] acquaintance, through years with those who have just come from our schools, has impressed the importance of this matter upon me.’

Dangers thus existing which may threaten the youngest child, the necessity of guidance, the formation of good habits, and the inculcation of self-respect even in childhood is evident. At an early age self-control can be taught. It is a principle which grows by exercise. The more the brain asserts its power of Will over the automatic actions of the body, the stronger may become the control of reason over sensations and instincts.

The neglect of children at this early age is a direct cause of the corruption of the next stage of life. The lad of sixteen or seventeen is in the first flush of early manhood. He is physically capable of becoming a father, although entirely unfit to be so. Some years are required to strengthen his physical powers. The advantage of the self-control of absolute chastity at this period of life is unquestionable; every physiologist will confirm this statement. But chastity is of the mind as well as of the body. The corruption of the mind at this early age is the most fruitful source of social evil in later life. The years from sixteen to twenty-one are critical years for youth. If purity of life and the strength of complete self-control can then be secured, there is every hope for the future. Every additional year will enlarge the mental capacity, and may confirm the power of Will. The strong man is able to take the large views of sex, its uses, aims, and duties, [Pg 245] which are considerations too abstract for the child-man, impelled by bewildering sensations. If at this early age he falls, he is too often lost. Physical passion, which reaches its maximum (roughly speaking) at twenty-seven, can only be controlled and exalted if, at the age when chastity is a positive physical benefit, the great mental principle of self-control has gained mastery over the nature. If at this period the power of Will has been gained to retain self-respect and resist temptation, such habit of self-government is the safeguard of youth. It is the only foundation on which the early years of life can be safely based, the only way by which those habits of virtue can be established which strengthen the constitution and enable it to grow into the fullest vigour of manhood. If, however, the child has been injured by habits or associations which produce precocity and irritability of function, he will inevitably fall into vice in the earliest years of manhood; his power of resistance is gone, and every temptation drags him down.

One of our ablest surgeons has left on record the following weighty advice: [34] ‘The boy has to learn that to his immature frame every sexual indulgence is unmitigated evil. Every illicit pleasure is a degradation to be bitterly regretted hereafter.... If a boy is once fully impressed that all such indulgences are dirty and mean, and, with the whole force of his unimpaired energy, determines he will not disgrace [Pg 246] himself by yielding, a very bright and happy future is before him.... Where, as is the case with a very large number, a young man’s education has been properly watched, and his mind has not been debased by vile practices, it is usually a comparatively easy task to be continent, and requires no great or extraordinary effort, and every year of voluntary chastity renders the task easier by the mere force of habit.... It is of vital importance that boys and young men should know, not only the guilt of an illicit indulgence of their dawning passions, but also the danger of straining an immature power, and the solemn truth that the want will be an irresistible tyrant only to those who have lent it strength by yielding; that the only true safety lies in keeping even the thoughts pure .... It is easier to abstain altogether than to be occasionally incontinent, and then continent for a period.... If a young man wished to undergo the acutest sexual suffering he could adopt no more certain method than to propose to be incontinent, with the avowed intention of becoming continent again when he had “sown his wild oats.” The agony of breaking off a habit which so rapidly entwines itself with every fibre of the human frame is such that it would not be too much to say to any youth commencing a career of vice: “You are going a road on which you will never turn back. However much you may wish it the struggle will be too much for you. You had better stop now. It is your last chance.”’

Our early neglect of youth is, then, one of the [Pg 247] great causes of social immorality. The most earnest thought of parents should be given to the means of securing influences which will strengthen and purify their children in the early years of life. Evil outward temptations abound, but they must not be allowed to exercise their effects unchecked; they must be counteracted by more powerful influences for good.

The physical growth of youth, the new powers, the various symptoms which mark the transition from childhood into young manhood and womanhood, are often alarming to the individual. Yet this important period of life is entered upon, strange to say, as a general rule, without parental guidance. Parents shrink from their duty. They have failed to become their children’s confidential friends. In every other respect the physical and mental wants of their children are attended to. Suitable food is provided, and the various functions of digestion and assimilation carefully watched; the healthy condition of the skin, of the muscles, of all the various functions of the body provided for, and intellectual education carried on, but the highest physical and mental function committed to the human being, whose guidance requires the wisest foresight, the most delicate supervision, is left to the chances of accident or the counsels of a stranger. Measureless evil results from the neglect of parents to fortify their children at this age.

Although direct and impressive instruction and guidance in relation to sex is not only required by the young, but is indispensable to their physical and moral welfare, yet the utmost caution is necessary in [Pg 248] giving such guidance, in order that the natural susceptibilities of the nature be not wounded. It is a point on which youth of both sexes are keenly sensitive, and any want of tact in addressing the individual, or any forcible introduction of the subject where the previous relations of parent and child have not produced the trust and affectionate mutual respect which would render communication on all serious subjects of life a rational sequence in their relations, may do harm instead of good. Where the conscience of the parent has only been awakened late in life to this high duty to the child, the attempt to approach the subject with the young adult is often deeply resented by both boy and girl. In such cases the necessary counsel may be better given by a stranger—by the physician, who will speak with acknowledged authority, or by some book of impressive character, when such a one (much needed) shall have been prepared. That this is a very imperfect fulfilment of parental duty is true, but it is often all that the parent can attempt where the high and important character of sex has not been understood at the outset of family life, and thus not guided the past education of the children.

It is important to recognise the parallelism which exists throughout the physical organization of the two sexes, making them equal parts of complete human nature—a parallelism which is too often lost sight of, at this period of a young man’s life. In each of the two halves of humanity, the sexual functions are adapted to the higher nature of the human being. [Pg 249] Provision is made in each sex for their control by reason, this provision being made with greater or lesser elaborate preparation in proportion to the relative importance of these functions in each sex. This provision secures their conversion into a human social force, instead of allowing them to remain a blind instinct, as in the lower animals; for everything in humanity is subject to the law of progress and higher growth. The generative function in both sexes must be kept in a state of readiness for use. It has, therefore, its special activity of production, maintaining its tissues in healthy vigour throughout adult life. It is also marked with a certain periodicity, which is stamped on all the more important vital functions. It must, however, at the same time be subjected to reason and converted into a human faculty. To secure this end, it contains within itself natural provisions for its own independent well-being, Nature having established the power of physical self-balance in this important function by the natural, gradual, and healthy removal of unemployed secretions in each individual. It thus becomes the subject of reason, adapted to the higher aims of life, instead of a blind force enslaving the human being.

An important illustration of this subjection of these functions to reason, is referred to by the experienced surgeon, Mr. Acton, who writes: ‘There exists no greater error , or one more opposed to physiological truth, than the fear that atrophy or impotence might be the result of chastity. I have never, after many years’ experience, seen a single [Pg 250] instance of atrophy from this cause. It is not a fact that power is annihilated in well-formed adults leading a healthy life and yet remaining continent. The function goes on to old age, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but very frequently only under the influence of the will. No person need be deterred by this apocryphal fear from living a chaste life. It is a device of the unchaste—a lame excuse for their own incontinence, not founded on any physiological law. The organs will take care that their action is not interfered with.’ [35]

The very signs, however, of Nature’s provision for raising the lower instinct into a human faculty, often create great uneasiness in the young mind. It is at this important crisis that the delicate and respectful counsel of the wise parent or physician is indispensable to both boys and girls. The youth should be told that Nature will help, not injure him at this important crisis of life, if he will be true to his own higher nature. The young of both sexes should realize that self-control of thought and action is essential. Every means of hygienic, intellectual, and religious influence should be used to direct and strengthen both mind and body. For both young men and young women it is hygiene in its largest sense that should be prescribed and enforced—viz., the guidance of the early vital forces, both physical and mental, into natural beneficial directions. The youth who has been saved from habits of self-abuse [Pg 251] in childhood can now be saved from habits of vice in manhood, and helped forward in that life of virtue which alone will strengthen all his powers and make him worthy of marriage.

That this view of the sexual function as a human force, to be governed by reason, is the truth, and the modern theory of its being a blind instinct enslaving the individual a falsehood, is proved in many ways. We have the medical opinion of physicians in large practice, the private and public testimony of individuals, the observation of well-managed schools and colleges, of prisons, of communities, and the social customs of various classes and different races. Let us glance at some of these facts.

In rigid training for athletic sports, for boat-racing, prize-fighting, etc., chastity is enforced as one of the means for attaining the greatest possible amount of physical vigour and endurance. This fact, observed in ancient times, is confirmed by modern experience.

When the health is seriously impaired, the same rule of sexual abstinence is laid down. In a large proportion of these cases the power of sex is not lost; the physical craving may even be increased, from the irritability which often accompanies disturbed health. But the fear of death acts as a counter force on the young mind, and rouses it to unwonted efforts at self-command. No sacrifice is too great to escape death, to regain health, and take part once more in ordinary life. Temptations are avoided, healthy regime adopted, and the young man, taking a great deal of outdoor exercise, leads for [Pg 252] months an absolutely chaste life, with the greatest possible advantage to his health. Such cases may be constantly noted in foreign health resorts, and amongst a class of cases the most difficult to reform—viz., dissipated young men who have been perverted from childhood by a state of society so universally corrupt that it cannot happily be paralleled yet, in England or America.

It is well known that the early ancestors of our vigorous German race guarded the chastity of their youth until the age of twenty-five, as the true method of increasing their strength, enlarging their stature, and enabling them to become the progenitors of a vigorous race.

The opportunity of wide observation enjoyed by the headmasters of public schools, and all engaged in education, lends great weight to their testimony. The master of over 800 boys and young men states: ‘The result of my personal observation, extending over a great many years, is, that hard exercise in the open air is, in most cases, an efficient remedy against vicious propensities. A large number of our young men thus make a law unto themselves, and pass the period of their youth in temperance and purity till they have realized a position that enables them to marry.’ Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, has given similar testimony. [36]

In primitive Christian communities, and many country and village populations uncorrupted by the [Pg 253] stimulants of luxury, we observe the advantage of chastity to the health of youth. In these simple, healthy societies the strong public sentiment of the village, combined with outdoor life, preserves the honesty of the young men until the time of early marriage. The result is the growth of a vigorous, healthy race.

Our recognition of the possibility, as well as advantage, of chastity to the young is further strengthened by a knowledge of the healthy self-control exercised by men in the prime of life. After the age of thirty, the unnatural life of celibacy is a difficult exercise of mind and body, far more difficult than it is to uncorrupted youth. The intimate experience, however, of every observant man and woman can recall constant instances of the honourable fidelity of husbands to their marriage vow during the protracted illness of their wives; and the majority of our countrymen would consider it an insult to suppose that when a new-born child is laid in their arms, and the wife leans for support during her period of weakness upon her husband’s love, that he betrays her love and trust during those solemn epochs of family life.

To private knowledge is added the weight of solemn public testimony from men of ardent temperament who have reached the full vigour of life in the practice of entire chastity. Every one who listened to the weighty words of Père Hyacinthe, spoken in St. James’s Hall before a crowded audience a few years ago, received the proof of the co-existence of vigorous [Pg 254] health with stainless virtue. Similar testimony, called forth by the false teaching and dangerous tendencies of the present time, has been given by many others, proving the principle that the human sexual passion when uncorrupted, does not enslave the man; that the possibility of perfect health and perfect virtue is the natural endowment of every human being.

A modern writer of unsurpassed genius, Honoré de Balzac (whose writings are injurious because they are such wonderfully vivid representations of horrible social disease) was himself a man of singularly chaste life, and attributes his power to that fact. Brought up by his father in strict self-control, his power of Will was not destroyed; he preserved his respect for women, his belief in noble love. His intimate friend thus writes of him: ‘Above all he insisted on the necessity of absolute purity of life, such as the Church prescribes for monks. “That,” said he, “develops the powers of the mind to the highest degree, and imparts to those who practise it unknown faculties. For myself, I accepted all the monastic conditions necessary for workers. One only passion carried me out of my studious habits—it was a passion for outdoor observation of the manners and morals of the faubourg where I lived.”’

Strong testimony as to the compatibility of chastity and health is furnished by the Catholic priesthood. Although it is well known that there are large numbers of men who break their vow, and men who should never have entered the priesthood, it is also well known as a positive fact that vast numbers of men [Pg 255] are found in every age and country who honestly maintain their vow, and who, by avoidance of temptation, by direction of the mind to intellectual pursuits and devotion to great humanitarian objects, pass long lives in health and vigour. The effect on the world of enforced celibacy is, of course, disastrous; but the power that has been gained by the institution of the priesthood is indubitable, and the one object here insisted on—viz., the compatibility of physical health with the observance of chastity—is proved by it on a large scale.

The Shaker communities of New Lebanon and other settlements contain a large number of middle-aged as well as elderly men, who live an absolutely celibate life and enjoy excellent health. [37] The same is true of Moravians, etc.

The possibility of controlling this great human instinct is further shown by the experience of women. We see that under the effect of training to a moral life and the action of public opinion a great body of women in our own country constantly lead a virtuous life, frequently in spite of physical instincts as strong as those of men, and always in spite of mental instincts still more powerful. That the feeling of sex regarded as a mental passion is even stronger in women than in men must be evident to all who give to the word ‘strength’ its true signification—the [Pg 256] signification of mental as well as physical phenomena in proportion to the powers of the individual. The demands of women are greater than those of men; they desire more and more the thought and devotion of those they love. They often display a persistent fidelity, terrible in its earnestness, when they have had the misfortune to become attached to an unworthy object. The weak virtue of the mass of women, exposed to constant temptation, indicates the insatiable craving of the woman’s heart for love. It is never at rest; it always needs its objects, and when these affections are degraded from their high purpose and defrauded of their legitimate objects, they become the greatest obstacle to human progress. No solution of the difficult problem of sexual relationships is possible, until the complete parallelism (not identity) of the sexual nature in the two sexes is recognised, and the significance of woman’s mental necessities understood. Women themselves must learn the meaning of the high nature that God has given them, and perceive how great a responsibility rests upon them in the mighty work of raising the human race out of the old thraldom of lust into the reign of love. That large numbers of women, so richly endowed with the high principle of sex, retain their health whilst leading celibate lives, is one more proof of that adaptation of this principle to the higher character of our nature, which transforms a simple brute instinct into a grand human force.

The foregoing facts distinctly prove that the exercise of the sexual powers is not indispensable to the [Pg 257] health of human beings; that men of all ages can live in full vigorous health without such exercise; and that to the young it is an immense physical advantage that they should so live. This is the important principle to be first established. The subjects of temptation, of customs, of artificial wants, etc., are other questions, to be considered by themselves. Thought will be inevitably confused, and the important practical arrangements of the future hopelessly perplexed, if all sorts of questions are jumbled together; if practical difficulties, social phases, temporary phenomena, are allowed to obscure or completely hide the great guide of humanity—Eternal Truth. A principle clearly established is that portion of truth needed for present guidance. It must be thoroughly understood and resolutely held to, as the only clue which can guide us slowly through the dark labyrinth of error, vice, and misery. Such a guiding principle is found in the essential nature of the human sexual faculty—its distinctive power of self-control. The more this principle is considered, understood, and valued, the more it will be found that it contains the power of purifying society, enlightening legislation, and raising our status as a nation.

The aim, therefore, of all wise parents should be to secure those influences which will preserve the purity of their sons until the age of twenty-five, when marriage, as a rule, should be made possible and encouraged. This is the wise practice, derived from experience, applicable to all nations living in temperate climes. Earlier marriage may sometimes [Pg 258] be wise, but it is not the broad rule. That the individual may remain in health until a later period and throughout life has been proved, but it is a national loss that the best years of vigorous manhood should not stamp themselves upon the future generation.

The unmarried life after thirty years of age is often injured in mind or body. The exceptions arising from character or occupation, from religious enthusiasm or devotion to some great work, do not refute the general statement. It must necessarily be so. As sex is a natural and most powerful human force, there is risk of injury in permanently stifling it. Marriage being its true method of expression and education, the character is injured through want of this development. It is only through honourable marriage that the beneficial growth of manly character of mind and body can be attained. The illegitimate exercise of the sexual powers is a source of direful social and national evil, and requires those strong restraints of both law and custom which help to educate a nation. No fear that some individuals, unable to marry, may suffer in their private lives, can for one moment justify the establishment of practices or the sanctioning of customs which are destructive to the general welfare. Far more evil, mental and physical, arises to the race from the effects of licentiousness than from any effects of abstinence.

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The important question will present itself to everyone who realizes the gravity of the dangers which we have now exposed: What practical steps can be taken to secure the truer standard of morality which will remodel the education of youth? This weighty question can only gradually receive a complete answer, as the intelligence of our age awakens to the fact that the attainment of true sexual morality is the fundamental principle of national growth. The first indispensable basis of all efforts for practical reform is the acceptance of a true principle of action. The great guiding principle now laid down is this: that Vice—that is, the illegitimate exercise of the sexual faculty, regardless of religious conscience and the welfare of others—is not essential to the constitution of the human being, but is the result of removable conditions. The importance of this truth is immense. Its acceptance or denial produces two diametrically opposite courses of action—action in education, in society, and in legislation. [Pg 260] It is one of those abstract truths which are stronger than all facts, being eternal instead of temporary, moulding practical action instead of depending on it. The belief or denial of this truth may express itself in varying forms, according to the age or country, according to the more or less logical workings of a nation’s mind; but whether clearly recognised in all its bearings, or blindly acted on in a confused and near-sighted way, the results will always follow in the same direction. The acceptance of this truth will always tend to diminish and gradually destroy evil; its denial must inevitably intensify and extend evil.

It is the essential nature of truth or falsehood to express itself in practical action. This tendency is overlooked by the majority of human beings engaged in the eager pursuits of daily life, in business, in household duties, in amusements, and the logical results of false theories are, in practical life, often modified by the happy instincts which blindly turn aside the inevitable tendencies of logical error; but the truth or falsehood always remains as a great permanent force at work from age to age. In considering the means of attaining to a truer practice of morality, therefore, the spread of truth is a first indispensable necessity and condition of future improvement. The great truth to be recognised is the fact that male as well as female purity is a necessary foundation of progressive human society. This important subject must no longer be ignored. The time has come for its acceptance by all experienced [Pg 261] men and women. The necessity of upholding one moral standard as the aim to be striven for, must become a fundamental article of religious faith. Above all, Parents must realize the tremendous responsibility which rests upon them to provide for the healthy growth of the principles of sex in their children.

It will be seen, the more closely this subject is investigated, that the thought and action of women as well as men, is indispensable to social regeneration. On women of all classes rests a full measure of responsibility for the present evil condition of sexual relations. No class can throw off this responsibility. Women are equally responsible with men for the deep corruptions of society. This is pre-eminently a parents’ question, affecting the vital interests of the family and the future of children in every relation of life; woman, from her central position in the family as wife and mother, must know how to use her immense influence wisely. To be wise, knowledge of truth is essential, and the adult woman, the centre of home influence, must acquire correct knowledge on every subject that concerns family life. The nature and requirements of men and women is a subject on which a woman needs correct knowledge, not only as a guide to the education of the young child, but as a guide in the various duties of life. A woman is mother always, not only of the infant, but of the growing and grown man. A mother who has been able to secure the friendship of her son as well as her daughter, can exercise a beneficial influence [Pg 262] from youth onwards which will be recognised with ceaseless gratitude in later life. [38] The higher influence which women are intended to infuse into sex makes the subject a holy one to the wise mother. She can approach it in moments of sacred confidence with her children with a delicacy and tender earnestness that wounds no natural reserve, but excites a grateful reverence in the youth’s mind. The first falsehood, therefore, that must disappear is the belief that the higher classes of women—the cultivated, the refined, the virtuous—have nothing to do with sexual vice; that they must remain ignorant of facts, and see nothing but what it is pleasant to see. It is on this class of women, perhaps, more than on any other one class of society that its future welfare depends. [39] They are capable of broad views of truth, of insight, of ceaseless devotion to the highest welfare of the race, to God, when once they have learned to know what truth is; when they have realized the actual facts of every-day life and observed the effects of prevalent customs upon women as well as upon men. The task of regenerating society by securing the healthy growth of the faculty of sex in their children being, therefore, laid upon both parents, the indispensable co-operation of the mother in this work is seen more clearly, as the causes of sexual [Pg 263] precocity and the triumph of the material nature over love are studied more deeply.

The fact being established that the human being is not designed by Providence to be the slave of passion, what are the causes which produce that disease of licentiousness—as truly disease as drunkenness or opium-eating—which we find to be more completely organized and more audaciously justifying itself than at any previous time, the dangerous peculiarity of the present age being that customs and habits, formerly blindly followed, are now defended or legalized?

We shall find, on considering the influence at work on the human being from childhood upward (laying aside for the moment the question of heredity), obvious sources of corruption that help us to the solution of this difficult problem. ‘The temptations of life’ to which our youth succumb are no fixed things essential to human nature. They vary in every age and country. They are changeable facts, removable evils, perversions of natural tastes. The human race can grow out of license into order, out of prostitution into marriage, out of lust into love, as certainly as typhoid fever can be exterminated by pure water and pure air. It is from childhood that the strong man is moulded gradually into the hero—or the criminal. If the superior standard of morality which is still to be found amongst us, be compared with the customs widely diffused in many other countries, it will be seen how variable the standard of morality is, and how dependent it is on social [Pg 264] circumstance— i.e. , on removable conditions. [40] These corrupting circumstances of life surround the individual at every stage of growth from youth onwards. They are found in early habits and influences; in mischievous school companions and studies; in vile literature, books, advertisements, pictures; in indecent theatre, ballet, public amusements; in opportunity and temptation; in drink and dissipated companions; in perverted social sentiment, false medical advice, delayed or unhappy marriage—these are the snares which meet the human being, and which may gradually pervert the nature. Now, there is not one of these facts that is an essential part of human nature. There is not one that cannot be changed to good. Each one of the evils above named is an evil to be attacked and vanquished, and the wise method of doing this, is a distinct command and work of practical religion.

The following points bearing on the moral education of childhood and youth must be considered by all parents who are convinced of the saving value of sexual morality—viz., observation of the child during [Pg 265] infancy, acquirement of the child’s confidence, selection of young companions, care in the choice of a school and of studies which will not injure the mind, the formation of tastes, outdoor exercise, companionship of brothers and sisters, the choice of physician, social intercourse, and amusements. These various points require careful consideration.

The earliest duty of the parent is to watch over the infant child. Few parents are aware how very early evil habits may be formed, nor how injurious the influence of the nurse often is to the child. [41] The mother’s eye, full of tenderness and respect, must always watch over her children. Self-respect cannot be too early inculcated. The keynote of moral education is respect for the human body. The mother should caution the child plainly not to touch or meddle with himself more than is necessary; that his body is a wonderful and sacred thing, intended for important and noble ends; that it must not be played or trifled with, or in any way injured. Every thoughtless breach of delicacy should be checked with a gentle gravity which will not repel or abash, but impress the child.

This watchfulness over the young child, by day and night, is the first duty to be universally inculcated. Two things are necessary in order to fulfil it—viz., a clear knowledge of the evils to which the child may be exposed, and tact to interpret the faintest indication of danger and to guard from it without allowing the child to be aware of the [Pg 266] danger. Evils should never be presented to the young child’s mind. Habits must be formed from earliest infancy, but reasons for those habits should only be given much later. It is the parent’s intelligence which must act for the child during very early life. This unavoidable necessity is, at the same time, a cause of frequent failure in education, for the reason that parents, through ignorance or egotism, fail to see that they must study the nature of the child. The strong adult too often fails in insight, and imposes its own methods and conclusions upon a nature not susceptible of those methods and often not adapted to those conclusions. This is really spiritual tyranny, and destroys the providential relation which should exist between child and adult. The parent should become the first and truest friend of the child. This possibility and duty is a great parents’ privilege, too often unknown, and yet it affects the whole future of the child. It is through the love and confidence that exist between them that durable influence is exerted. If the child naturally confides its little joys and sorrows to the ever-ready and intelligent sympathy of the mother, if it grows up in the habit of turning to this warm and helpful influence, the youth will come as naturally with his experiences and plans to the parent as did the little child; the evils of life, which must be gradually known, will then be encountered with the aid of experience. The form of the relation between parent and child changes, not its essence. The essence of the relationship is trust: the fact that the parent’s [Pg 267] presence will always be welcomed by the child; that in work or in play, in infancy or youth, the parent shall be the first natural friend. It is only then that wise, permanent influence can be exerted. It is not dogmatism, nor rigid laws, nor formal instruction, that is needed, but the formative power of loving insight and sympathy. It is only when this providential relation exists that the parent can understand the life of the child and exercise influence without harshness. With every step in life the child’s horizon enlarges, and opportunities of good or temptations to evil increase. The experiences of school-life, the companions selected, the studies pursued, and the books read, introduce the child into the wide world of practical life in miniature. All the circumstances of school-life are of serious importance—an importance not sufficiently realized in their bearing upon character, and in the responsibility which rests with parents themselves, to mould those circumstances. The child’s entrance upon school-life is his first plunge into the great world beyond the family circle, his first serious contact with new thoughts, customs, and standards—with a new code of morality; not the formal morality of his professors, but the confused practical morality of his school companions. Here he may meet with every kind of evil, of which he had previously no conception, carried on in a crude, practical form by those whom he naturally looks up to—his elder companions, who are perhaps rich and clever, and whom he regards as ‘men.’ How is the child strengthened [Pg 268] to meet this grand new life, as it seems to him, which entrances him with its novelty, its variety, and its vigour, and which very often produces a feeling of kindly contempt for the narrow home life?

Full confidence between parent and child is necessary in order that all the child is learning may be known. This school world, unlike the larger world, is directly under the possibility of parental control. What parents, as a body, require, the teacher will endeavour to provide. The material arrangements and regulations, as well as the moral tone of any school to which a child is sent, must be considered. It being remembered that the great vices of self-abuse and fornication are the curse of our schools and colleges, all the direct and indirect means must be sought for by which these vices can be as rigidly excluded from our educational establishments as the vice of thieving. School and college sentiment should be trained to regard them as equally dishonourable and unmanly. They must be overcome chiefly by moral means in connection with hygienic arrangements. The views of the principal on the subject of sexual training, the character of assistant-teachers, the water-closet and sleeping arrangements, the amount of outdoor exercise secured, should all be studied by the conscientious parent.

Some direct hygienic instruction and warning, suited to the age of the child, should be given. It is a false and cruel delicacy which ignores the great danger of schools, and sends an innocent child utterly unprepared into a school society where [Pg 269] corruption exists. ‘I believe,’ writes an experienced teacher of lads, ‘that ninety-nine hundredths of the immorality that prevails amongst young men originates primarily in ignorance and perverted curiosity.’ He therefore lays down the following practical rules for the hygienic instruction which he deems indispensable: First, that the physiology of sex should be carefully subordinated to general physiology and hygiene, and that it should always be treated comparatively. Secondly, that all instruction and examination should be oral and in class, no text-books being given to the pupils, the utmost simplicity and plainness of speech being employed, and only outline diagrams used as pictorial illustrations. [42]

The rational view of education—viz., the formation of character and the establishment of well-balanced health, as fundamental objects to which other things should be added—require such a revision of our school system as will secure correct physical habits, and, above all, mental purity. This sound basis of education must be insured in all places where children congregate together. Careful arrangements to promote these ends are equally necessary in boys’ and girls’ schools. They promote alike true manliness and true womanliness.

The nature of the studies given to the young and the way in which classical literature is taught require to be considered by parents. The corrupt [Pg 270] literature of antiquity tends to corrupt the youthful mind as unavoidably as licentious modern literature. Its bearing on the healthy growth of youth must be considered. The advantages of classical education should be secured without employing works whose tendency is to degrade the young mind. The contrary opinion is the prejudice of custom. Our Catholic brethren have fully recognised the suicidal policy of imbuing unformed minds with licentious literature, and the Church has held more than one General Conference on the subject. No one can doubt the excellence of their scholarship, and it is much to be desired that a careful study of their methods in this respect should be required from all instructors of youth. The impulse to such a change should come from parents.

The dangers arising from vicious literature of any kind cannot be overestimated by parents. Whether sensuality be taught by police reports, or by Greek and Latin literature, by novels, plays, songs, penny papers, or any species of the corrupt literature now sent forth broadcast, and which finds its way into the hands of the young of all classes and both sexes, the danger is equally real. It is storing the susceptible mind of youth with words, images, and suggestions of vice which remain permanently in the mind, springing up day and night in unguarded moments, weakening the power of resistance, and accustoming the thoughts to an atmosphere of vice. No amount of simple caution given by parents or instructors suffices to guard the young mind from the influence [Pg 271] of evil literature. It must be remembered that hatred of evil will never be learned by intellectual warning. The permanent and incalculable injury which is done to the young mind by vicious reading is proved by all that we now know about the structure and methods of growth of the human mind. Physiological inquiry is constantly throwing more light upon our mental as well as physical organization. We learn that nutritive changes take place in the human brain by the effect of objects which produce ideas; that permanent traces of these changes continue through life, so that states or changes connected with certain ideas remain stored up in the brain, capable of recall, or presenting themselves in the most unexpected way. We see the importance of the last impressions made on the brain at night, indicating the activity and fixity of the cerebral changes of nutrition during the quiescence of sleep. All that we observe of these processes shows us that different physical changes are produced in the brain by different classes of ideas, and that the moral sense itself may be affected by the constant exercise of the brain in one direction or another, so that the actual individual standard of what is right or what is wrong will be quite changed, according to whether low or high ideas have been constantly recorded in the retentive substance of the brain.

These important facts have a wide and constant bearing on education, showing the really poisonous character of all licentious literature, whether ancient or modern, and its destructive effect on the quality of the brain. It is necessary, therefore, to prepare [Pg 272] the young mind to shrink repelled from the debasing literature with which society is flooded, and which is one of the greatest dangers to be encountered. The great help towards this object is the cultivation of strong intellectual and moral tastes in children, the preoccupation of the mind with what is good. Truth should be in the field before falsehood. All children and youth are fascinated by narratives of adventure, endurance, heroism, and noble deeds. The home library should be selected in order to brace the mind and character, and enlist the interest of the child or youth in what is manly and true. Every child also has some special taste or tendency which can be found out, if carefully looked for. It may be for art, for science, for construction, for investigation, adventure, or beneficence; but whatever it be, it may be made the means of intellectual and moral growth. The special youthful tendency is of extreme value, as indicating the direction in which a taste, even if slightly marked, may be cultivated into a serious interest and become a powerful help in the formation of character. The study of natural science and of all pursuits which develop a love and observation of Nature are of great value in education. Such pursuits have the additional advantage of promoting life in the open air. The weighty testimony in favour of the beneficial influence of outdoor exercises and amusements has already been noted. All experience shows us that the calling of the great muscular apparatus of the human body into constant vigorous life is an indispensable means for securing the healthy, [Pg 273] well-balanced growth of the frame, and for preventing the premature development of the sexual faculty. It is a subject worthy of the especial study of parents in relation to the education of both sexes. Abundant exercise in the fresh air, with total abstinence from alcoholic drink, may be considered the two great physical aids to morality in youth.

The companions chosen by the child at school or the youth at college are of extreme importance to the growth of character, and the exercise of influence over this choice, without interfering with the freedom of the child, is one of the greatest aids that a parent can render it. The intimacy between those who are entering upon life together, and who have the same future before them, must necessarily increase and become a great fact in the young life; but it is essential that the parent should know who these companions are, and the character of the influence that will be exerted. If the parent be the friend of his child, he can also be the friend of his friend. Tact and sympathy are of the utmost value in welcoming and attracting the youthful friends, and the wise parental care thus exercised towards offspring, extends necessarily beyond the individual home.

The attention of the parent must always be ready to observe the signs of growing sex in sons as well as daughters. Numberless indications, which none but the mother can note, warn her of that approaching crisis of early manhood, now so fatal to our youth. No wise mother observes this change without a deepening of respect and tenderness, and of [Pg 274] infinite maternal yearning to strengthen, guide, and ennoble her man-child. At this epoch is often thrown upon her an immense responsibility—a responsibility so grave that it may involve the ruin or salvation of her son—viz., the choice of his physician. The importance of this choice cannot be over-estimated by the parent. The young are easily alarmed about their health; they are at the same time utterly unable to judge of their own condition; they have no knowledge to guide them, no experience by which to measure their symptoms. They place absolute confidence in their medical adviser; his opinion and advice outweigh all other considerations and supersede all other counsel. The parent must therefore realize that when a physician is selected for the growing lad, an authority is placed over him which may become stronger than the parental influence, and be henceforth the most powerful support or antagonist in the moral as well as physical guidance of the son.

If medical science were a positive science, as is mathematics, and its professors able to apply its principles to daily life with the certainty of geometrical propositions, it would be folly to do otherwise than accept any medical opinion of established authority with entire confidence. This, however, is not the case, and the members of the medical profession would themselves be the last persons to lay claim to the possession of absolute truth. As centuries roll on, one medical school of opinion succeeds another, and theory after theory is exploded [Pg 275] by accumulating facts. It is therefore no new thing and no subject of reproach to the self-sacrificing members of a noble profession, that different opinions should exist amongst them, in relation to subjects which affect that complex problem—human life. Indeed, it would be an exception to a general rule did not such difference exist. But we are now considering a subject so fundamental in human welfare, so much wider than any class interest, that any variety of opinion respecting it, is of vital importance to be noted, and must be recognised by all intelligent persons. It must therefore be thoroughly understood by all parents that there are now two distinct classes of medical opinion existing amongst physicians. Each class embraces men of high medical repute, but men who hold diametrically opposite views in relation to the guidance of the sexual powers, the one class considering Virtue, the other Vice, a necessity. Each class of physicians is honest in opinion, clear-sighted, wishing well to society; but the one class is far-sighted, the other near-sighted; the one knows the omnipotence of Good, the other sees the triumph of Evil. This diversity of opinion cannot remain as an abstract proposition, but, like all opinion, it expresses itself in action. In medical advice given to a youth, the slightest bias in one or another direction at the starting-point of life will set him on one of two paths constantly diverging to the right or wrong. One path leads to self-control, enlarged [Pg 276] mental and physical hygiene, chastity; the other to doubt, yielding, fornication.

At this period of life, no uncertain advice should be given by the physician. Support and guidance are required from him, and his counsel must be strong, positive, and clear. The patient must be taught that chastity, properly understood, is health. He must learn that the indications of sex in early manhood are a notice that the new faculties must be restrained—not exercised; that they give a warning to guard against self-abuse and abuse of the other sex; that the great danger to be dreaded is stimulation; that everything that can excite, whether external or internal, must be studiously avoided. The vital fact must be announced and powerfully brought home to him—that if he will keep the mind pure, Nature will keep the body healthy. This mental strength is his one great concern, to be secured in every possible way. There must be no doubt in medical advice; it must ring like the words of true science spoken by our distinguished surgeon to his students: [43] ‘Many of your patients will ask you about sexual intercourse, and some will expect you to prescribe fornication. I would just as soon prescribe theft or lying or anything else that God has forbidden.... Chastity does no harm to mind or body; its discipline is excellent; marriage can be safely waited for, and among the many nervous and hypochondriacal patients who have talked to me [Pg 277] about fornication, I have never heard one say that he was better or happier for it.’ [44] The radical importance of the medical advice given to youth will therefore be evident to all parents who perceive the full bearing of the truths contained in the preceding pages. No lesser consideration, no false feeling of reserve, should ever prevent the parent from knowing to which class of physicians the medical guidance of his son be intrusted.

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An invaluable provision for the education of the principle of sex, exists in the companionship of brothers and sisters. This companionship, established by Nature, should be carefully promoted, not thwarted. It is one of those provisions which make family life the type of wider relationships, the true germ of society from which national purity and strength should grow. Indeed, the more we study the capabilities of the family in each of its varied aspects, the more potent we perceive its influence to be, the greater the national importance of maintaining the family in its proper power and dignity. This natural grouping of boys and girls is Nature’s indication of the right method of education, and the time will undoubtedly come when the present monastic system of general education may be given up without incurring grave disadvantages. That the familiar intercourse of boys and girls in the kindly presence of their elders is of very great advantage is an observation based upon wide experience. Isolation, mystery, obstacles, produce craving curiosity, excitement—in fact, morbid stimulus—instead of matter-of-fact acquaintance and natural familiarity. Two opposite extremes tend to produce the precocity and morbid condition of sentiment which now prevail—viz., either throwing youth into the companionship of the vicious or rigidly separating the sexes. Each extreme is against Nature, each is injurious to the individual. The former practice is based upon the theory that sex is an uncontrollable instinct which must run riot. The latter practice proceeds from [Pg 279] the theory that sex is a great evil, a temptation of the devil, and as far as possible to be destroyed. The true principle, however, consists in a recognition of the nobility of sex, and the necessity—1st, of its slow development; 2nd, of its honourable satisfaction.

Now, in the young and growing nature, sex may be richly satisfied by spiritual refreshment and refined companionship. Conjugal relations are not necessary to the very young in attaining true delight in sex. On the contrary, false relations are an outrage. They violently destroy the gradual unfolding of mental and physical joys, which alone produces exquisite and lasting delight. A large amount of honourable companionship between young men and women is of the utmost advantage in strengthening and ennobling young manhood and womanhood. This valuable result is only possible, however, as springing from the practice of chastity; in connection with fornication it is impossible. Parents are now justly afraid of the influences that may be brought to bear on their children. Nevertheless, abundant honourable companionship between the sexes is an important principle of future reform. Provide the necessary condition of adult sympathy and influence, and the wider the range of acquaintance can be made between boys and girls, between uncorrupted young men and women, the better, the more valuable, will be the results of such acquaintance. The possibility and practice of natural familiar acquaintance between unmarried young men and women in any society [Pg 280] may be considered a test of the healthy human condition of such society. Any society where it is considered necessary to keep young people rigidly apart is a corrupt society, based upon principles of national degeneracy instead of natural development.

The companionship of brothers and sisters is now early falsified by the failure of parents to perceive its inestimable value, by separation in studies and amusements, by false theories or corrupt habits, through the influence of which the tie is weakened or perverted. The friendship and affection, however, of these natural associates should be sedulously promoted by companionship in studies, in music, in outdoor pursuits and amusements. Into a family circle where brothers and sisters were friends and companions, other boys and girls, other young men and women, would naturally enter, the ennobling educational influence would extend indefinitely, and those genuine sympathies which should lead to marriage union, would gradually display themselves.

There is peculiar value in the influence of sisters. It is a special mission of young women to make virtue lovely. As the mother realizes all that such a high calling implies, as she fully understands the meaning of Virtue—as distinguished from Innocence—and the methods of clothing it in loveliness, the more she will perceive the noble character of a daughter’s influence and its vital importance. In this aspect small things become great through their uses. The principles of dress become worthy of study; health, grace, liveliness and serenity, sympathy, [Pg 281] intelligence, conversational ability, accomplishments, receive a new meaning—a consecration to the welfare of the human race. To make brothers love virtue, to make all men love purity, through its incarnation in virtuous daughters, is a grand work to accomplish! The failure of young women in any country, to embody the beauty and strength of virtue is one of the most serious evils that can befall a State. The necessity of cultivating mental purity and respect for the principle of sex exists as strongly in relation to girls as to boys, and it is only by securing this mental purity that young women will unconsciously address themselves to the higher rather than to the lower instincts of their male companions.

The family home, carrying on its proper work, is no narrow circle of selfish exclusiveness, but a living centre, attracting to itself and widely radiating healthy social life. The moral influence of parents, and particularly of the mother, as the centre of the household, extends itself in two opposite directions—viz., in intercourse with the poorer classes, through servants, tradespeople, benevolence, etc.; with the richer, through social intercourse with equals. In both directions, her influence will exert a direct bearing upon the moral education of the young. The first and most important connection with the poorer classes is through domestic servants. It is essential, from the outset of family life, to select servants who will not injure the atmosphere of home. The difficulty of doing this should be a warning voice to every parent, and compel a careful search into the [Pg 282] cause of this great and growing difficulty. What does it mean—a widespread corruption through the foundation of society, through the ranks of working women, so that virtue, truth, fidelity, are hard to find? If so, what are the causes, and what will be the influence exerted on the children of the family, both at home and when they go out into the world, and are thrown into unavoidable intercourse with this class of women? The more carefully this problem is considered, the more intimate will the relations of rich and poor be seen to be, the more vital their relations in respect to the great question of morality, the more imperative the duty of every mother to take a personal interest in her servants, to exert an ennobling influence upon them, and to consider the children of her poorer neighbours as well as her own, if only for the sake of her own children. The family is a centre of affection, and every servant should share in this life. It is wrong to retain a young servant in a household without entering into her joys and sorrows, being acquainted with her family and friends, providing her with honourable amusements, and helping her to grow. In connection with this branch of our subject there are two important principles that should be acted on by intelligent women. The first is the necessity of educating the sentiment of sex in girls into a self-controlling force, conscious of the weighty responsibility which its great influence involves. The second principle is the resolute abolition of an outcast class of women. Christian civilization can acknowledge [Pg 283] no pariah class, but only erring individuals of either sex to be helped to a nobler life.

Equally important is the influence exerted by parents as members of society on their own class, thus helping to form public opinion, which is the foundation of law as well as custom. The moral tone of general society at present is a source of great injury to the young. The wilful ignoring of right and wrong in sex; the theory that it is a subject not to be considered; the custom of allowing riches, talents, agreeable manners, to atone for any amount of moral corruption; the arrangement of marriage on a commercial basis, material, not spiritual, considerations being of chief importance; and the deplorable delay of marriage in men until the period of maximum physical vigour is past—all contribute inevitably to the formation of a corrupt social atmosphere, equally injurious to the moral health of men and women. The purest family influence contends with difficulty against this general corruption. After the period of childhood, society becomes a powerful educator of young men and women. The seductions exercised by women and by men bear upon our youth of both sexes in various ways, under widely different aspects, but always with the same degrading tendencies, with the same unequal contest between inexperienced innocence and practised vice. Seeing how the highest aims of parental education are constantly shipwrecked by the influence of society, it becomes a necessity on the part of parents to change the tone of society. [Pg 284] In this great work women quite as much as men must think and act. Two fundamental principles must be steadily held in view in this great aim: First, the discouragement of licentiousness; second, the promotion of early marriage. The methods of discouraging licentiousness in society require the gravest consideration of all parents, and emphatically of all married women. It is a subject so delicate, and yet so vital, that it must be treated with equal care and firmness, and the problem can only be solved by combined action. To admit men or women of licentious lives or impure inclinations to the home circle, or to receive them with welcome honour or cordiality in society, is a direct encouragement to vice and an equal discouragement to virtue. [Pg 285] [45] Confirmed Vice must not be brought into intimate relations with young Virtue. It is a crime, a stupidity, to do so. On the other hand, no inquisitorial investigation of private life is desirable or permissible. A great duty also exists towards the erring and the vicious, towards all those who have oftentimes fallen into vice rather than voluntarily chosen it, who are the victims of circumstances, of gradual unforeseen deterioration. These fellow-beings demand the tenderest pity, the strongest sympathy, the wisest help. Clever or frivolous, unstable or hardened, charming or repellent, they are still precious human creatures, and the insight of large sympathy—that most powerful influence which Providence has intrusted to us—should be extended to all; but such sympathy can only be exerted by the experienced, the strong, and the right way of doing this must be sought for. One duty is perfectly clear: No persons of acknowledged licentious life should be admitted to the intimacy of home; no such persons should be welcomed with honour in society, no matter what lower material or intellectual advantages may be possessed. Their acquaintance is even more to be dreaded for sons than for daughters. The corrupt conversation so general amongst immoral men is a source of great evil to the [Pg 286] young. As the perusal of licentious books marks the first step in mental degradation, vicious talk is often the second decided advance downward.

The moral meanness of enslavement to passion, of selfish disregard to one’s weaker fellow-creatures exhibited by the profligate, should always be recognised by the parent. Consent should never be given to the union of an innocent child with a profligate. This plain dictate of parental love, this evident duty of the experienced and virtuous to the young and innocent, is strangely disregarded. Material advantages in such cases are allowed to outweigh all other considerations. Parents fail to recognise that the only source of permanent happiness must arise from within, from spiritual qualifications; they fail to recognise the inevitable effect of a corrupt nature upon a fresh young creature linked to it in the closest companionship. Thus, in the most solemn crisis of human life, the parent may betray the child. It is not only the individual child that is betrayed, but the rising generation also. On a previous page, the numerous external corrupting circumstances have been mentioned which gradually degrade the individual, but the subject of inherited qualities, of the inherited tendency to sensuality, was not then dwelt upon. The transmission of this tendency in a race is, however, a weighty fact, which must be distinctly noted in this connection. Change in the tendencies of a race can only be slowly wrought out in the course of generations. A most important step in this direction is the union of virtuous daughters [Pg 287] with men of upright—or in the present day, it may be said, of heroic—moral life. The effect upon offspring produced by the noble and intense love of one man for one woman, with resulting circumstances, would in the course of generations produce an hereditary tendency to virtue instead of to sensuality. The known resolve of parents never to consent to the union of their children with men of licentious habits would of itself prove a valuable aid in regenerating society. Honour to virtue, expressed in this sacred and at the same time most practical manner, would be an encouragement, a reward, an incitement to all that is noblest in human nature; it would be a standard to guide youth, a real disinfectant of corrupt society.

The second principle to be kept steadily in view is the encouragement of early marriage. A statesman, writing a generation ago on the causes in the past, which have contributed to the prosperity of England, says: ‘The lower and working classes are an early and universally marrying people; this sacred habit is one which, while it has secured the virtue and promoted the happiness of the country, has multiplied its means and extended its power, and constituted Britain the most powerful and prosperous Empire of the world.’ [46] A quaint old writer has said: ‘The forbidding to marry is the doctrine of devils.’ The universal testimony of experience may be summed [Pg 288] up in the words of Montesquieu: ‘Who can be silent when the sexes, corrupting each other even by the natural sensations themselves, fly from a union that ought to make them better, to live in that that always renders them worse? It is a rule drawn from nature, that the more the number of marriages is diminished, the more corrupt are those who have entered into that state; the fewer married men, the less fidelity is there in marriage.’ All short-sighted Governments that impose unnatural restrictions upon marriage are compelled, by the increase of bastardy and its attendant evils, to repeal such restrictions. Grohman, speaking of the causes of the present immorality of the Tyrolese, says: ‘Very lately only has the Austrian Government annulled the law which compelled a man desirous of marriage to prove a certain income, and, further, to be the owner of a house or homestead of some kind, before the license was granted. Next in importance is the lax way in which the Church deals with licentious misconduct, it being in her eyes a minor iniquity expiated by confession.’ The obstacles to marriage in the military German Empire must be regarded as one of the causes of that moral corruption which we now observe in a country once so distinguished for home virtues—a corruption which threatens to shake the foundations of the great German race.

Early marriage, however, without previous habits of self-control, is unavailing to raise the tone of society. Marriage is no cure for diseased sex, and early licentiousness is really (as has been shown) [Pg 289] disease. In those parts of the Continent where the lowest sexual morality exists, marriage is regarded as the opportunity for constant and unlimited license. The young man, therefore, is not allowed to marry (by the law of social custom) until he is over thirty years of age. If his health has been impaired by licentiousness, he is enjoined to resort less frequently to prostitutes, or to take a mistress; but marriage is positively forbidden by his medical advisers and discouraged by his relations. By the age of thirty his health is either completely broken down, and marriage, therefore, out of the question, or, having passed the most dangerous age of passion without breaking down, it is judged that his physical health will hold out under the opportunities of married life. The result of this system is inevitable. Marriage, being regarded as the legalization of uncontrolled passion, is so exercised until satiety ensues. Satiety is the inevitable boundary of all simply material enjoyments. Self-control being entirely wanting, the spiritual possibilities of marriage are unknown; social duty in respect to sex is a vague dream, not a reality. Physical satiety can only be met by variety; hence universal infidelity—destruction of the highest ends of marriage, the dethronement of the mother, the deterioration of the father, and the failure of the family influence as the first element in the growth of the nation.

The same important truth is exemplified in the social condition of our great Indian Empire. There the custom of early, even infantine, marriage co-exists [Pg 290] with a licentiousness truly appalling in its strength and character. [47] Lads of sixteen, thoroughly corrupted in childhood, become the fathers of a degenerate race, the girl-mothers being the hopeless slaves of simple physical instincts. Early marriage is the safeguard of society only when the self-control of chastity exists, a self-government which is essential to the formation of manly character as well as conducive to vigorous health. With the acceptance of this essential condition, the aim of all wise parents will be to secure for their children the great blessing of early marriage, to provide for them opportunities of choice, and to promote the design of Providence that the young man and young woman suited to each other shall together gain the wider experience of life.

This proposition is always met by a host of social difficulties which perplex the inquirer, and finally quiet the conscience of society into a passive acquiescence in evil customs. These difficulties, however, must be met and overcome. It is cowardly not to face them, and weak not to vanquish them. Wise early marriage is the natural and true way out of disorder and license into the providential order of human existence. The first condition of improvement is to accept this plan as a living faith, not an abstract ideal; to consider how difficulties can be removed, not be cowed by them; and to study the possibilities, not the impossibilities. It leads to diametrically opposite practical action, whether we dwell upon the advantages of a certain course of life and strive in every way to [Pg 291] attain it, or whether we lose ourselves in doubts and discouragements. ‘Put your shoulder to the wheel, and call upon Hercules to help,’ is the only true plan now, as in the days of Æsop. It is a matter of every-day experience that if we resolutely determine to do a thing, and steadily apply the common-sense and intelligence (the germs of which exist in every human being) to its accomplishment, success will follow.

The difficulties urged are the foolishness of first love; the impossibility of providing for a family; the craving for wild adventure, excitement, change. These are the spectres which bar the entrance to the right way of life. But such arguments are all false. They are founded on the sandy basis of removable conditions—on false methods of education, narrow family exclusiveness, on lack of self-control, vicious customs, and perverted tastes. All sound argument, based on the permanent facts of human nature, enjoins us to provide for early marriage as the basis of social good. The young man accustomed from boyhood to mix freely with young women under honourable conditions, is no longer bewildered by the first woman he meets, whilst the free, friendly companionship, secured by the family circle with its wide connections, has supplied a want that his growing nature craves; his taste and judgment have grown and strengthened, and he is no longer the victim of baseless fantasies. Accustomed to free association with young women of his own class, he is able at an early age to know [Pg 292] his own mind and make a wise selection of his future partner. To the young woman an early marriage is the natural course of life; to this end she tends, and, consciously or unconsciously, prepares herself to secure it according to the requirements of society. Her unperverted taste is for the young man a little older than herself—a companion she can admire, respect, and, love—but still a companion, not a father. If taught by the silent though still powerful voice of society that harmony of character, of aims, of temperament— i.e. , mental attraction—is the indispensable foundation of great and lasting happiness in marriage; that material advantages are secondary to this unspeakable blessing; that thrift, knowledge of household economy, power of creating an attractive home, are essential to the attainment of this great good, then her instincts, by an inevitable law of nature, will tend to the acquirement of these qualifications. If, on the contrary, she feels, through the influence of society (still unexpressed), that physical effects are the things chiefly sought for, that physical charm or the power exercised by corporeal sex is the chief or only possession that draws attention to her, then, by the same inevitable law, she will strive to exercise this physical power, and the means of doing so will become the all-absorbing occupation of an ever-increasing number of young women. As already stated, the direct result of the mastery of young men by irresistible physical instinct will be to create a necessity in young women for dress which will bring physical [Pg 293] attractions into prominence or supply their deficiency. The craving for riches and luxury, the ignorance of economy, so often urged as an obstacle to marriage, are the inevitable results of licentiousness, which strengthens and cultivates exclusively material desires and necessities. Children should look forward to beginning life as simply as their parents began it, but with the added advantages of education. It is a totally false principle that they should expect to begin where their parents left off. Filial honour for their parents’ lives and inherited vigour would alike lead them to commence life with extreme simplicity. The power of rendering such simplicity attractive would prove that they had acquired the refinement and breadth of view which is the result of true culture instead of being enervated by luxury. They would thus, whilst beginning life as did their parents, begin it, nevertheless, from a vantage-ground, the result of their parents’ labours. Each generation would thus make a solid gain in life instead of encountering the destructive results which always attend the strife for material luxury.

There are many important points bearing on this vital question of early marriage—such as the exercise of self-control in married life and the teaching of sound physiology, which is needed to reconcile marriage with foresight—whose discussion would be out of place in the present essay. But that the topic must be thoroughly and wisely considered by parents resolved to aid one another in securing this inevitable reform, is certain. The increasing tendency [Pg 294] to delay marriage is so serious an evil, that methods for checking this tendency must be found if our worth as a nation is to continue. The early and solemn betrothal of young people is an old custom now fallen into disuse. The possibility of its readoption as a beneficial social practice, with its duration, duties, and privileges, is worthy of serious consideration.

We have seen that the careful guidance of youth in relation to the faculty of sex, an improvement in the tone of society, and provision for early marriage, are fundamental points which should engage the earnest thought of every mother. It would be, however, a most serious mistake to suppose that the methods of carrying out these principles devolve upon the mother only. It is too frequently the case that the father, absorbed in outdoor pursuits, regards the indoor life as exclusively the business of his wife, and takes little or no part in the education of his children; but no true home can ever be formed without the mutual aid of father and mother. The division of labour may be different, but the joint influence should ever be felt in this closest of partnerships. As the wise wife is the most trusty confidant of the general business life of the husband, so he is the natural counsellor and support in all that concerns the occupations, amusements, society, and influence of his home. No home can be a happy one, if the father’s keenest interest and enjoyment do not centre in his family life. There are, however, special duties to the family required from the father, [Pg 295] owing to his position as a citizen, and these hold an intimate relation to the future of his children. A large view of home duty must necessarily lead to a fulfilment of citizen duty. There are few men who, in their special business or occupation, do not possess large opportunities for encouraging a nobler idea respecting the relations of men and women than now prevails; few who cannot show their respect for virtue and in some way discourage vice. Men, not only as fathers, but as educators of youth—clergymen, physicians, employers of labour—hold an immense power in their hands for raising the tone of a community into which their sons and daughters must soon enter, and through the ceaseless temptations of which the effects of the most careful family education may be destroyed. No occupation can stand isolated from the rest of life; the interlinkings are innumerable. The man who throws a temptation in the way of a weaker neighbour, or ignores the struggles of his dependents, or fails to speak the encouraging word to those whom he influences, may be placing a pitfall in the way of his own son and daughter.

A mighty power which fathers hold in trust for the future of their children, is the character of the legislation which they establish or sanction. It is almost inconceivable how intelligent and well-meaning individuals, knowing the weakness of human nature and its inevitable growth towards good or evil through circumstances, can fail to see the immense moral bearing of legislation. The laws of a country [Pg 296] are powerful educators of the rising generation. They reach all classes; their influence is a national one, silently exercising a never-ceasing effect on the community. Every new act of legislation is a power which will work much more strongly upon the young than the old. The adult who makes the law has grown up to complete manhood under other influences; he is moulded by the laws of a previous generation, and no new legislative action can change his fixed character. It is the young and unformed who will grow in the direction made easiest to them by our laws. Whether the subject of legislation be the increase of standing armies, the promotion of the liquor traffic, the regulation of factory labour, the arrangement of national education, or the establishment of railways—these subjects affect the moral condition of a people. It would be difficult to find a subject of legislation which has not some moral issue, more or less directly connected with it, and which will not influence the rising generation more powerfully than the generation that establishes the law. Legislation, therefore, has an inevitable and most important bearing upon the welfare of the family, and must be considered in relation to its effect upon the youth of the nation. Every mother has a right to ask this from the legislators of a country. No parental legislator should ever lose sight of the central family point of view in legislation—viz., How can good conquer evil? How can it be made easier for children to grow up virtuous than vicious?

[Pg 297]

The power of the human race to place itself under any restrictions which its welfare requires, has already been shown in the control which society exercises over the intense craving of hunger. Strong as the faculty of sex is, its abnegation does not destroy the individual as does starvation from lack of food. This instinct, therefore, cannot be considered more imperative than that of hunger; it must be as susceptible of restraint. Indeed, the relations of sex have already been placed under a certain amount of restriction by both law and custom, only these restrictions are not nearly of such severity or universal application as those which govern the instinct of hunger, showing that the human race, in their present stage of development, have not felt that it was such a pressing question. Society has not hitherto recognised such restraint as essential to its own existence and welfare. This conviction, however, is now awakened, and when once established, it will be found that the dominion of law is as powerful in one direction as in the other. Every great question of society is a necessary subject of legislation. The necessity of protecting property and the ability to do so, even against the terrible power of slow starvation, is shown by every civilized nation. This experience conclusively proves that chastity also may be protected by legislation, as soon as the growing common-sense of a community awakes to the fact that it also is a property—the most valuable property that a great nation can possess—and that licentiousness is a growing evil that may be checked by legislation. [Pg 298] The true principle to be held to, in legislating for the evils that afflict society, cannot be too often insisted on. In legislating for any evil, it is necessary to seek out the deepest source of the evil, and check that source. Attention must not be limited to the effects of the evil. This is eminently true of all legislation which deals with the evils caused by licentiousness—a branch of legislation which, more than any other, has a direct and powerful bearing upon the welfare of the family.

The subject of licentiousness is justly attracting the attention of legislators of the present day to an extent which has never been witnessed before. This is a sign of dawning promise, for the worst condition of a nation is that where gross evils remain uncared for. This great evil has crept on uncared for, or referred to with hushed breath, until it bids fair to ruin our most valued institutions. Legislation has broken the spell, and will continue its work until it has aroused the conscience of the nation. The execution of wise measures can only be secured by the support of an enlightened, conscientious community. No legislation can be efficient which does not represent the best average sentiment of the country. In regard to this great question, no wise legislation is possible for any evil of licentiousness until the subject has been thoroughly considered by those who are most keenly interested in it—viz., the fathers and mothers of the nation. No specialists, of whatever class, can suggest wise measures, as specialists, in a matter which so intimately concerns [Pg 299] the family. Only a large view of what is needed for the purity and dignity of the family, for the good of its children, for its influence in society, can secure wise laws. Anything which tends to encourage the lowest passions of human nature, either by the acceptance of base customs, by the legalization of vice, or by fostering in any other way the animal tendencies of men, must produce hereditary as well as social effects on daughters as well as sons. Customs and institutions which injure the character of women, which weaken their virtue and crush out the germs of higher life, must be the source of deadliest evil to any nation. It behoves the legislators of the present generation to be careful in their social and legal sanction of vice amongst males, lest they be blindly undermining the whole social fabric, amongst women as well as men, in a way which they would least wish to do, if they knew what they were doing.

The first step towards the moral education of the youth of a nation is a clear perception on the part of parents of the true aim of education, with the individual action to which such perception leads. The second step is combination— i.e. , the determination to secure this end by the strength of union. It is true that individual efforts are the foundation on which any power must rest that wishes to lift society to a higher level, and we find at present innumerable individuals keenly alive to the evils in which we are involved, and earnest in seeking a remedy. There are very many families where father [Pg 300] and mother work together with unwearied effort to ennoble home life, but these individual efforts, these aspirations and patient endeavours, although indispensable as a foundation, are isolated and scattered; they are continually overpowered by the evil influences existing outside the family. Organized effort is needed—resolute and united action—to meet the organized dangers of the present age. The condensed review in the preceding pages of the causes which produce the present low or diseased condition of the humanizing principle of sex, indicates the immense range of subjects which its consideration and guidance involve. No isolated individual, no single family, can work out for itself a solution of the present problem, or command the means for securing the moral welfare of the most cherished child. Change in the conditions of life may be wrought by united effort; it cannot be attained by isolated effort. When we consider the innumerable objects for which strength is gained by association, and that this rational principle is constantly extending its operation in the present age, it is evident that any strong leading principle capable of enlisting devotion and steady enthusiasm affords sound basis for combination and organization. Such a leading principle is found in the clear conviction of the nobility of the spiritual principle of sex in the human being, the binding obligation of one moral law for all, and the regenerating power of this law upon the human race. It is a principle capable of enlisting religious devotion and embodying itself in the most valuable practical [Pg 301] action. Methods of combination inspired by this principle are clearly conceivable which would be susceptible of the widest application. Indications of such combination are already visible, and these must constantly extend themselves as this great idea of the present age— the true view of Sex —grows into complete development.

All existing efforts which tend to destroy the causes of licentiousness—such as temperance, increase of occupation and wages for women, improvement of poor dwellings, facilities for rational amusement, the abolition of enforced celibacy, and the regeneration of the army—demand and should receive the special recognition and aid of parents. These movements are all invaluable and cannot be too actively supported, being founded on true principles of growth; but something more is needed—viz., distinct open acknowledgment of the fundamental principle here laid down, and organization growing out of it. In this work the natural leader of a nation is the Church— i.e. , that great body of all religious teachers and persons who believe that man cannot live by bread alone, but that the Divine instinct that urges him onwards and upwards must be expressed in the forms of our daily life. When the Church recognises that one of its difficult but glorious duties is to teach men how to carry out religious principles in practical life, it will perceive that the foundation of all righteous life is reverence for the noble human principle of sex. It will no longer shrink from enforcing this regenerating principle. The undue [Pg 302] proportion of thought and effort now given to forms and ceremonies, to metaphysical disquisitions and subtle distinctions, will then give place to earnest united efforts to enable men to lead righteous lives. No Church performs its duty to the young that fails to raise this fundamental subject of sex into its proper human level. It is bound to rouse every young man and woman of its congregation to the perception that respect for the principle of sex, with fidelity to purity, is a fundamental condition of religious life.

The truths which have been set forth in the preceding pages may be briefly summed up in the following propositions—viz:

[Pg 304]

These are fundamental truths. But in those grown old in watching the spread of evil, despair often takes possession of the mind, and the question arises, Can evil ever be overcome with good? Can we hope to change this widespread perversion of human faculties? When we observe the raging lust of invading armies, more cruel than the ferocity of the most savage beasts; when we study the tumultuous passions of early youth, the rush for excitement, for every kind of gratification that the impulse of the moment demands, can we believe that there are forces at our command strong enough to quell the tumult, to guide the multitude, to sustain the weak, to change the fierce brutishness into noble manhood and womanhood?

There is a force more powerful than tempest or whirlwind, more irresistible than the fiercest brutal passion, a power which works in nature unseen but ceaselessly, repairing all destruction, accomplishing a mighty plan; a power which works in the human soul, enabling it to learn truth, to understand principles, to love justice and humanity, and to reach steadily onward to the attainment of the highest ideal. It is the creative and regenerating force of Wisdom, gradually but irresistibly penetrating the mind of Humanity. This mighty governing Power, call it by what name we may—Religion, Truth, Spiritual Christianity, Jehovah—uses human means, and works through the changing phenomena of daily life. It is our part to make the forms of human life exponents of this Divine force.

[Pg 305]

The principles here laid down are true. They rest upon the firm foundation of physiological law, and are confirmed by facts of universal experience. Let the younger generation of parents accept them in their great significance, making them the guiding influence in all social relations. Then will human life at once begin to shape itself according to God’s Truth; the law of inheritance will strengthen each generation into nobler tendencies; and our nation, renewing its strength, will grow into a humble but glorious exponent of the Divine Idea.

[Pg 306]

Cruelty and Lust are the twin evils that now most seriously afflict our race, and which women—the mothers of the race—are especially called on to fight. Women must act. No one not partially blind can fail to see that the onward movement of events is carrying women forward into positions of active influence in social life that they have not hitherto occupied. Whether we welcome or dread this change, it goes on irresistibly, based upon industrial activity, and extending into every other department of life. The command of wisdom is to accept this advance, recognise its responsibilities, and bravely rise to meet them. Women, by the endowment of Motherhood, are created with special powers. This endowment, which is a mighty spiritual as well as a physical force, indicates their distinctive line of active influence, and will show why they are especially called on to combat cruelty and lust, which kill motherhood.

In this special subject, women must initiate their [Pg 307] own lines of action, for they are called on by the constitution of Humanity to lead in this moral warfare, not be led. Equal justice to all, with protection for the most defenceless, is the only foundation on which both custom and legislation can safely rest in any attempt to improve the relations of the sexes or to remedy the direful evils which these relations at present engender.

[Pg 308]

Terrible instances of this may be seen in Trélat’s medical work, La Folie Lucide , etc. Lallemand and other French surgeons report numerous cases of fatal injury done even to nursing infants by the wicked actions of unprincipled nurses. I have myself traced the ill-health of children in wealthy families to the habits practised by confidential nurses, apparently quiet, respectable women! Abundant medical testimony confirms these observations.

It is not the plan of the present essay to enter into minute details and suggestions relative to every step of family life which bears upon our subject; such details are more suited to the private and familiar conferences of those who are resolved to ennoble the life of sex. When this high resolve has become a guiding principle, it will throw light upon every practical arrangement from infancy onward. It will then be seen that no details are insignificant to the watchful mother; that the shape of the child’s nightdress, made in the form of loose drawers; the manner [Pg 309] of washing and of attending to its natural wants; the nightly prayer; simple and respectful answers to the questions of awakening curiosity—all endless applications will flow from a perception of the necessity of securing the slow and healthy development of sex.

Dr. Acton has called attention to the necessity of securing local cleanliness, and to the evil arising from worms and from the habit of wetting the bed.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD