CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Anonymous 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HQ 31.H87 
 
 Christianity and sex problems 
 
 3 1924 021 843 259 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021843259 
 
CHEISTIANITT 
 
 AND 
 
 SEX PEOBLEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH NOKTHCOTE. M.A. 
 
 ,-^V^ 
 
 
 *^^« 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 F. A. DAVIS COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 1907 
 
COPYRIGHT, '1906, 
 
 BT 
 
 F. A. DAVIS COMPANY 
 [Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, Eng.] 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., U. S. A. : 
 
 The Medical Bulletin Printing-house, 
 
 1911-16 Cherry Street. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 to all my fellowmen and women, however 
 much tempted and however far fallen, 
 whose Faces are still turned toward the 
 ideals of love and holiness and truth. 
 
 (iii) 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 This book has been composed amid the pressure of numer- 
 ous duties and in several circumstances of difficulty. The author 
 feels that the most he has accomplished is the production of a 
 series of fragmentary and imperfect studies upon his subject. 
 
 His thanks are due to several gentlemen in New Zealand, 
 Australia, the South Sea Islands and elsewhere, for courteous 
 answers given to his inquiries. They are due especially to Prof. 
 F. W. Haslam, of Canterbury College, N. Z., and to Dr. Have- 
 lock Ellis, from whom he received invaluable sympathy and en- 
 couragement at a difficult stage of his labors. That the writer is 
 further greatly indebted to this eminent scientist, as also to Dr. 
 Westermarek and Mr. Crawley, will be sufficiently evident. 
 
 (v) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. PAGK 
 Ethie of the Sexes— Science of Sex— Literature on Sex Questions- 
 General Result of Present Inquiry 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Sexual Love — Its Intensity— Modesty — Biblical Views of Sexuality — 
 Exaggeration of Sexuality on the Carnal Side — Modern Efforts 
 to Regulate Sexuality 6 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Sexuality in Childhood. 
 Sexual Vice — Difficulties in Coping With — Analysis of, in Humanity — 
 Sexual Vice in Animals — Among Children — Methods of Dealing 
 With Hygiene — Moral Suasion — Teaching — Punishments 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Mixing of the Sexes in Schools and Institutions. 
 Social Intercourse — Family Life — Sexual Repugnance — Co-educa- 
 tion — Its Defects in Theory and in Practice — Homosexuality in 
 Schools — Social Intercourse in General 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Battle of Chastity in the Adult. 
 
 Morbidity — Sexual Neurasthenia — Consequences of Sexual Sins — 
 
 Celibacy — Fornication — A Sophism and a Truth — Necessity of 
 
 Marriage — Christian Doctrine of Indulgentia — Self-sacrifice — 
 
 Regulations in Certain Professions — Personal Religion 42 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism. 
 
 Historical Aspects of the Question — Economic Aspect of — Moral 
 
 Aspect of — Analogies of — Methods — Dangers — Principle of 
 
 Christian Freedom — Neo-Malthusianism in New Zealand — 
 
 Family Life 73 
 
 (Vii) 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FORNICATION. PAGE 
 
 A Definition of Impurity — Promiscuity — Biblical Views of Fornica- 
 tion — Concubinage — Antenuptial Intercourse 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Venereal Disease in Legislation. 
 Statement of the Question — Modern Ethical Thought and Prostitu- 
 tion — The Problem of Reglementation — The Morals Service — A 
 Policy Outlined — Venereal Diseases and Marriage 98 
 
 CHAPTER VEIL 
 Further Aspects of Fornication. 
 Suspected Increase of Immorality in Australasia — Causes of Increase 
 — Some Proposed Remedies — Age of Consent — Removal of Dis- 
 abilities from Illegitimates — Registration in the Man's Name. . . Ill 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Marriage. 
 Various Doctrines of Marriage — Rationale of Sexual Desire — Inter- 
 course During Pregnancy — Aversion During Menstruation — Con- 
 trol of Desire — Frigidity — Mutual Consideration — Hygiene — A 
 Parable Interpreted 120 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Spiritualized Sexual Love. 
 Its History — Its Basis, Significance and Place in the Economy of 
 
 Life 139 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Modesty. 
 Origin and Purpose of Modesty — Biblical Estimates of — Modesty 
 Among Women — Woman's Right of Marriage — Woman's Special 
 Sexual Difficulties 145 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Divorce. 
 Statement of the Question — Christian Ideal of Marriage — Uncer- 
 tainty of Ecclesiastical Opinion on Divorce — Christ on Divorce — 
 St. Paul — Attitude of State — Duty of Church in the Matter 155 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Forbidden Degrees. page 
 
 Origin of Sexual Repulsion — Attitude of Christianity Toward In- 
 cest — Forbidden Degrees, History of — Matriarehate and Patri- 
 archate — Ideal Unity in Marriage — Marriage With a. Deceased 
 Wife's Sister Considered 164 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Thk Sexual in Art. 
 Condemnation of Erotic Art Considered — Classical Art — The Nude — ■ 
 Zola's View — Art and Word-Painting — Indecent Pictures — Legis- 
 lation 178 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 On the Nature and Ethics of Impure Language. 
 
 Language and Convention — History of Dirty Words — The Test of 
 Motive — Horace and Juvenal — St. Paul 183 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Sexual Perversions. 
 Modern Investigation of This Obscure Subject — Causes of Perversions 
 — Sexual Inversion — Proposed Toleration of Homosexuality 
 Considered — Algolagnia — Sterilization of the Unfit 187 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Gospel and Sex Relations. 
 Asceticism and the Gospel — Tolstoy's Estimate — Christ's Attitude 
 and Teaching — St. Paul — The Christian Ideal of Marriage — The 
 Atonement and Sexual Sins 200 
 
 Additional Note — A, on the Genesis Narrative of the Fall 221 
 
 Additional Note — B, on Masturbation 231 
 
 Additional Note — C, on Circumcision 235 
 
 Additional Note — D, Letter to a Boy Beginning School 239 
 
 Additional Note — E, on the Nocturnal Pollution 243 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND SEX PROBLEMS. 
 
 INTKODUCTOKY CHAPTER. 
 
 Ethic of the Sexes — Science of Sex — Literature on Sex Questions — 
 General Eesult of Present Inquiry. 
 
 In a single sentence of their book, two modern biologists 
 have given pregnant expression to one of the most imperative 
 of present day needs. We need, say they, a new ethic of the 
 sexes. In spite of the vague and frequently petulant expression 
 accorded to this need in conversation and in ephemeral litera- 
 ture, it has a real and general existence, and it is gradually being 
 met. Such a new ethic is being slowly evolved as the outcome 
 of the thoughts and labors of many, writing with various mo- 
 tives and with a greater or less degree of conscientiousness on 
 the series of problems arising from the physiology and psychology 
 of sex. 
 
 The study of sex questions carries the student into many 
 branches of knowledge,, anthropology, biology, medicine, law, 
 theology, and others. It directs his inquiring gaze toward the 
 lowest depths as well as toward the most glorious heights of 
 human development. And here it must be said at once that 
 an investigation of the dark side of sexuality is inevitable. The 
 composition of this work on its present scale would have been 
 impossible without access being had to scientific treatises such 
 as those of Havelock Blllis and Krafft-Ebing, treatises in which 
 the sex life can be seen as it is, without disguise ; and humanity 
 comes before the beholder in many attitudes, good and bad from 
 a moral point of view, kneeling in prayer, striving with itself, 
 disciplining its appetites; or, on the other hand, lying in un- 
 restrained voluptuous enjoyment, experiencing or seeking strange 
 forms of sensuous excitement, raving, raging, bloody, exhausted — 
 
 (1) 
 
2 LITERATURE OF SEX. 
 
 and naked always. Many of the visions in the series are cal- 
 culated to try the nerve even of the trained student of such 
 things; and the present writer is constrained to admit, for his 
 own part, that he has shortened his studies on impure and per- 
 verted sexuality as much as possible; that he has confined his 
 study of human sin — for so it must be called — within the limits 
 of bare necessity, and has left the detailed investigation of ab- 
 normal conditions to those whose special province it is. With- 
 out contributing at this point anything fresh to the considera- 
 tion of the moral advantages or disadvantages of a scientific 
 study of sex, the author would merely accept the position that 
 the sale of works on abnormal sexual conditions should be as far 
 as possible regulated by law. However, a policy of wholesale 
 suppression of even this- class of work is neither requisite nor 
 feasible. 1 
 
 The scientific study of sex does indeed require for its suc- 
 cessful and profitable pursuit not merely the qualities needed 
 by other sciences, but peculiar moral qualities, tact, caution, and 
 forbearance in making known results, drawing inferences, and 
 expressing opinions. The scientist must here, as elsewhere, 
 amass and consider facts. It is the just ground of his quarrel 
 with the orthodox moralist that the latter will not face facts. 
 On the other hand, the scientific inquirer is at times too ready 
 to sneer at traditional or conventional ideas of sexual morality, 
 
 1 The difficulties in the way of the publication of special works on 
 sexual perversions would be considerably relieved if anthropologists 
 generally would follow, and where necessary improve on, the example 
 set by such writers as Krafft-Ebing and Westermarck, and render the 
 most revolting pieces of necessary evidence into Latin. Here, too, 
 must be noticed a suggestion which Mr. H. G. Wells has set forth with 
 his peculiar power, that a minimum price, and that a high one, should 
 be fixed by law for certain departments of literature dealing with sex 
 questions, and perhaps for certain classes of erotic art. In spite of 
 the complicated nature of the problem, an approximately correct de- 
 marcation of sexual literature and art unsuitable for general use might 
 conceivably be arrived at, and the output of such productions might 
 be regulated either in the manner indicated by Wells, or by the issue 
 of special licenses for such sales. 
 
SCIENCE OF SEX. 3 
 
 to speak impatiently of asceticism, ecclesiastical influence, and 
 the like. True science will patiently and carefully estimate the 
 value of these things. It should not be forgotten that in this 
 field of study the question whether the thinker's treatment of 
 his subject becomes a dangerous philosophy of vice or a profitable 
 elucidation of difficulties is decided to a more visible extent than 
 in any other by the spirit in which the work is done. 
 
 It is the author's intention and hope, in the present work, 
 to make use of modern research on sex problems, to consider as 
 carefully as possible the results of such research, but not to 
 exclude or unduly minimize the traditional ideas current in 
 Christian society. Many considerations independent of sex 
 questions strengthen the belief that in the Christian religion 
 is found the key to the problems of life. Consequently, a vital, 
 progressive Christianity cannot long be out of harmony with 
 any part of science. If, as here, it should seem to be so, the 
 apparent discord is due to an imperfect apprehension of the 
 real requirements and aims of one or the other. 
 
 A science of sex, then, is positively necessary to the under- 
 standing and appreciation of Christian sexual ethics. At present 
 there is much uncertainty in men's minds about the ethical ideals 
 of sex which are really of the essence of Christian morality. 
 Which are those ideals? How many of the current ideas about 
 right and wrong in the sex relation ought to be accepted and 
 upheld at all costs by Christian people? And what kind of "new 
 ethic" of the sexes can be accepted by Christians? 
 
 In the present work, therefore, endeavor is made to adjust 
 the relations between science and Christian thought in the region 
 of sexual ethics. The work is not so much a contribution to 
 the science of sex as an attempt to apply that science, for the 
 battles of chastity have been fought too long in the dark. Prac- 
 tical utility grounded on science has been the chief aim of the 
 present writer. The reader will find in the following pages 
 discussions of present day problems, but must go elsewhere to 
 elaborate scientific treatises, like those already referred to, for 
 the weighing of evidence, the discovery of causes, and the in- 
 vestigation of origins, which have made such discussions pos- 
 
4 CHRISTIAN OPINION. 
 
 sible. It is only here and there in the present work that the 
 author has found himself able to make an original suggestion 
 or criticism in the scientific investigation of sex. 
 
 Just as a dull, thick wine may be rendered bright and limpid 
 by the infusion of a draught containing fresh ingredients, so 
 popular Christian opinion on questions of sex, an opinion pure 
 in its moral essence, because in the main inspired by a desire 
 for purity and righteousness, but too frequently beclouded by 
 prejudice, ignorance, and misconception, may be cleared and 
 gladdened by alliance with a true science of sex. The order in 
 which sex problems have here been taken is to some extent the 
 order in which they usually appear in a human life, but in cer- 
 tain parts of the book it has not been possible to adhere closely 
 to any definite arrangement. 
 
 The book having been written from a man's point of view, 
 and dealing mainly with sexuality in men, a number of ques- 
 tions belonging to the sex life in women have been left alone. 
 In one chapter only, the anthropological interest of the subject 
 led the writer into somewhat closer and more direct touch with 
 women's sexual needs. 
 
 In considering the ethic of the sexes we are compelled to 
 face conscience problems of which neither the revelation of 
 morality in the Bible nor the illuminated wisdom of the Church 
 has as yet offered definitive and satisfactory solutions. The at- 
 tainment of such solutions is perhaps reserved for future genera- 
 tions, as the outcome of many preceding thought struggles, of 
 unconquered faith in the Divine purpose of good toward man- 
 kind, of high and sincere moral aspirations. Eemarks which 
 the writer trusts are instinct with caution, and which must be 
 understood to be of a tentative character, have been made upon 
 some of these conscience problems in their place. The discus- 
 sion of such points, being inspired by no other motive than a 
 desire to discover truth, will, it is hoped, be fraught with harm 
 to no one; and, in fine, the author humbly trusts that his work 
 
 will be found neither a irapaxAiJcris £K irAavijs oiSi i£ cucadapcrtas ovSk 
 iv SdAw. 1 
 
 l I Thess. 2: 3. 
 
THE NEW ETHIC. 5 
 
 The formation of a new ethic of the sexes does not involve 
 any radical change in present day ideas of sexual morality. The 
 new will be recognizable as the continuous outgrowth of the old. 
 It will be found that our inquiry in the main serves to confirm 
 the ethical notions upon which the social systems of modern 
 Christian nations are based. Indeed, such a conservative tend- 
 ency will appear in our discussions that we shall even find our- 
 selves at times led back to older and more natural ideas of sexual 
 morality than those obtaining in modern civilization. We shall 
 find that sexual sin has a real and manifold existence; that 
 moral responsibility is a factor of paramount importance in the 
 sex life. But in the progress of this inquiry it will be found 
 that a large element of caution has to be introduced into moral 
 judgments once too readily pronounced upon breaches of sexual 
 morality. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Sexual Love — Its Intensity — Modesty — Biblical Views of Sexuality 
 — Exaggeration of Sexuality on the Carnal Side — Modern Efforts to 
 Regulate Sexuality. 
 
 Dark and formless, over the red faggots in the Tophet, 
 towers the mighty bulk of the idol of Moloch, Lord of the 
 Baalim. 
 
 As the winding tongues of fire enwrap his trunk, and leap- 
 ing to his head, momentarily form a diadem of bright points 
 upon his brow, the image seems to move, to exult, to rear him- 
 self aloft as a king in the valley. In that moment a wave of 
 life, expending itself with a demonic, resistless energy, enters 
 into him — the life of the male principle. 
 
 From his shoulder, as if flung into the Tophet by bis active 
 and potent will, the victims of the sacrifice fall into the fire- 
 waves, there to perish writhing in torture, or after desperate 
 struggles to emerge, should Moloch relent so far, burned and 
 crippled, an augury of better fortune, purchased with exceeding 
 pain. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Perchance the priests of Moloch saw a deeper meaning in 
 the victim's plunge into Tophet's flames than an augury or a 
 propitiatory sacrifice. The sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hin- 
 nom are to us a lurid symbolic picture of the dangers which 
 surround the sexual relation. They represent the tragedy of 
 millions of human lives, the plunge into the fiery heat of sex- 
 ual passion. 
 
 In most races modesty amounting to fear surrounds the 
 sexual act. For an estimate of the widespread notion of the 
 inherent impurity of sexual relations, the reader is referred 
 to Westermarck, "Hist, of Human Marriage," pp. 15 If. So 
 powerful, so instinctive is this feeling of distrust that it 
 
 (6), 
 
IDEA OF SINFULNESS. f 
 
 must not be considered as merely delusive, destitute of any 
 benefit to mankind. The obvious and great liability of the sex- 
 ual instinct in humankind to corruption renders it necessary 
 that some strong counteracting influence should be, as it were, 
 inborn in the moral consciousness of men. Thus a notion which 
 has arisen in humanity containing elements of error, which 
 students of morals ought to endeavor to appreciate at their 
 right value, is nevertheless useful in that it naturally prepares 
 men's minds for the watchful reception of just teaching on the 
 ethics of sex. 1 
 
 Whence had the idea of the inherent sinfulness of sexual 
 relations its origin? Various conjectures have been made on 
 this point. Westermarck finds its origin in the instinctive sex- 
 ual repugnance developed between those who are members of 
 the same household from early childhood. Letourneau suggests 
 that the notion that wives were personal property, or more 
 strictly, the crudity of this notion in primitive times, and the 
 consequent rigorous exaction of chastity from women was the 
 chief factor of this idea. Havelock Ellis shows that in humanity 
 sexual modesty, which includes the notion under discussion, is 
 the outgrowth of an agglomeration of fears, the earliest and 
 most powerful of which in the female is the fear connected with 
 sexual periodicity. The female, afraid of injury, protects her- 
 self against the undesired advances of the male. The circum- 
 stance, too, that the sexual center adjoins the excretory center, 
 when viewed in connection with developing ideas of disgust, must 
 have contributed greatly, according to Ellis, to the ethical isola- 
 tion in men's thoughts of the sexual functions. Further, the 
 development in humanity of a varied ritual surrounding the 
 sexual relation, increased the sense of modesty in regard to it. 
 And these various fears, arising from periodicity, disgust, ritual, 
 convention, the idea of property, and the domiciliar instinct of 
 repugnance, roused emotions to which the familiar phenomenon 
 of the blush gives expression, and upon which it reacts with a 
 
 *I may now enforce this thought by referring to Crawley, "The 
 Mystic Rose,'' p. 484, "This sensitive attitude would seem to have 
 assisted the natural development of man." 
 
8 ORIGINS OF MODESTY. 
 
 stimulating and auxiliary power. (See Westermarek, "Hist, of 
 Hum. Marriage/' 2d Ed., pp. 155, 541; Letourneau, "Bvol. of 
 Marriage," Pref., p. 10 and Chapter IV; H. Ellis, "Studies," 
 vol. ii.) 
 
 The causes enumerated, however, hardly take us far enough 
 back in the history of the notion under consideration. The sug- 
 gestions of Letourneau and Westermarek, with several of the 
 factors emphasized by Havelock Ellis, must indeed be accepted 
 as contributing, causes to the establishment and extension of 
 this notion in humanity, but they do not disclose its primary 
 origin. The fact that some, at least, of the lower animals in a 
 wild state 1 manifest shyness about copulation shows that the 
 sense of sexual modesty originated amid yet more primitive 
 emotions than those of which these anthropologists describe the 
 growth and intensification. Havelock Ellis, in his suggestion 
 of sexual periodicity, comes nearer to the root of the matter; 
 yet even periodicity, which as he notes, affects chiefly the female, 
 is hardly a sufficient basis for an ethical notion entertained by 
 men as strongly and as widely as by women. 
 
 It appears, then, that the primary origin of this notion 
 must be sought in the amatory conflicts of the males. That 
 these conflicts should rapidly generate a desire on the part of 
 two animals to copulate in secrecy, without fear of disturbance 
 or of attack, and that from this seeking after secrecy from mo- 
 tives of fear should arise an instinctive feeling that the sexual 
 act must always be hidden, is a natural enough sequence. And 
 since it is not a long step between thinking of an act as needing 
 concealment and thinking of it as wrong, it is easily conceivable 
 that sexual intercourse comes to be regarded as a stolen, and 
 therefore in some degree, a sinful pleasure. 
 
 Havelock Ellis describes the rise of similar ideas in regard 
 to eating: '^Whenever there is any pressure on the means of 
 subsistence, as among savages at some time or other there nearly 
 
 1 Domestic animals, which for unnumbered generations have been 
 for the most part freed from violent interference in the performance 
 of their sexual functions, and frequently cannot choose privacy for 
 copulation, have lost the instinct of concealment. 
 
ORIGINS OF MODESTY. 9 
 
 always is, it must necessarily arouse a profound emotion of anger 
 and disgust to see another person putting into his stomach what 
 one might just as well have put into one's own. ... As 
 social feeling develops, a man desires not only to eat in safety, 
 but also to avoid being an object of disgust, and to spare his 
 friends all unpleasant emotions." 
 
 Competition in respect of the means of satisfying hunger 
 caused the act of satisfying it to be looked upon as something 
 to be ashamed of. And this principle of interpretation clearly 
 holds good in regard to the phenomena of sexual modesty. To 
 satisfy the sexual appetite in presence of others arouses that 
 appetite in them; such an act is therefore not only dangerous 
 to safety, but shamefully egotistic. 
 
 But why has this notion of modesty, largely, though by no 
 means entirely, ceased in the matter of eating and become in- 
 tensified in the other direction? For one thing, the necessity 
 of eating is of far more frequent recurrence than the other neces- 
 sity, and the development of methods of production largely 
 decreased the strain of competition, at any rate with respect to 
 the immediate procuring of a meal. Secrecy in regard to so 
 common an act as eating could not be maintained with any sort 
 of consistency. Further, the sacramental meals which form a 
 part of so many rituals would have the opposite effect of making 
 this act a social and public one. The only factor in the devel- 
 opment of sexual ethics which might have powerfully combated 
 the original impulse to concealment was religious prostitution, 
 but this custom was largely discredited, as being in irreconcil- 
 able conflict with the monogamic ideal, that prehistoric insti- 
 tution which has established for the sex life in humanity, at 
 once the earliest and the highest standard 1 ; and it never ac- 
 
 1 Woods Hutchinson, in an article in the "Contemporary Review" 
 for October, 1904, adduces much interesting evidence of monogamous 
 habits in the lower creation. Monogamy had therefore appeared in the 
 biological series before the advent of man; and the researches of Wes- 
 term&rck have gone far to establish this form of marriage as the 
 primitive one in humanity. (See further, Howard, "Hist, of Matrimonial 
 Institutions," i, 96ff., 141, 150, 151, 201f). 
 
10 SEXUAL TABOOS. 
 
 quired sufficient influence to stay the general current of feeling 
 in regard to the sexual act. 
 
 Crawley, in "The Mystic Hose," following Dr. J. G. Frazer, 
 indicates the desire for the security of solitude as the first step 
 in the evolution of the sense of sinfulness now under considera- 
 tion. He also describes the operation of another factor, the 
 primitive fear of the unknown and presumably supernatural in- 
 fluences surrounding sexual functions. From this fear arose 
 the great system of sexual taboos, under which the sense of in- 
 herent sinfulness in sexual relations receives ethical direction 
 and extension — not necessarily right direction or extension at 
 any particular stage, early or late, of human development. 
 
 We see, in fact, that there has arisen in the primitive mind 
 a dual fear surrounding the sexual relation- — a fear of offending 
 man, which is the root of altruism, and another fear which, as 
 known to anthropological science, is appropriate to a dim and 
 superstitious apprehension of Divinity. This latter fear is the 
 root of self-control and regulation in the sex life. Casual and 
 reckless sexual intercourse is abhorrent to primitive man. He 
 can only gratify his sexual appetite when he has satisfied certain 
 taboos. In the region of these ideas the Divine Will respecting 
 sexual union is revealed to man. 1 
 
 In making the attempt to understand the growth of this 
 notion of the sinfulness of sexual intercourse, account must be 
 
 1 The question whether, at any definite point in the early history 
 of man, a revelation of the ethic of marriage was given, need not here 
 be considered. It is enough to observe that according to both natural 
 and revealed morality, monogamy is placed before man as the true 
 ideal of sexual relations. And in studying primitive sexual customs, as 
 collected and made known by anthropological science, the Christian 
 thinker will estimate their ethical value according as they develop 
 sexual ethics in harmony with this ideal or have an adverse tendency. 
 Some thinkers are satisfied with the conception of a primitive revela- 
 tion given through the medium of wholly subjective processes, by the 
 Supreme Eeason imminent in human reason. (See Tennant, "The Fall 
 and Original Sin," p. 85, also p. 78, where Reville is cited.) Probably 
 primitive man took over from prehuman ancestors the instinctive pref- 
 erence for monogamy, a preference which was intensified and rendered 
 conscience-compelling by his rudimentary ethical and religious ideas. 
 
 *. 
 
FORMATION OF SEXUAL ETHIC. 11 
 
 taken of the prehistoric influence upon mundane processes of 
 the mysterious force of moral evil, to which reference is made 
 elsewhere in this volume, though it is indeed impossible to 
 estimate the action of this force, or to discern its point of en- 
 trance. The evolution of ideas in respect of sexual functions, 
 along with all the rest of human evolution, is not what it would 
 have been apart from the Fall. 1 It was doubtless always in- 
 tended by the Creative Intelligence to mature a perfect ethic 
 of the sexes, amid conditions of moral innocence, and when an 
 alien element was introduced into these conditions there ensued 
 a warped and parodied ethical development. Even if there are 
 no data enabling us to account historically for the factor of evil, 
 even if it must be regarded as always present in mundane evolu- 
 tion so far as we can review it, it must none the less be consid- 
 ered and allowed for as an extraordinary factor, inharmoniously 
 introduced into the scheme of creation in any practical estimate 
 of human evolution. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the influence of the sexual 
 taboos, tending to a strict demarcation of the sexes and to an 
 ascetic view of sexual relations, was early modified by mutual 
 sympathy between the sexes. Primitive man discovers that 
 contact with woman is not always dangerous; sometimes it is 
 beneficial. (See Crawley, "The Mystic Eose," p. 202.) Further, 
 the phenomena of courtship and attraction are at least as primi- 
 tive as the early taboos, and these practices tend to promote 
 vigorous animal feeling about sexual relations, and to counter- 
 act superstition and asceticism. 
 
 Anthropology thus directs us to the idea of a sexuality in 
 which are blended the elements of healthy animal passion and 
 moral self-restraint; of enjoyment and of sacrifice; of self- 
 assertion and of altruism. 
 
 It appears, then, that the notion of the inherent impurity 
 of sex relations is not to be uncritically or superstitiously enter- 
 
 1 For a development of this line of thought, see a lecture by Canon 
 (now Bishop) Gore, reported in the "Church Times" for Feb. 19, 1897. 
 To this lecture I refer again, when dealing more at length with the 
 mundane origin of evil. 
 
12 SEX AND BEAUTY. 
 
 tained. Both ancient and modern thinkers, as Plato and Weis- 
 mann, have found in catabolism, one of the great principles un- 
 derlying the manifestations of sex, an especial source, if not the 
 chief source of progress. Plato expresses this truth in allegorical 
 guise, saying that "poverty is the mother of love." (Symp., sec. 
 xxiii.) 
 
 It is from sex, too, according to many writers, 1 that all 
 ideas of material beauty derive the primary impulse of their 
 development. Nor is anything to be said in disparagement of 
 a philosophy of beauty which undertakes the consideration and 
 analysis of aesthetic conceptions and physical charm. It is 
 helpful as far as it goes. But there should be a recognition of 
 the incompleteness of its range of thought. Conceivably, it 
 may become morally dangerous if it remains exclusively mate- 
 rialistic; if its adherents, in their rapt contemplation of what 
 is visibly attractive in Nature, in humanity, or in their artistic 
 representations, ignore the worthier types and developments of 
 beauty. Por to achieve completeness, this reasoning, that sex 
 is the mundane origin of conceptions of beauty, must be car- 
 ried on into the moral sphere. To say nothing of chastity, such 
 manifestations of moral beauty as courage, self-sacrifice, meek- 
 ness, patience, gentleness, have an easily traceable connection 
 with the sex life and its activities. 
 
 There is an objective, ideal element in beauty, recognized 
 in the material region by writers like Stratz and Ellis; and 
 on the higher side, made the fulcrum of his spiritual teaching 
 by Plato, who in the "Phsedrus" and "Symposium" chose beauty 
 as the idea mediate between the passion of love in its sensuous 
 aspect, and the higher enthusiasms which direct the human 
 spirit toward eternal aims. 
 
 One department, then, of the science of sex, is certainly 
 the study of beauty; and the mind which would aim at any 
 degree of completeness in that study, must endeavor to view 
 the various forms of beauty, animal, aesthetic, and spiritual, in 
 their true perspective. 
 
 1 See the opinions collected and discussed by Havelock Ellis, "Stu- 
 dies," voL iv, pp. 136ff. 
 
BIBLICAL VIEWS OF SEX. 13 
 
 The idea of the commingling of the two principles, male 
 and female, in Nature, was not necessarily, though in history 
 it was frequently, productive of an immoral worship or a de- 
 grading symbolism. The prophets of Israel use this conception 
 to illustrate some of their highest ethical teaching. They do 
 not shrink from symbolizing the communion of Yahweh with 
 His people, a spiritual union of fathomless profundity and power, 
 under the figure of a marriage between Him and His land. 
 (Isa. 62: 5; Ezek. 16; Hos. 1, 2, 3. 1 ) 
 
 The innocence of the sexual passion per se is frequently and 
 sometimes impressively recognized in the Bible (Gen. 29: 18; 
 Ps. 45 : 11) ; its purely sensuous character being elevated and 
 disciplined in humanity by faithful monogamy (Gen. 2 : 24 ; Can- 
 ticles) . Even the heavenly word aya-wrj, a word for which re- 
 vealed religion has a peculiar fondness, even if it was not actually, 
 as a scholar has said, "born within the bosom of revealed reli- 
 gion," may like the corresponding Hebrew word ahabhah spring 
 from an earthly root, a root signifying physical desire or aspira- 
 tion. In Canticles it is used of the powerful sexual longing, 
 no doubt to be considered as governed by the underlying ethical 
 motive of this poem. In other passages it and its verb are used 
 even of sinful love (II Sam. 13: 1; Lam. 1:2; Ezek. 16). 
 In the evolution of language it took a higher place than Upon, 
 which perhaps on account of the degraded sensuality so largely 
 associated with it, is not found in the New Testament, but the 
 
 * There is no need to assume, as is done by G. A. Smith in his 
 commentaries on Isaiah and Hosea, that the imagery is so framed as 
 t:i contain no adumbration of the sexual relation on its physical side. 
 Such an interpretation is tinged with ManictiEeanism, and impoverishes 
 the imagery of the nuptials between Yahweh and Israel. Rather it is 
 a most gracious condescension to the moral needs of humanity that the 
 love of God for man is imaged as gathering up into itself and sanctifying 
 every part of man, all his instincts, emotions and activities. But in the 
 prophetic religion of Israel this figure is not taken out of its proper 
 region, the region of imagery. All attempts to transfer it into the 
 region of material action — attempts such as issued in gross and 
 licentious misconception among the heathen of Western Asia — are pro- 
 hibited by the prophetic teaching. 
 
14 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF SEX. 
 
 verb ayairav retains even there a purified sexual application 
 (Eph. 5: 25, 28, 33). The statement in Grimm's N". T. Lexi- 
 con, s. v. <j>i\e<o that ayairaia is not, and cannot be used of sexual 
 love is, as the American editor points out, inaccurate. 
 
 It must not, however, be forgotten that there is another 
 circle of ideas in the Bible respecting the sexual relation, ideas 
 in which appears a reflection of the sentiment already alluded 
 to, that this relation on its carnal side is tainted with moral 
 impurity. Thus it has been suggested that the narrative in 
 Genesis of the plucking of the Forbidden Fruit is a symbolic 
 representation of the act of sexual intercourse 1 ; and although 
 the correctness of this opinion is not to be hastily admitted, 
 we must certainly note what a prominent place, in the narra- 
 tive of the introduction of evil into the world, and similarly 
 in the story of the Angels' trespass in Gen. 6, a legend which 
 may contain another account of the Fall of Man, is imme- 
 diately given to the thought of sexual impurity. It is as if, 
 in the mind of the writers of these narratives, the moral disease 
 seizes most readily upon the sexual nature of all parts of the 
 human subject. Allusion is made elsewhere to the taboo on the 
 intercourse of the sexes (see Ex. 19: 15; I Sam. 21: 5; Deut. 
 23: 10; II Sam. 11: 11, and the discussions of these passages 
 in W. E. Smith, "Eeligion of the Semites," Note C, and the 
 Commentaries of Driver and H. P.. Smith), a practice which 
 points to a notion of impurity inherent in the act. Further, in 
 Hebrew thought, not less than in the thought of other nations, 
 as their language occasionally testifies, a certain shame akin to 
 the above-mentioned idea attaches to nakedness (Apoc. 3 : 4, 18; 
 16: 15, and frequently in the 0. T. Prophets). There is cer- 
 tainly a deep significance in the fact that this view of the sexual 
 relation, as well as the contrasted one, finds a place in the Bible. 
 
 Practically, at any rate, under present conditions of human 
 life and progress, the sensuous desire which plays so important 
 a part in investing with happiness the sexual relation, becomes 
 frequently a dangerous force, impelling men and women into 
 
 1 See Additional Note A on the Genesis narrative of the Fall. 
 
SEXUAL DESIRE. 15 
 
 abysses of disease, degradation, and confusion. It may be per- 
 missible to offer some remarks on a few aspects of the problem 
 thus created. 
 
 Some writers entertain a hope that the power of the sextial 
 instinct is diminishing in civilized humanity in proportion as 
 the mental faculties develop. The contention that there is such 
 a development is itself full of difficulty, but apart from this the 
 foregoing opinion might seem to some extent commended by 
 the analogy of the evolution of sexual passion in one sex, the fe- 
 male. Dr. Sperry maintains ("Husband and Wife," p. 132), 
 that there are degrees of amorousness among women, involving 
 often a large measure of difference. It is arguable that the aver- 
 age modern woman is less conscious of desire than the average 
 man, but there may have been a time in human history when 
 this was not so. The ancient Hebrews and Greeks seem to have 
 believed that woman was more powerfully inclined to carnal 
 pleasure than man. Such* is the idea expressed in Gen. 3: 16 
 (see Dillmann's note in loc. E. T.). It finds fiercer expression 
 in compositions like the "Lysistrata of Aristophanes," and later, 
 in "Juvenal's Satires," where he attacks feminine morals (see 
 especially Sat. VI, 254; Sat. XI, 168), though such passages 
 do not warrant a general induction. 
 
 But at all events the notion of a general weakening of sex- 
 ual desire among civilized races is as yet "not scientifically 
 proved." 1 On the other hand, there is much reason for think- 
 ing that the sexual instinct, so far from becoming enfeebled, is 
 more than usually liable to excesses and perversions in days when 
 towns are crowded, when competition is feverish, when nerve- 
 power is frequently subjected to abnormal strain, when the law 
 of heredity has had ample time to develop the evil forces in 
 human nature, when marriage at their own social level is out 
 of the reach of many, and the economy of the sexes becomes dis- 
 turbed multis mirisque modis. Many of the dark pictures of 
 sexual immorality drawn by Juvenal, including particularly the 
 immorality of children (Sat. VII, 239, 240), have their reflec- 
 
 1 Westermarek, "History of Human Marriage," p. 150. 
 
16 THE PURITY QUESTION. 
 
 tion in our own time. They are the product, not so much of 
 conscious and wilful depravity of spirit, as of hard and strained 
 conditions of life, when natural instincts are unwholesomely 
 confined. Individuals of high culture and great mental devel- 
 opment frequently seem to lose none of the force of animal 
 passion, though they may acquire the power of habitual, yet 
 painful, self-restraint, and on the whole, in view of all that 
 is known about the moral state of modern schools, armies, and 
 towns, one can hardly think that men, although increasingly 
 prudent as regards marriage and procreation, find it appre- 
 ciably easier than did their forefathers absolutely to forego 
 sexual pleasure. 1 
 
 In the progress of the sex life, then, are various and mighty 
 elements of danger. Even when we have got rid of the exag- 
 geration and high coloring with which, in the popular mind, the 
 evil results of sexual excesses and misdemeanors are surrounded, 
 there is still a large residuum of sad truth, a mournful tale of 
 lives which have been consumed by entering the fire. 
 
 In the thought and literature of the day many efforts are 
 made to solve portions of the sexual problem. These are inspired 
 by various motives, and have different degrees of success. But 
 alas ! how many of these efforts are in the main futile and in- 
 adequate, even when made in quarters whither we might nat- 
 urally look for the industry in observing and appreciating phe- 
 nomena, the wisdom, sympathy, and insight necessary for dealing 
 with a burning moral question. 
 
 It is needless to multiply instances. The published report 
 of the deliberations of the Anglican Bishops on purity, at the 
 Lambeth meeting in 1897, will suffice. The motive underlying 
 
 l Havelock Ellis ("Man and Woman," p. 67) combats the theory of 
 a decrease of physical amorousness in civilized races. "There is con- 
 siderable evidence to show that the sexual instincts of the lower races 
 are not very intense. It would probably be found that the higher races 
 (i.e. those with the larger pelvis) have nearly always the strongest 
 sexual impulse." See further for a more recent and fuller study of 
 this point by the same writer, "Studies," vol. iii, pp. 214ff.; and cp. How- 
 ard, op. cit. i, p. 94, and reffs. 
 
JUVENILE DEPRAVITY. 17 
 
 this manifesto is excellent, and certain parts of it are useful, 
 but can we think that this pronouncement, consisting largely 
 of the familiar abstract statements and exhortations on the sub- 
 ject (one or two of which, by the way, as they find expression 
 in this manifesto, do not convey the full truth), is all the guid- 
 ance that men may fairly expect, amid the saddest perplexity 
 and in the most exhausting struggle, from leading Christian 
 teachers who presumably have had ample opportunities for study- 
 ing human nature in relation to morality and religion? 
 
 Later on, it may be necessary to comment critically on a 
 detail of the episcopal manifesto; though its spirit is the same 
 as that which, as the author hopes and believes, animates this 
 essay. Here we note that the Bishops make suggestions about 
 holding discussions on various phases of the purity question. 
 These suggestions, it may be, bear fruit in meetings for the 
 consideration of juvenile depravity and kindred subjects, and 
 possibly some of these meetings have a certain usefulness. It is 
 not putting the matter too strongly to urge that unless such 
 meetings result in definite and vigorous efforts in the cause of 
 purity; unless they conduce to a clearer and more sympathetic 
 understanding of the real difficulties of the question, they tend 
 merely to weaken, confuse, and depress those who take part in 
 them. 
 
 The present writer remembers a meeting in Christ Church, 
 Few Zealand, called for the purpose of considering the preven- 
 tion of juvenile depravity. Doubtless in its methods, or at least 
 in its results, it was typical of many similar ones. It was well 
 attended, and an extremely painful discussion took place. The 
 misdoings of the juveniles were painted in glaring colors, and 
 the evil results of sexual misdemeanors were morbidly dwelt 
 upon. Some useful remarks were made by the medical men 
 present upon the care and management of young children in 
 relation to sexual development, but they fell flat, for the most 
 part, upon the meeting. 
 
 What resulted? An unprofitable committee, which dis- 
 banded in a few months, having done practically nothing for the 
 improvement of public morals, and a few vague proposals for 
 
18 MOLOCH. 
 
 getting up entertainments to keep children off the streets at 
 night. Invaluable suggestions! A magic lantern, or a set of 
 conjuring apparatus; a game of draughts or of bagatelle; some 
 dumb crambo, and a possible cup of coffee and a bun — to cope 
 with the strongest of the carnal passions that belong to human 
 nature. 
 
 Tophet blazes unchecked. Moloch extends his arms and 
 casts off from his limbs the showers of scarlet spray. The vic- 
 tims make their plunge into the flames, and we hold abortive 
 committee meetings 1 
 
CHAPTBE II. 
 Sexuality in Childhood. 
 
 Sexual Vice — Difficulties in Coping With — Analysis of, in Humanity 
 — Sexual Vice in Animals — Among Children — Methods of Dealing with 
 — Hygiene — Moral Suasion — Teaching — Punishments. 
 
 Methods of coping with the huge evil of sexual impurity, 
 by legislative and other measures, have usually the fault of be- 
 ginning to work at the circumference of the phenomenon, on 
 the false theory that the center and heart of it can thus be 
 reached. To suppose that adequate remedies of this class of evils 
 will be found in clearing the streets of children and young peo- 
 ple after a certain hour, in getting up entertainments, checking 
 the sale of sensuous pictures and promoting other surface meas- 
 ures, is to fall into a fatuous error. It would be as rational to 
 think that we could curb the violence of a volcanic eruption by 
 carting away a little of the refuse and scoria on the outskirts of 
 the scene of disturbance, while the cone in the center, waxing 
 ever hotter and more furious, continued to discharge vaster sup- 
 plies of fiery matter. 
 
 In the present order of things it may well be doubted 
 whether any legislator will arise capable of framing adequate 
 laws for the treatment of sexual misdemeanors and follies. Leg- 
 islation has here to cope with an adversary so subtle that save 
 for partial success at a few points, legislative efforts must recoil 
 baffled. 
 
 Let us not, then, attempt to satisfy our consciences by the 
 promotion of mere surface measures ; not indeed that they are in 
 every case entirely useless, but they deal with symptoms and 
 effects rather than with causes. Let us investigate beyond these, 
 and try to press nearer the heart of the question, welcoming 
 whatever help and guidance can be obtained, from the light of 
 revelation and the light of science, in this dark region. 
 
 (19) 
 
20 SEXUALITY IN ANIMALS. 
 
 As already hinted, a correct analysis of sexual sin cannot 
 be arrived at merely by referring all phases of it in humanity 
 to man's wilful depravity and responsible choice. Man's sexual 
 nature, and the conditions which surround it, are not so detached 
 from those of the higher brutes as wholly to justify the com- 
 parisons which some writers on sexual subjects are fond of draw- 
 ing between his ignoble depravity and corruptness and the inno- 
 cence of brutes. This contrast is not so instructive as it claims 
 to be. For, in the first place, it is erroneous to assume an ab- 
 sence among brutes of sexual vice. In a tract of the White Cross 
 series 1 these words occur : "The animals never sin against their 
 nature, unless man has tampered with them." It is not quite 
 clear what the writer means by these words. It is by no means 
 uncommon to observe the grossest perversion of the sexual in- 
 stinct among animals. The present writer has observed strange 
 instances of this phenomenon, which seem due mainly to the 
 fact that in a disturbed environment the instinct is denied its 
 normal gratification. The reader should also consult Wester- 
 marck, "Hist, of Human Marriage," p. 281, and the references. 
 
 Modern moralists are being compelled, in the light of facts, 
 to recognize that abnormal sexual action, e.g., masturbation, 
 occurs in certain circumstances among the lower animals. Dr. 
 Stall admits this very reluctantly and with large reservations. 
 The real truth lies probably midway between his position and 
 that taken up by Godfrey in the "Science of Sex." Animals, 
 when taken out of their normal sexual environment, may not 
 masturbate as readily as Godfrey seems to believe, but there is 
 reason to think that they do so much more readily than writers 
 like Dr. Stall allow. We shall approach this subject again later 
 on. 
 
 Secondly, it is shown by much independent investigation 
 that man's responsibility is surrounded by conditions which limit, 
 while they do not obliterate it, and on the other hand the germ 
 of moral responsibility, the rudiments of a moral nature, are 
 visible among brutes. Although in our race, as compared with 
 
 "True Manliness,'' by J. E. H., p. 14. 
 
IMPURITY IN CHILDREN. 21 
 
 brutes, the sexual instinct comes under new laws, it is none the 
 less interesting and important to observe that some, at least, of 
 the causes which produce sexual vice in man may be seen op- 
 erating in the brute creation. The case may be stated concisely 
 in this way : given a strong desire, ever pressing for gratification, 
 and a set of circumstances which do not allow of its normal 
 gratification, and unless some counteracting force can be brought 
 into play — e.g., the will-power and nobler developments of the 
 human soul — some abnormal and illegitimate use of the sexual 
 function must ensue. 
 
 In studying sexual vice, then, in humanity, it will not be 
 sufficient either to denounce corruptness or to emphasize respon- 
 sibility. We must aim first at the recognition and appreciation 
 of the causes of the exaggeration and perversion of desire; sec- 
 ondly, at the removal of those causes and the consequent diminu- 
 tion or moderating of desire by medical or other means ; thirdly, 
 since no known physical means will adequately accomplish this 
 object, at the introduction and development of counter-influences, 
 derivable from man's higher capacities. 
 
 The ensuing discussion of children's impurity will start from 
 these premises. 
 
 It is a somewhat strange circumstance that solitary im- 
 morality, a widespread evil in modern times, and the earliest 
 form in which impurity usually makes its appearance in a human 
 life, is not mentioned in the Bible. None of the Greek words 
 used in the Bible of sexual vice explicitly refer to this form of 
 it, though scholars have attempted to find such allusions. 1 None 
 the less the general principles of morality and natural law urge 
 us to make efforts to cope with the evil. 
 
 The power of the sexual instinct, mainly perhaps from 
 hereditary causes, varies greatly in individuals, and even in young 
 children. Just as some children are more choleric than others, 
 so some are more sexually precocious. And when it is discov- 
 ered or suspected that a child's sexual instinct is abnormally 
 developed, and likely if unchecked to lead him in his ignorance 
 
 1 Bengel on I Cor. 6: 9. See Additional Note B on Masturbation. 
 
22 IMPURITY EST CHILDREN. 
 
 and experience into habits of solitary immorality and other 
 forms of impurity, his education, and the physical management 
 of him, so far as they concern his sexual nature, must be directed 
 to two ends : First, to diminish, or at least to refrain from un- 
 wittingly exciting, the physical activity of the instinct, and to 
 keep it latent during the helpless years of childhood; and sec- 
 ond, to develop his moral and spiritual manhood, and to foster 
 the growth of his will-power. Thus in boyhood and early man- 
 hood, when his youthful vitality is maturing, and the circle of 
 his experiences expanding, and when the stress and responsibility 
 of his conflict with impurity must fall directly upon himself, 
 he will have at starting the advantage of a childhood purely and 
 healthily spent, and will be able to oppose to the excessive or 
 unlawful impulses of desire — such impulses as a wider contact 
 with society must give — the nobler forces which have been grow- 
 ing up within his soul. 
 
 On parents in the first place devolves the duty of combat- 
 ing and repelling this dire foe of childhood and youth, secret 
 impurity. It is hardly possible to condemn in too strong terms 
 the apathy shown by multitudes, perhaps by the majority of 
 parents, in respect of the sexual development of children in early 
 years. More reckless than the Moloch worshipers of antiquity, 
 they suffer not merely strong, well-grown offspring, but tender 
 little ones to feel the might of the flames. Experience abun- 
 dantly proves that habits of impurity will readily take root and 
 acquire strength in quite young children if a sympathetic watch 
 over their sexual development is neglected. 
 
 Masturbation in young children may not be easily discov- 
 erable by physical tokens, 1 such as Mrs. Ennis Eichmond de- 
 scribes in her book "Boyhood." Havelock Ellis throws great 
 doubt on many of the symptoms said to be indicative of mas- 
 turbation in adults, symptoms which, in any case, are not 
 
 ■Dr. Stall ("What a Young Boy Ought to Know," Cylinder XI) 
 goes even further, endeavoring to find among boys not only physical, but 
 general moral and spiritual indications of the existence of the habit of 
 masturbation. A writer in the "Guardian," in a review of the above 
 mentioned book, rightly remarks on the futility of such attempts. 
 
PRECAUTIONS AND REMEDIES. 23 
 
 likely to obtain a noticeable development in young children. 
 Yet it must usually be possible for a watchful mother, awake to 
 the danger, to perceive the formation of the habit in its begin- 
 nings. The notion which becomes an instinctive sense in the 
 adult, that sexual functions have an element of impurity and 
 require concealing, is as yet unformed in the young child's mind. 
 Masturbation in very young children frequently is begun half 
 unconsciously as a reflex act, and though they soon learn to 
 understand that it can only be performed safely in privacy, the 
 early stages of the formation of the habit are characterized by a 
 considerable openness in regard to it. The act is usually per- 
 formed with the hand, but not a few children acquire, sometimes 
 accidentally, a preference for rubbing themselves against bed- 
 ding, furniture, etc. 
 
 The author of "Boyhood" gives some excellent advice as 
 to the kind of moral suasion likely to have effect on a little boy 
 in whom the habit has been detected. Fere' says that in his ex- 
 perience good results have been obtained from the use by the 
 child's mother of prohibitive suggestion during normal sleep. 
 The mother sitting by the bedside with the child's hand in hers 
 would will him to resist the newly formed inclination, support- 
 ing the effort of her own volition with the power of prayer. 1 
 
 In modern popular medical works useful hints are given 
 with respect to the safeguarding of children against precocious 
 physical desires. The employment of sensible and pure-minded 
 nurses, where nurses are a necessity of the household; the use 
 of wholesome, digestible foods; care lest a very young child be 
 inadvertently placed in positions which may excite its latent 
 physical propensities — how often do we see women nursing in- 
 fants face downward upon their lap, heating and irritating their 
 genitals by the gentle rocking motion and warm contact of their 
 knees; systematic cleanliness as regards a child's clothes and 
 bed; and in many cases a resort to the practice of circumcision 
 
 1 F. Myers refers to the use of hypnotic suggestion for the cure of 
 several childish tricks and ailments, not explicitly mentioning mastur- 
 bation, hut undoubtedly including it. ("Human Personality, etc.'" vol. 
 i, 527 A). 
 
24 STIMULATION OF SEX INSTINCT. 
 
 — a point to be especially considered 1 — are all matters to which 
 parents would do well to attend. Here, too, we may note, in 
 order to condemn, the practice of sending children to bed in the 
 daytime as a punishment. In the case of a child with a strongly 
 developed sexual instinct, one would think that few more effec- 
 tive ways of unduly exciting it could be devised than the one 
 mentioned. Almost the first piece of advice a medical man would 
 give to anyone who-was liable to excessive carnal desire would be 
 not to spend too much time under the bedclothes. Yet to save 
 themselves trouble, parents and guardians will frequently visit 
 some petty fault upon children with this unwise and dangerous 
 punishment. 2 
 
 It is necessary, at the same time, to guard against fussiness 
 and pedantry in dealing with the sexual hygiene of childhood. 
 It is an exaggeration to say, with a popular medical writer, 3 that 
 "tea, coffee, flesh meats, to say nothing of the abominations of 
 the baker and confectioner, are sufficient to account for the early 
 tendency to sexual dissipation manifested among children. 
 . . . It may be said that unchastity, and the enormous and 
 unnatural development of the sexual passions, are largely the 
 effect of highly stimulating foods and drinks. Alcohol and 
 tobacco no doubt goad this instinct into such a fever that it is 
 almost uncontrollable." 4 
 
 There is an element of rashness in such statements as these. 
 Sexual desire cannot be prevented or overcome by a mere process 
 
 1 See Additional Note C on Circumcision. 
 
 2 1 know of two government institutions in New Zealand where 
 inmates are, or were until lately, punished by this method. It is gross 
 mismanagement. 
 
 3 Trail, "Sexual Physiology and Hygiene," pp. 224, 266. 
 
 4 It is, of course, recognized on all sides that the reckless use of 
 alcohol works in most effectually with impure sexuality as an excitative 
 of desire, and yet with detriment to the sexual power. A lady in New 
 Zealand of great experience in rescue work told the author that she had 
 once asked a woman convicted after many years of keeping a house of 
 ill fame, to mention anything which had come particularly under her 
 notice in that capacity. The prostitute replied that she had almost 
 invariably observed that the male visitors to her house were in some 
 degree under the influence of drink. 
 
THE GROWING BOY. 25 
 
 of dieting; else why were many of the ascetics of the Middle 
 Ages, in spite of their rigorous abstinence in matters of eating 
 and drinking, exposed to such fierce sexual temptations? It is 
 moreover surprising, in regard at least of some English schools — 
 though perhaps Dr. Trail is thinking of American schools — to 
 hear charges brought against the authorities of overfeeding and 
 pampering the boys. Whatever experiences some of us may have 
 had at school, that certainly was not one of them. 
 
 Besides care of the physical development of a young child, 
 right moral influence, a matter of even greater importance, 
 ought to direct the education of his ideas of sexual morality. 
 As the child's moral sense strengthens, and the time approaches 
 when, by his entrance upon school life, he is to take on himself 
 to a large extent the responsibility for his sexual development, 
 opportunities varying with circumstances will be offered of warn- 
 ing him against the dangers which may beset and press hard 
 upon him during this development. The difficulty felt by a 
 father, and still more by a mother, in turning these opportunities 
 to advantage has come in for a good deal of consideration in the 
 minds of many thoughtful people. It is sympathetically treated 
 by the Eev. E. Lyttelton, "Mothers and Sons," p. 95ff. 
 
 Indeed, if mothers are to speak to growing boys on this sub- 
 ject at all, an especial care is requisite. As regards the silent 
 observation and safeguarding of the sexual development of in- 
 fants and young children, this duty can, it is true, be ordinarily 
 performed by women better than by men. It falls more prop- 
 erly within their sphere. But a different phase of the subject 
 is entered upon in the case of a boy nearing the age of puberty. 
 Many mothers disregard the increase of sexual power in their 
 son, and continue to treat him systematically and in a variety 
 of ways as a baby, long after their instinctive modesty and fem- 
 inine tact should have warned them to respect the dawn of man- 
 hood in him. Others, perhaps, are morbidly anxious and prud- 
 ishly sensitive on the subject of the sexual relation. The moral 
 effect upon a boy of being spoken to on sexual matters by either 
 of these classes of women might be a disastrous one. A mother's 
 influence upon her growing son, in this particular, should be 
 indirect rather than direct. 
 
26 SEXUAL INSTRUCTION. 
 
 But in spite of difficulties, serious people are agreed upon 
 the general principle that it is better that a boy should hear about 
 sexual matters in the first instance from one who would treat 
 them reverently, than from schoolfellows who would assuredly, 
 from want of better knowledge, discuss them either lightly or 
 pruriently, and with the use of a coarse vocabulary. 1 
 
 It is a sufficiently obvious suggestion that the person who 
 can give this initial warning and instruction about sexual de- 
 velopment most appropriately and impressively, after the silent 
 watch over the earlier years has been kept by the parents, and 
 where excessive diffidence or some other circumstance prevents 
 the father from speaking, is the family physician. All due allow- 
 ance may be made for a mother's, or even a father's dislike of 
 saying even a few words on this subject to their young boy, but 
 what after all is to hinder them from arranging an interview 
 for him with some kindly, trustworthy medical man, and intro- 
 ducing him to it in some such way as this : "Look here, ■ , 
 
 you are going to school ; I want Dr. to have a few minutes' 
 
 talk with you. Not that you are ill; only we can't look after 
 you as well at school as we could at home, and he can give you 
 some hints about taking care of yourself. Mind you listen, and 
 don't forget them." 
 
 Such a special interview would almost without doubt be 
 deeply impressive to the boy, and he would feel comparatively 
 little difficulty, should occasion arise, in again referring to his 
 
 1 1 am glad to be able to quote a woman's opinion on the subject 
 of sexual education, on account of its intrinsic value, and the general 
 support it affords to the position taken up in this work. "Once a child 
 is curious about any of the so-called mysteries of life, that curiosity 
 should be met and satisfied step by step as it comes, but not aroused 
 prematurely, and children vary very much in these matters. With those 
 precociously interested, there should be no putting off with untruths. 
 The whole beautiful process of nature unfolds itself easily enough if the 
 mother determines from the first never to evade an apparent difficulty 
 by telling any kind of lie. The one thing to ensure is that a child gets 
 its wanted information from a high-minded and intelligent source, not 
 from a foolish or misleading one." (Mrs. Earle, "Mothers and Daughters," 
 "Nat. Rev.," December, 1904, p. 677.) 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 27 
 
 physician for advice or help in this great matter. A boy should, 
 as far as possible, be led to know that in case the stress of the 
 conflict within him becomes insupportable, he has as a reserve 
 force — one which he will not indeed summon readily, but by a 
 great effort of moral courage — the kindness, sympathy, and ex- 
 perience of some older person. As things go at present, how 
 many boys there are who brood over some sexual trouble, per- 
 haps largely imaginary, without venturing to broach the subject 
 to either father, doctor, schoolmaster, or chaplain ; who have one 
 and all neglected the duty of proffering unasked the help and 
 advice which, as they must know full well, few boys can bring 
 themselves to seek. 1 
 
 Next to parents, schoolmasters and clergy hold usually the 
 strongest position for combating the evil; nor can they justly 
 use the apathy of parents as an excuse to veil their own common 
 neglect in the matter. "Is A to shirk his duty because B shirks 
 his? Is not rather the father's negligence in this respect even 
 in itself an especially excellent reason why schoolmasters should 
 bestir themselves, and try, by means of superior moral training, 
 to make up for this recognized deficiency on the part of pa- 
 rents?" 2 
 
 The arguments adduced by some authorities, e.g., Beale 
 ("Our Morality," p. 20), Fere ("L'Instinct Sexuel, E. T.," p. 
 
 1 The following extract from a communication cited by Havelock 
 Ellis, graphically illustrates the dangerous and melancholy state of 
 affairs still prevailing in some of our boarding schools: "For the rest, 
 the dormitory was boisterous and lewd. . . . My principal recollec- 
 tion now is of the filthy mystery of foul talk, that I neither cared for 
 nor understood. What I really needed, like all the other boys, was a 
 little timely help over the sexual problems, but this we none of us got, 
 and each had to work out his own principle of conduct for himself. It 
 was a long, difficult, and wasteful process, and I cannot but believe that 
 many of us failed in the endeavor." 
 
 2 Hime, "Schoolboys' Special Immorality,'' p. 14. The contempt- 
 uous reference accorded to this booklet by Havelock Ellis ("Studies," vol. 
 ii, p. 171n.) is hardly deserved. Moral suasion and education are far 
 more prominent elements in Dr. Hime's method of coping with impurity 
 in schools than coercion. 
 
28 LECTURES— BOOKS. 
 
 310), against collective teaching in schools on the ethics of sex, 
 are inconclusive and unpractical. If boys were invariably spoken 
 to separately by the chaplain or headmaster, the tale would wax 
 old by frequent telling, and the boys would compare notes, prob- 
 ably in a jocular and irreverent spirit, on their respective con- 
 versations with the master. A manly and instructive address 
 given from time to time to a number would give a healthier im- 
 pression. The writers referred to above misconceive the privacy 
 and delicacy surrounding the sexual feelings among boys. As 
 a matter of fact, in their conversations among themselves, most 
 boys are not troubled with considerations of this kind; at any 
 rate the delicacy is not readily susceptible of injury from the 
 efforts of superiors at giving sexual instruction, provided those 
 efforts are inspired by high and true motives, and tactfully and 
 sensibly expressed. 
 
 H. G. Wells emphasizes the value of boohs containing phys- 
 iological information in sexual education. "The printed word 
 may be such a quiet counsellor." 1 There need, we think, be no 
 hesitation as to the abstract value of this method of instruction 
 in the opening years of adolescence, but even the popularized 
 and rightly motived physiological treatise can never wholly 
 supersede oral instruction and the direct personal influence of 
 elders. 
 
 The present writer considers, in general agreement with the writer 
 of a review published a few years since in the "Guardian." that Dr. Stall's 
 book, "What a Young Boy Ought to Know" — all acknowledgment of its 
 high moral tone being made — is too prolix for boys of the age for which 
 it is intended. Its intermingling of nursery phraseology with scientific 
 medical terms has something unpleasing, and gives it an unboyish tone; 
 a criticism which, it must be said in passing, is equally applicable to 
 another highly motived booklet of sexual instruction, Dr. Mary Wood 
 Allen's "Almost a Man." Stall's book, moreover, is not free from a 
 tendency to fussiness and exaggeration; and in parts might well be un- 
 duly depressing and alarming to nervous boys. The present writer, when 
 consulted by a parent as to whether he should put it into the hands of 
 his 12 year old boy just going to school, felt unable to recommend it; 
 and this judgment was endorsed, indeed, had been anticipated by the 
 
 "Mankind in the Making,'' p. 309. 
 
PUNISHMENT. 29 
 
 gentleman himself. Perhaps the "Guardian" reviewer is right in question- 
 ing whether any grown up man has yet succeeded in putting into print 
 proper instruction on sexual matters for young boys. The author's own 
 attempt, written primarily for the use of a particular boy, will be found 
 in Additional Note D. 
 
 It might be useful in boarding schools if among the printed 
 rules frequently posted in the students' bedrooms direct pro- 
 hibitory mention was made, not only of indecent language, but 
 of indecent practices of all kinds, special mention being made of 
 masturbation (under whatever euphemism the writer of the 
 notice might employ) as being adverse to the boys' own interests 
 and development. If tactfully and forcibly worded, the present 
 writer believes that boys would appreciate such a notice. 
 
 Without doubt, one of the crying needs of the present day 
 is that of education on the ethics and hygiene of sex. Out of 100 
 boys selected at random from an English school for medical ex- 
 amination, 14 per cent., so the world has recently been informed 
 by a medical authority, had actually contracted varicocele; nor 
 is there much reason for thinking that this was a specially unfor- 
 tunate selection, or anything but a typical one. 
 
 A wide field of inquiry is opened up by the question : What 
 punishments and deterrents are suitable for checking sexual im- 
 morality and depravity? This question will have a special in- 
 terest for parents and schoolmasters, in view of the difficulty of 
 coping with the form of immorality we have been considering; 
 nor is it an easy question to answer. It is doubtful whether cor- 
 poral punishment would here be of much, if any use. Besides 
 breaking the bond of sympathy and confidence between parent 
 and child, a bond of the highest value for the proper treatment 
 of an evil in child life, usually begun in ignorance and fostered 
 by weakness of will, the memory of corporal punishment may 
 easily, in many cases, rather incite a child to the indulgence of 
 depraved imaginations than deter him from them. Indeed, the 
 author thinks well to state in this connection his own conviction 
 that the corporal punishment of children, for any offense, should 
 seldom or never be accompanied by indecent stripping. 
 
30 WHIPPING— EXPULSION. 
 
 Corporal punishment has to be considered in relation to the 
 phenomena classed by sexual scientists as masochism, or passive algo- 
 lagnia. It is now well known that the infliction of blows and bodily 
 insults, especially by a person of the opposite sex, acts in some subjects 
 as a sexual stimulus. The adult who finds this tendency in himself 
 can and ought to battle with it by moral effort. Here we must note 
 that it may be incipient in a young child. Doctors have long ago 
 noticed the tendency of the sexual instinct to excitation on the applica- 
 tion ol heat or sharp blows to the lumbar region. Eerg quotes with 
 approval Acton's warning against whipping children on the buttocks, 
 on account of their consequent (perhaps not immediate) liability to 
 sexual excitement. If stripping is resorted to, and if the punishment 
 is inflicted by e.g, a woman on a young boy, the danger is of course 
 increased. The disapproval, on general grounds, of whipping expressed 
 by Mrs. Ennis Richmond in her excellent book '"Boyhood," gains greatly 
 in force when whipping is viewed in its connection with sexual emotion. 
 Krafft-Ebing emphatically calls attention to this danger ('Tsychopathia 
 Sexualis," ed. 7, E. T., p. 28) ; and Havelock Ellis, in his recently pub- 
 lished third volume of "Studies," deals fully with the subject of whip- 
 ping in this connection. The cases cited by him afford further confirma- 
 tion of the fact of which the present writer for his own part was already 
 sufficiently convinced, that whipping has powerful sexual associations 
 in the minds of some children, and both originates and develops within 
 them the pernicious habit of self-abuse. In a general connection with 
 the psychic phenomena of algolagnia, I may here observe that the com- 
 pilers of the "Priest's Prayerbook" (in the latest edition at my dis- 
 posal), who venture to recommend varying degrees of pain as a prophy- 
 lactic of sexual desire, do not seem aware of the fact that pain is often 
 one of the most successful of sexual stimuli. 
 
 Expulsion from school, 1 again, is too severe a punishment 
 for ordinary lapses into this sin among boys. In regard, indeed, 
 to the major evil which exists in some schools, it is hard to see 
 how any other measure than expulsion can be resorted to in the 
 case of the principal offenders, though it may not be always 
 necessary to inflict this punishment upon the younger boys, who 
 have perhaps been pressed into becoming the accomplices of a 
 crime of which they were unable to realize the enormity. Indeed, 
 it must be observed further that as regards the principal offender, 
 expulsion from school alone will not always meet his case. The 
 
 1 See Hirae, "Schoolboys' Special Immorality," pp. 34ff. 
 
SEXUAL PERVERSION. 31 
 
 offense might be committed in a reformatory or industrial school, 
 where expulsion would not be possible, as nothing would be 
 gained by turning the criminal loose upon society. Or in a 
 very aggravated case, it might appear that the perversion of the 
 sexual instinct arose from some subtle mental infirmity, some 
 defect in the moral sense, in conjunction with an abnormal de- 
 velopment of the sexual function. 
 
 Probably no one punishment or remedy, in the present stage 
 of human insight into moral problems, can be proposed as likely 
 to be generally effective in the work of eradicating and destroy- 
 ing this gross form of sexual crime. Like other sins, it occurs 
 amid varying moral and physical conditions, involving different 
 degrees of responsibility. For the consideration and appre- 
 ciation of these, the combined aid of religious thought, legal 
 science, and physiological study is certainly required. By such 
 means it may become possible to define, with an approximation 
 to justice in each case, by what kind of punishment, and with 
 what degree of severity the occurrence of one of these unnatural 
 crimes ought to be marked. The treatment of such cases as are 
 proved to involve mental and accompanying moral deficiency, 
 cases which cannot be dealt with by the usual disciplinary meth- 
 ods, seem to lie largely in the domain of medical science, aided 
 by the necessary legal machinery. They may call for detention 
 in a special institution, or even for a surgical operation. 1 
 
 But as far as concerns the minor evil alone, the continual 
 dread of being expelled if his fault became known to the masters 
 would effectually deter a boy from seeking advice and help at 
 their hands, though he might be struggling manfully against the 
 habit, and suffering mental anguish which a few words from an 
 older person would readily allay. Further, as Dr. Hime points 
 out, an occasional expulsion would simply have the effect of caus- 
 ing other boys addicted to the vice to sin more craftily. The 
 policy of expulsion could hardly be consistently carried out. It 
 would be a matter of the greatest difficulty to convict boys of the 
 sin; or if some infallible means were devised for detecting the 
 
 'But the value of this is doubtful. See further, Chapter XVI. 
 
32 MORAL SUASION— CAUTION. 
 
 self-abusers, the number of them would be an ample reductio 
 ,ad absurdum of the policy of expulsion. Human punishments, 
 as long as they do not interfere with the sexual function itself, 
 can never prove an adequate means of checking the habit of self- 
 abuse, in either the child or the adult. Instead of being eager 
 to apply penal measures, school authorities and persons in simi- 
 lar positions should appeal by moral and religious teaching, by 
 sensible hygienic precautions, and by disciplinary arrangements, 
 to the higher nature and true self-love of those whom they have 
 the care of. 
 
 Cases requiring expulsion or other punishments among boys 
 will be comparatively rare. Sometimes there will be a boy of 
 generally loose moral tone and conversation, or one against whom 
 a charge of obstinate self-indulgence can be proved, whom it 
 might be the best course, or the only possible course, to expel; 
 but most boys, even though habitual self -abusers, are not such 
 from conscious, persistent recklessness. They would thankfully 
 respond to a sympathetic teaching on this subject, and listen 
 respectfully to warnings conveyed in tactful and sensible terms, 
 against the dangers attendant upon impurity. 
 
 It is of course very necessary to observe at this point that 
 reasonable caution with regard to these dangers among the 
 young is apt to become in some minds a morbid and excessive 
 dread. The knowledge that there exists this unfortunate tend- 
 ency, and the fear of themselves falling into this error, are 
 made by many an excuse for neglecting altogether the impor- 
 tant duties of supervision and instruction. The validity of the 
 excuse cannot be admitted; nevertheless it cannot be too 
 strongly urged that all treatment of this delicate question 
 in homes and schools must be undertaken with good judg- 
 ment. For a parent or a schoolmaster to exercise an obvious, 
 fussy supervision of a child's diet, hygiene, and conduct; to 
 dwell upon the dangers of sexual impurity with morbid em- 
 phasis; to affect a general puritanical suspicion of the sexual 
 function and emotions; to neglect sympathetic observation of 
 the varying strength of passion in different individuals, would 
 be to defeat his own ends. 
 
LEGISLATION OR EDUCATION? 33 
 
 "So few families can give," says Professor Letourneau, 1 "or 
 know how to give, a healthy physical, moral, and intellectual 
 education to the child, that in this domain large encroachments 
 of the state are probable, even desirable." The assertion is un- 
 doubtedly all too true; the inference would have to be carefully 
 considered. For the state, e.g., to enforce circumcision, as some 
 legislatures enforce vaccination, might be a physical benefit to 
 the community, but it would be purchased at the cost of a fur- 
 ther loss of what we already part with too quickly in return for 
 supposed advantages — personal independence. It is better in 
 such matters to arrive at reform through education than through 
 legislation. In the foregoing pages it has not been found pos- 
 sible to project the outlines of any program such as might find 
 expression in legislation; nor has even a conception of uni- 
 formity in the methods of sexual education been reached. The 
 object held in view has been a more general one, to stimulate 
 thought on the question, and to call attention to particular 
 points of physical and moral treatment which, in view of all the 
 grave circumstances of the problem, ought to be considered 
 and applied more diligently than is done at present by the ma- 
 jority of parents and guardians. 
 
 1 "Evolution of Marriage," p. 358. 
 
CHAPTBE III. 
 The Mixing oe the Sexes in Schools and Institutions. 
 
 Social Intercourse — Family Life: — Sexual Repugnance — Co-educa- 
 tion — Its Defects in Theory and in Practice — Homosexuality in Schools 
 — Social Intercourse in General. 
 
 It is maintained in some quarters that the promotion of 
 free social intercourse between the sexes tends to diminish 
 the force of sexual attraction on its animal side. It is urged 
 that the immorality existing in boys' schools, and in other in- 
 stitutions where boys or men are grouped together and isolated 
 from the other sex, would disappear if the masculine element 
 were softened and purified by the influence which girls and 
 women, if admitted as members of such institutions, would 
 exert. 
 
 This, however, in the opinion of the present writer, is a 
 doubtful proposition. It may indeed be considered as proven 
 that when free social intercourse exists among children from 
 infancy, it produces an absence of sexual desire between the 
 males and females of those particular groups of children. The 
 purity of family life seems to be rooted in this instinctive sexual 
 repugnance existing between male and female children who have 
 mingled freely together in the earliest years of childhood, and 
 ■had the sight of one another's nakedness in the nursery. 1 
 
 It is instructive to mark the care with which many primitive peoples 
 separate the youth of both sexes until a marriageable age is reached. 
 Modern society should deliberate anxiously before it relaxes, or at least 
 before it discards, this care. Sexual taboo, as is observed by Crawley, is 
 one of the influences which have assisted the elimination of sexual 
 passion from the family circle. That influence, however, is not in itself 
 sufficient to account for the general horror of incestuous relations. The 
 taboos have not in a general way acted as a sedative of sexual desire; 
 nor can we assume that they would have this result in the particular 
 direction of the family. A psychological factor, such as the instinctive 
 repugnance described by Westennarck, seems, therefore, a necessary 
 
 1 See Westennarck, "Hist, of Hum. Marriage," p. 353. 
 (34) 
 
HORROR OP INCEST. 35 
 
 supposition. It should be added that Westermarck's argument re- 
 lative to the existence of this instinct is sounder than Crawley (op. 
 cit., p. 444) allows. The development of an instinct of repugnance be- 
 tween persons living together from infancy does not necessarily pre- 
 suppose a general use of intercourse between such persons at some 
 remote period. The instinct — which is not developed on a basis of 
 fear of the (admittedly uncertain) evil results of inbreeding, as Crawley 
 supposes — arises naturally, like other sexual repugnances, in the midst 
 of conditions adverse to sexual stimulation. It is therefore, unsafe 
 to draw inferences, as some thinkers have done (Wells, "Mankind in 
 the Making," p. 65), from the horror of incest to the projected obser- 
 vance of other sexual taboos of a more general kind in civilized com- 
 munities; for the training of the will power is unable to produce a. 
 guarantee of such general observance, except where an instinctive sexual 
 repulsion is also formed. 
 
 Westermarck's theory is modified by Havelock Ellis ("Studies," iv, 
 pp. 204ff.), who maintains that the horror of incest has a merely negative 
 basis, due to the fact that sexual stimuli do not come into prominent 
 notice among persons brought up from infancy in the same household; 
 and that there is no need to infer the existence of an instinct of repulsion. 
 This explanation certainly helps to the proper understanding of Wester- 
 marck's hypothesis; but it is not clear that it necessitates the proposed 
 alteration in the statement of it. For if a possible object of appetite 
 presents no stimuli and possesses no attractiveness, it may and does 
 surely happen that this negative state of things gives rise to a positive 
 repulsion, though one that is not everywhere uniformly accentuated. In 
 any case, the argument of the present chapter is not affected. It remains 
 true that sexual stimuli operate in mixed institutions, in a way which 
 is not found in households. 
 
 But quite a different set of conditions is introduced by the 
 proposal to allow free social intercourse in schools and other 
 institutions between boys and girls who have not been inmates 
 of the same nursery, and in fact have never seen one another 
 until near the age of puberty. That such an arrangement should 
 render possible an imitation of family life in schools is certainly 
 a delusion, because it fails to observe one of the main conditions 
 of family purity, viz., social contact from infancy. 1 There is no 
 
 'This all important condition is entirely ignored by one of the 
 most recent advocates of co-education, and apparently by those thinkers 
 upon whom he relies. "Co-education," edited by Alice Woods, p. 29 
 (Longmans). 
 
86 CO-EDUCATION. 
 
 reason to think that the instinctive sexual repugnance mentioned 
 as existing in the other case would here come into play at all. 
 It is in fact extremely difficult to think that the force of sexual 
 desire usually experienced by a growing boy would not be largely 
 increased by the nearness to him of girls toward whom he would 
 have no reason whatever for feeling a sexual distaste. Sexual 
 attraction would make itself felt at least as much as — almost 
 certainly more than — it does in ordinary circumstances. 
 
 In short, the theory of a free, and at the same time platonic, 
 social intercourse between the unmarried members of the sexes 
 is not sound. 1 Under modern conditions of life it cannot be 
 made thorough-going. Our conventional ideas as to the neces- 
 sity of clothes alone suffice to upset it. There is now no return 
 for civilized races to that preventive of overheated desire — the 
 constant sight of nakedness. The effect of such a school system 
 would be like that of semi-nudity, as when a woman in evening 
 dress excites passion by exposing, or thinly veiling, a portion of 
 her graceful person. It could not be the matter-of-fact indif- 
 ference to nakedness and consequent chastity manifested by some 
 primitive races of mankind. At the bottom of the social com- 
 panionship desiderated by the advocates of the aforesaid school 
 arrangement there must still be that sense, so stimulating to 
 human curiosity and animal passion, that a mystery, the delight 
 of humankind to explore, has been brought close by the wisdom 
 of seniors, and yet is hidden ; that they have placed a fruit near 
 to the hand and eye, and yet commanded that it shall not be 
 touched or even seen. The social intercourse would have to be 
 darkened by a strict supervision, or become merely nominal. 
 However trusting the authorities of a school managed on this 
 system might be, they would have to remind the inmates by a 
 large number of precautions that the companionship of boys and 
 girls was under suspicion, and could only be tolerated within 
 certain carefully defined limits. 
 
 1 That is, of course, in the case of those who are within the age 
 during which sexual passion is active. We need not deny the possible 
 existence of platonic friendships here and there. 
 
NEW ZEALAND CASES CITED. 37 
 
 The actual experience of the present writer may be worth 
 referring to in this connection. He has no practical knowledge 
 of the mixing of the sexes in American universities, but he is a 
 graduate of the New Zealand University, where the sexes are also 
 mixed, men and women attending lectures in the same class- 
 room. In his opinion the mixing of the sexes, from a social point 
 of view, amounted to very little. Young men and women saw 
 one another at a distance in the classroom, in the same way as 
 they might at church ; they met on rare occasions at picnics and 
 other social functions; they sat in the same room during meet- 
 ings of the debating society. But there was nothing approach- 
 ing to close and familiar contact, except in isolated cases, when 
 a love affair began, as it might have done anywhere. After the 
 day's work, both men and women dispersed to their homes and 
 lodgings, and in fact one might very well pass through the whole 
 course of three or four years without getting more than a bowing 
 acquaintance with the lady students. 
 
 Such an arrangement has probably no special influence on 
 sexual passion one way or the other. Students at such a univer- 
 sity probably feel just as strong sexual inclinations as bank clerks 
 and other young men do, and no more so. 
 
 If, however, the question as to the desirability of the social 
 mixing of the sexes has reference to the arrangements of a 
 boarding-school, the case is very different. The present writer 
 was formerly chaplain to a New Zealand industrial school, a 
 boarding establishment, where the sexes were mixed. The same 
 arrangement existed in other New Zealand schools of this kind. 
 A strong protest was made in 1899 against this system, and evi- 
 dence was adduced proving that acts of immorality between boys 
 and girls had taken place, and that the system increased sexual 
 passion among the inmates to an undesirable extent. It was 
 claimed, on the other hand, by the Education Department that 
 the fact that boys and girls had different classrooms and play- 
 grounds, and were in other ways kept apart, and the strictness 
 of the general supervision rendered the occurrence of the alleged 
 evils improbable. But this very contention showed that the 
 system was suspicious of itself, and was in fact fatal to the theory 
 
38 THE HOMOSEXUAL DANGER. 
 
 of it. 1 Nor had the agitators much difficulty in showing that 
 they were justified, not merely on theoretical grounds, but in 
 view of facts, in asking for the reorganization of the schools. 
 At last the then Minister of Education, after dallying with the 
 question for an unreasonably long period, was forced publicly 
 to promise to grant the reforms asked for, the grouping of the 
 sexes into separate institutions, and other measures for classify- 
 ing the inmates, and a debate a few days afterward in the New 
 Zealand Parliament resulted in a reiteration by other ministers 
 of this promise. 
 
 The merits and demerits of co-education, then, in spite of 
 all that has been said in its favor by some high authorities on 
 sex questions, are by no means clear as yet. There may be some 
 truth in the theory that in early youth the direction of the sexual 
 impulse is undetermined, so that under the present system of 
 grouping the sexes in different schools there is a danger in cer- 
 tain cases of homosexual tendencies being developed, but the 
 presence of this moral danger is not so marked as to justify as 
 an alternative the introduction of the more certain dangers in- 
 separable from co-education. Eeeognize the homosexual tendency 
 as fully as we may, it yet cannot be maintained that it receives 
 as rapid and general a development in human nature as the 
 heterosexual. 
 
 The development of homosexual tendencies in a school may 
 be held in check by moral suasion, hygienic instruction, and a 
 good prefect system. Some cases of homosexuality, it is true, if 
 properly investigated, might yield results similar to those so 
 carefully examined by Havelock Ellis; they might indicate a 
 congenital condition in which the misdirection of the sex instinct 
 appeared. Modern investigators such as Ellis show convincingly 
 that such conditions do occasionally exist, and they must of course 
 be taken account of in forming an estimate of responsibility in 
 regard to homosexual acts. But the appeal to the sense of re- 
 sponsibility, the endeavor to rouse the moral sense in the matter, 
 
 'As, indeed, modern advocates of co-education virtually admit 
 that the co-educational system must be. (Op. tit., p. 111.) 
 
THE HOMOSEXUAL DANGER. 39 
 
 must not be discredited on that account. Besides the physical 
 conditions which give a special impulse to the inverted tendency 
 in some subjects, there has to be recognized the existence in many 
 schools of an evil tradition of homosexuality, and it was to the 
 reckless perpetuation of this tradition by unprincipled boys that 
 most of the cases of sodomy in schools that have come to the 
 knowledge of the present writer appeared to be due. Some at 
 least of the subjects of the sexual misdirection seemed from their 
 conversation to be perfectly capable of heterosexual emotions, 
 and to be aware of the immorality of their homosexual proceed- 
 ings. Further, the homosexual temptation appeals to the ma- 
 jority of boys in boarding-schools with little or no force; not 
 merely their educated moral sense, but their healthier instincts 
 repudiate it. On the other hand, the heterosexual temptation is, 
 as might be expected, a very real and general one, and it would 
 become even more powerful than it is at present in a school if 
 girls were constantly brought into close proximity to the boys. 
 In short, it seems futile to uphold co-education as a preventive 
 of homosexual tendencies, unless the consequences of the devel- 
 opment of heterosexual tendencies be allowed for in the school 
 system, and as has been shown in the present chapter, the claim 
 that co-education is a general sedative of sexuality has not been 
 sufficiently substantiated. 
 
 The present writer is inclined to extend this opinion to the 
 case of day schools. There does not seem much to be gained by 
 mixing the sexes in class, and day scholars have ample oppor- 
 tunities of enjoying the brightness that comes from social fel- 
 lowship with companions of the other sex after school hours and 
 in their own homes. It is pretty certain — facts enough have 
 come to the knowledge of the writer to allow of forming an in- 
 duction — that a considerable element of curiosity and desire in 
 respect of sexual matters enters into conversation, perhaps has 
 even worse effects, in the day schools. Of course it is perfectly 
 true that there is plenty of gross and hurtful immorality in many 
 schools where the membership is confined to one sex, but it has 
 not been shown, rather the evidence allows us to suppose the 
 contrary, that this bad state of affairs would be bettered by the 
 
40 DAY SCHOOLS— CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 introduction of members of the other sex into the school. Prob- 
 ably, too, the grouping of the sexes by themselves tends to pro- 
 duce a certain mental attitude of shyness about the sexual act 
 itself. It may not be worth much, but at least it implies that 
 sexual intercourse, however much it may be talked about in the 
 school, and however much the thought of it may incite to soli- 
 tary immorality, is still thought of as a big thing. It is not so 
 thought of if our suspicions about life in the mixed day schools 
 are at all well grounded. 
 
 In short, it is positively absurd to bring young people of 
 opposite sexes into contact and to expect them not to have sexual 
 thoughts about one another. To suppose that social intercourse 
 can be allowed within limits which the wisdom of seniors can 
 always rigidly define is contrary to reason. Either keep boys in 
 boys' schools, and try by good and healthy influence to banish 
 sexual passion entirely, or as nearly so as possible, from their 
 lives, until they reach a riper age; or else, if you will admit 
 them to mixed schools, recognize that there is a possibility of 
 connections somewhat closer than mere social companionships 
 being formed, and hope and pray that lasting sexual love may be 
 their outcome, and that meanwhile no element of dishonor may 
 enter into them. But don't throw sexual allurements into young 
 • people's way, and flatter yourself with the belief that, under the 
 influence of some vague sentiment, they will not notice them, 
 or be affected by them. 
 
 In regard to the tone of sexual morality in a school, the 
 teachers' knowledge of it must frequently be set down as of little 
 worth. The school with which the author has described his con- 
 nection in this chapter would no doubt by its former managers 
 and teachers have been cheerfully and confidently added to the 
 list of schools drawn up by the authors of "co-education." Never- 
 theless, as has been said, immorality existed between the sexes 
 in that school under the co-educational system. 
 
 Generally, with regard to the social intercourse of the sexes, 
 not only in childhood and youth, Dut thereafter, its influence on 
 sexual morality cannot be gauged by its immediate visible results. 
 Some societies boast that under the asgis of their public opinion 
 
SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 41 
 
 men and women can travel together in the sleeping compart- 
 ments of railway trains without danger to morality; women 
 being, presumably, too pure, and men, in so public a place, too 
 cautious, to attempt any violation of the laws of chastity. And 
 it is claimed that such "free and healthy social intercourse of 
 the sexes" is one of the most powerful antidotes to impurity. 
 It is doubtful, however, whether this claim will bear close 
 investigation. Common sense tells us, to be sure, that no man 
 possessed of reason, however strong his desires may be, will ven- 
 ture either to assault, insult, or seduce a woman in face of imme- 
 diate publicity. Nor would a woman, in such circumstances, 
 make advances to a man. But it cannot be said that such free 
 relations as are implied in bathing in company, or traveling to- 
 gether by night in the same sleeping compartment, have any def- 
 initely sedative tendency as affecting unmarried people. Such is 
 not their ultimate and logical result. Customs such as these are 
 at best indifferent. A temporary repression of sexual emotion, 
 owing to the requirements of publicity, cannot be accepted as a 
 complete, or even as a partial, solution of the social problem of 
 unchastity. 
 
CHAPTEE IT. 
 The Battle oe Chastity in the Adult. 
 
 Morbidity — Sexual Neurasthenia — Consequences of Sexual Sins — 
 Celibacy — Fornication — A Sophism and a Truth — Necessity of Marriage 
 — Christian Doctrine of Indulgentia — Self-Sacrifice — Regulations in Cer- 
 tain Professions — Personal Religion. 
 
 In the progress of sexual development from childhood to 
 maturity individual responsibility for the preservation of chastity 
 gradually increases. Fathers, mothers, schoolmasters and all to 
 whom the care of young people is entrusted, may indeed, as has 
 already been shown, do much to prevent the premature and dis- 
 astrous kindling of the sexual fire within a young child's being. 
 But when childhood has passed away, responsible man in the 
 opening years of adult life must himself prove the fires of Moloch, 
 whether they will show themselves mild or fierce toward him. In 
 many lives comes a time when the soul must review the past, de- 
 filed by secret impurity committed in ignorance or with puerile 
 waywardness; must bear the burden of the present, with its 
 active desire and its nervous dread; must face the harassing, 
 uncertain future. Many morbid imaginations, excited by vague 
 rumors about the awful results of sexual misdemeanors, conjure 
 up the picture of an appalling destiny, the hideous blighting of 
 all the promise of life. 
 
 Such gloomy thoughts are theirs, such blackness of despond- 
 ency, as erstwhile overwhelmed a seer's brooding soul, as in his 
 vision he beheld souls stained with sexual impurity lamenting in 
 the outer darkness, the gates of the Paradise of health, usefulness, 
 and glory closed forever against them. "What profit is it to us 
 that there are reserved habitations of health and safety, whereas 
 we have lived wickedly? And that the Glory of the Most High 
 shall defend them that have led a pure life, whereas we have 
 walked in the most wicked ways of all? And that there shall 
 
 .(42). 
 
QUACKERY. 43 
 
 be showed a Paradise wherein is abundance and healing, but we 
 shall not enter into it, for we have walked in unpleasant places ? 
 And that the faces of them which have used abstinence shall shine 
 above the stars, whereas our faces shall be blacker than the dark- 
 ness?" (II Esdr. 7: 5 If.) 
 
 Such an utter loss of both temporal and eternal manhood, 
 vigor and glory is anticipated by despondent young men who 
 experience the bitter effects of sexual sins. But although there 
 can be no doubt that abuse of the sexual function is responsible 
 for much moral, mental, and physical suffering, and indeed, if 
 obstinately persisted in, may throw off all possibility of control 
 and prove a chief factor in a result of ruin, it is none the less 
 true that a large amount of exaggeration surrounds the tem- 
 poral punishment of this class of sins. There are subtle re- 
 storative processes in nature, potent laws of healing in the 
 physical, as in the moral world, and assuredly no honest effort 
 to break from the bonds of impurity, though these have been 
 strengthened by years of indulgence, will be without its reward. 
 
 The author has examined some pamphlets issued by adver- 
 tising specialists in the treatment of sexual disorders, men whose 
 work is carried on independently of the faculty of medicine. It 
 is undeniable that there is a certain element of truth in their 
 presentation of the evil effects of sexual excess ; perhaps also to 
 a less extent in their contention that the qualified practitioner 
 is not always competent or willing to undertake the careful in- 
 vestigation of cases of sexual weakness, involving, or seeming 
 to involve, nervous trouble. Not every physician strives to act 
 up to the ideals of his profession as regards industry and sym- 
 pathy, and occasionally, no doubt, a nervous sufferer is driven 
 to consult the specialist "professor," whose advertisement prom- 
 ises close attention, on account of the qualified physician's lack 
 of interest, and failure adequately to consider the case submitted 
 to him. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that just as in theological or 
 ethical thought and study fresh impulses of great value may 
 come from beyond the ranks of the clergy, the qualified and rec- 
 ognized exponents of those subjects, so the crude and inadequate 
 
44 SEXUAL DEBILITY. 
 
 efforts of amateur physicians — supposing them to be, as is prob- 
 ably sometimes the case, well-meaning men — may not do alto- 
 gether a disservice to humanity, and may stimulate the regular 
 students of medicine to further activity in this distasteful branch 
 of their subject, the nosology and treatment of diseases of the 
 genital organs. Medicine is a wide field, and there is a certain 
 need of specialization on particular portions of it. While the 
 public does not need self-constituted specialists, whose qualifica- 
 tions are unrecognized by experts, it would no doubt be an ad- 
 vantage if qualified physicians specially trained to investigate 
 and treat this class of nervous disorders were more accessible. 1 
 A warning against quackery, a mere vague assurance that "noth- 
 ing much is the matter," does not always meet the case of a 
 patient suffering from neurosis with well defined physical symp- 
 toms. 
 
 Yet in what has been said we have put the best construction 
 on the work of the quack doctor. The aforesaid pamphlets, 
 doubtless from an interested motive, view the physical troubles 
 of which they treat in a distorted perspective. They are not to 
 be considered as giving an accurate general statement, or as con- 
 ducing to a proper understanding of the case in regard to sexual 
 and nervous debility. Many causes may operate to produce a 
 nervous condition which the sufferer morbidly attributes to the 
 one cause, former misuse of the sexual function. 
 
 In a nonmedical work like the present a detailed discussion 
 of sexual weakness and the allied neuroses cannot be attempted. 
 It is enough to observe here that a calm review of these patho- 
 logical conditions, such as may be obtained from a work like 
 Ultzmann's "Genito-Urinary Neuroses" (Allen's edition), does 
 not have the same paralyzing effect upon the mind of a reader, 
 in whose own person some of these conditions are present, as the 
 lurid pictures drawn by amateur specialists or by moralists of 
 
 'Neisser (Senator and Kaminer, "Health and Disease in Relation 
 to Marriage," p. 507) goes some way toward the position taken up in 
 the text, by his admission, given with some reluctance and with quali- 
 fications, that there does exist a need of specialist practitioners, in re- 
 gard at least of venereal diseases. 
 
HEALING PROCESSES. 45 
 
 excellent motive. The distressing results symptomatic of mas- 
 turbation previously indulged in and now abandoned or com- 
 bated — such as a greater or less degree of impotence experienced 
 in the married state, involuntary discharges of semen of over- 
 frequent occurrence, the presence of phosphates in the urine, 
 the discharge of prostatic fluid, with other more general indica- 
 tions of nervous weakness — can all be subjected to effective 
 method of treatment. What is of real value in the remedies of 
 the advertising specialist is usually, perhaps always, derived from 
 high-class medical research, with which he has obtained a more 
 or less superficial acquaintance. 
 
 No man whose sexual nature has received damage should 
 despair of restoration, or relax his efforts to that end. Faith 
 shows us that such restoration is possible in the moral and 
 spiritual region; and even as regards physical detriment, 
 modern science reveals enlarged possibilities of restoration. 
 Recent scientific researches in the mysterious region of spirit- 
 ual activities and developments make it probable that definite 
 self-suggestion may profitably be employed, as an adjunct to 
 physical remedies, in such cases of nervous depression as are 
 here referred to. The subject should continually suggest to 
 himself in detail the cure of the physical as well as the moral 
 aspects of his morbid condition. The general theory of self- 
 suggestion based on faith in spiritual law is set forth in one 
 of the most luminous of recent books, F. Myers' "Human 
 Personality." Some of the methods adopted by those who 
 would make trial of the efficacy of self-suggestion — such 
 methods, for example, as the use of charms — may be open to 
 objection from the monotheistic point of view inculcated by 
 Christianity, as militating against an immediate and constant 
 communion of the soul with God. But assuredly such a science 
 of spiritual medicine should in the main be assumed as part 
 of the immeasurable grace Christianity contains, the applica- 
 tion to the woes and weaknesses of the creature of the healing 
 resources of Infinite Spirit. 
 
 When past un chastity is realized as an evil, and its effects 
 felt as a present danger, the effort to turn from it, combined 
 
46 FAITH IN DIVINE MERCY. 
 
 with, the general strain of life, is almost sure to be accompanied 
 by various symptoms of distress. And although in the merciful 
 Divine economy healing forces are set to work to counteract this 
 distress, it may be more or less acutely felt during a long period. 
 And yet the physical and mental distress does not indicate such 
 exceeding disaster as may be anticipated. It may not in reality 
 foreshadow the ruin of the life, the breakdown of all activity, or 
 justify the fears which the specialist pamphlets suggest. No 
 natural buoyancy is indeed proof against the gloomy depression 
 occasioned by such a disordered physical condition, but at this 
 point, by the appeal of the circumstances to the soul, is felt the 
 power of personal trust in God, and of courageous resolution 
 based upon that trust. The mercies of God through Christ are 
 not confined to the spiritual region; they touch continually and 
 relieve the pains of the physical. 
 
 In many lives such suffering has no doubt eventually proved 
 a moral discipline of immense value. The prayer often 
 breathed — and with what a special intensity in this connec- 
 tion — that God may turn away justly deserved evils, finds its 
 answer, not perhaps in the speedy or complete relief of fear 
 and depression, but in the eventual consciousness that the 
 direst anticipations of ruin have been unfulfilled, and that 
 the possibility which alone makes life acceptable remains — 
 the possibility of accomplishing some work of real and perma- 
 nent value. The burden of some kind of ill-health pressing 
 on the life for long years as the penalty of ignorant or wilful 
 impurity will be the more easily and cheerfully borne if in 
 the midst of nervous and hypochrondriac depression there 
 rises up like light in a dark place the consciousness that the 
 worst result of all — a life wholly wasted and abortive — has 
 been averted. 
 
 At this point, with a view to developing his argument, the 
 author ventures to make an extract from another composi- 
 tion of his own. 
 
 "Jacob's victory in the conflict (at Peniel, see Gen. 32 : 24) 
 was complete. He had wrestled with God, the rare Hebrew 
 word used (abhaq) graphically depicts the intensity of the strug- 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 47 
 
 gle; he had passed the crisis; he had outlasted the agony, and 
 had obtained the blessing which he sought, the blessing which 
 crowned him with never-dying honor — the certainty, namely, 
 that his life was not to end in failure. A great purpose was 
 to be brought to completion in the Divine counsels, and Jacob 
 was not to be cast away from his share as an instrument in 
 that work. 
 
 "Yet he always bore about with him thereafter a memento 
 of the struggle, something that humiliated him, something 
 that reminded him of the sinful past which had rendered 
 such a struggle necessary. He had striven with God, that 
 God might avert from him the consequences of his sins; and 
 they were averted in so far that they could not mar the real 
 usefulness and fruitfulness of his life; but in the heavy blow 
 which God struck him before the wrestle ended, we see the 
 infliction of some temporal chastisement, which should pre- 
 vent the past being forgotten. 
 
 "In other lives there is often something that corresponds 
 to this mysterious struggle with God in the darkness, by the 
 rugged cliffs of the Jabbok. When we have lived long enough 
 in the world to realize the seriousness of life, we understand 
 that we have a work to do, a part to play in the evolution of 
 truth, justice and right in the universe. * * * It is our 
 sinfulness that hinders the working out of this purpose. We 
 feel our mistakes, follies, wilfulness coming back upon us in 
 a thousand ways; their consequences hinder our development 
 and the progress of our work. How many can say, 'Ah! if 
 only I had known, or if only I had been wiser in the past; 
 if I had not squandered my powers and neglected my oppor- 
 tunities and wasted my time and substance, how much more 
 influence or how much more vigor or what a much better position 
 I should have now?' Sometimes it is remissness and indolence 
 in business or sheer frivolous idleness which spoil a man's pros- 
 pects ; sometimes it is impurity or intemperance which enfeebles 
 his physical vigor; * * * it may be one thing or it may 
 be another; but a time comes, perhaps, when his heart turns 
 sick with the thought of the miserable folly of it all. He sees 
 
48 MERCY AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 the sins in the past of his life, and now he dreads, and longs by 
 every possible means to avert, their consequences. 
 
 * * * * * * * * * 
 
 "The darkness closes in. An adversary of ill-health, or of 
 ill-fame, or of poverty, meets him as he stands on the brink 
 of the promise of his life, as he enters into what ought to 
 be its best and most fruitful years. He must wrestle in dark- 
 ness, in fear, in loneliness with the consequence of his sin. 
 He must struggle with ill-health or with dishonor before he 
 can go further, before he can accomplish anything of value. 
 
 "If he struggles with a heart full of faith and of uncon- 
 querable hope in God, the light must strike on him at last. 
 He finds the knowledge that the adversary with whom he has 
 battled has been God Himself, God expressing His will in the 
 form of a temporal visitation, and what seemed the wrestler's 
 grip was in reality the embrace of the Divine Love. 
 
 "Thus by trusting the Love of God, by wrestling with Him 
 in prayer, in order, as it were, to compel Him to show mercy, 
 men may so far avert the consequences of sin, as that these 
 consequences shall not mar the real purpose of their lives. 
 
 "But if Jacob, or if anyone else, prevails with God to avert 
 the ruin of his life and his life's work — the dire calamity which 
 he dreads as the main consequence of his former sins, still 
 those sins leave their memorial and their mark upon him. 
 God strikes him one blow, the effect of which lasts through- 
 out his lifetime, and he goes halting to the end of his days. 
 
 "And how many penitent Christians there are who, though 
 they are blessedly conscious of the forgiveness of their sins, yet 
 feel and know that they must carry about all through their lives 
 a burden, a cross, imposed on them as a reminder of the sinful 
 past. Perhaps it is a bodily infirmity * * * whatever it 
 may be, it is no longer any source of despondency, or of undue 
 sadness. Its power to injure is restrained; it can but make 
 a man go halting "through life, not stop his progress alto- 
 gether. Perhaps, as his life's work arrives nearer to its full 
 accomplishment, even this remaining burden will be largely 
 lightened. He will become less conscious of being crippled as 
 the years move on. * * *" 
 
TEMPTATION TO IMPURITY. 49 
 
 Not merely, however, the pressure of a young man's past, 
 with its corrupt memories and its legacy of weakness, but also 
 the continuous, exhausting struggle with incontinence, must 
 at this point be considered. 
 
 "But even now there live in my memory the images of such 
 things, which my habit of mind hath planted there. When, 
 indeed, they meet me in waking hours they are void of power; 
 but in sleep they avail not merely to arouse pleasure in me, 
 but to gain the consent of my will." (St. Aug. Conf. X, 41.) 
 
 Such a sentence, taken from the autobiography of a man 
 of quite extraordinary gifts of intellect and spirit, gives us a 
 glimpse — the significance of which we shall fully appreciate — 
 of the indescribably fierce conflict secretly kindled in the 
 breasts of many by carnal desire. If a man of mature age and 
 of spirituality acknowledged on all sides, admits such facts as 
 regards himself, 1 what inference are we to draw in respect of 
 the ordinary young man in the street? Shall we wonder if 
 to him the strain of continence becomes at times intolera- 
 ble; and that too, not so much from wilful depravity on his 
 own part as from the inevitable fact that sexual desire has 
 a claim upon human nature, which it enforces, imperious and 
 importunate, amid waking thoughts, in sleeping visions and 
 in the mysterious hours when sleep and wakefulness wonder- 
 
 1 1 cannot forbear to cite in this connection the plaintive prayer of 
 a modern saint: — 
 
 "0 Holy Lord, Who with the Children Three 
 
 Didst walk the piercing flame, 
 Help, in those trial-hours, which, save to Thee, 
 I dare not name; 
 
 Nor let these quivering eyes and sickening heart 
 Crumble to dust beneath the Tempter's dart. 
 
 "Thou, Who didst once Thy life from Mary's breast 
 Renew from day to day, 
 O might her smile, severely sweet, but rest 
 On this frail clay! 
 Till I am Thine with my whole soul, and fear, 
 Not feel a secret joy, that Hell is near." 
 
 — Newman, "Verses on Various Occasions." 
 
50 IMPURE THOUGHTS. 
 
 fully mingled envelop the reason and the will in a cloud of 
 helplessness? The physical control of the sexual function 
 may be imperfect, even when the moral will is vigorously re- 
 pudiating the suggestion of unchastity. 
 
 Sexuality in a state of celibacy has subtle and various 
 effects upon the mind. To speak vaguely of "impure thoughts" 
 as if they all belonged ethically to one category, would be mis- 
 leading. All healthy and normally constituted persons are 
 bound to experience some motions of the sexual appetite 
 before marriage, not merely on the emotional side — with which 
 we shall deal later — but on the physical. As long as the sub- 
 ject of these experiences construes them aright as promptings 
 not to promiscuity or any illicit sex relation, but to marriage; 
 as long as, in consequence of tbis right construction, he tries 
 to restrain and discipline himself to the point of inhibiting 
 such promptings till such time as they can be lawfully grati- 
 fied, they can hardly be' stigmatized as "impure" thoughts. 
 But these imaginations, when entertained in a mind governed 
 by an irreligious and unprincipled will, may either prove 
 a stimulus to sexual vice, or develop into what has been de- 
 scribed as "mental masturbation," a state in which a con- 
 tinual excitement is maintained in the sexual system, with- 
 out actual indulgence, with the result that besides moral 
 defilement physical detriment ensues, owing to the excessive 
 and continuous tension of the tissues, without recourse being 
 had to the relief afforded by coitus. 
 
 Another class of sexual emotions is that found in neurotic 
 persons, especially those who, after abandoning habits of early 
 masturbation, experience some degree of nervous and sexual 
 disturbance, connected probably with an enlarged and sensi- 
 tive prostate. In a repentant and humbled mind the con- 
 tinued presence of these nervous freaks of the imagination 
 causes great distress. They constitute chastisement rather 
 than temptation, inasmuch as the soul repudiates and combats 
 them, and they cannot be placed in the same ethical category 
 as the consciously entertained impure thoughts to which refer- 
 ence has just been made. With an amelioration of the patho- 
 
HARDNESS OF CHASTITY. 51 
 
 logical conditions of the physical organism the distressful 
 mental symptoms will be correspondingly reduced. While they 
 last the subject of them must endeavor to see in them a call 
 to the exercise of a stronger faith in the ultimate issue of 
 that moral process by which, in a mind ruled by a converted 
 will, every thought ( irav vory/m, every motion of the mind) is 
 brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 1 
 
 How does the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, to whom we 
 might fairly look for some measure of penetrating insight, 
 and of wise and kindly guidance, deal with such cases, the 
 number of which is probably very large ? Their lordships give 
 to the world the broad assertion: 
 
 "A life of chastity for the unmarried is not only possible, 
 but is commanded by God." They offer no qualifying admis- 
 sion, in the spirit of St. Paul, that for some (or shall we say 
 for the many?) owing to the power of the sexual instinct, 
 marriage is a physical and moral necessity. (1 Cor. 7: 9.) 
 
 A life of chastity possible for the unmarried. A mere 
 categorical assertion of this kind does little service to the cause 
 of purity, and one could almost comment with some vehemence 
 on the lack of sympathy displayed. No doubt it is the duty of 
 the Christian Church to uphold the ideal possibility of chastity 
 in single life; but should not men who have special opportu- 
 nities of studying how to render fruitful in their practical 
 application to human life the lines of ethical thought devel- 
 oped in the Bible, recognize (as surely St. Paul does) the fre- 
 quent practical impossibility? Must we listen in vain, in the 
 voice of the assembled Church, for the tone of deep fraternal 
 sympathy, for the kind word of encouragement to the young 
 unmarried man who, in his hard circumstances, accepts the 
 obligation to sexual abstinence, but whose nerve power is 
 strained to the uttermost beneath its weight; who dreads the 
 overhanging cloud of insanity, as he morbidly broods over his 
 boyhood's troubles, and passing through the streets, where 
 prostitutes pace the pavement at dusk, remembers that a not 
 
 »H Cor. 10:5. 
 
52 IS PROSTITUTION NECESSARY? 
 
 too scrupulous doctor has told him But some cry, Hold! 
 
 at this point, and bid us mark that we are overstepping the 
 hounds which publication imposes, into a region of unprinta- 
 ble knowledge. It may be so, yet did not a great English 
 surgeon, in a well-known lecture, make condemnatory reference 
 to the prescribing (medically) of fornication? (See also Lyman 
 Sperry, "Confidential Talks to Young Men," Chapter XI, p, 
 94.) 
 
 Many writers and speakers who touch this point, and who 
 declaim against the common sophism that prostitution is a 
 necessity, ignore the real point in question which this sophism 
 partly conceals. One may not assent to the doctrine that pros- 
 titution is a necessity, but one must admit that the broad ques- 
 tion, Is sexual satisfaction a necessity? may legitimately be 
 asked by any man in respect to himself, and it is a question 
 which must at least help greatly in forming his choice between 
 remaining celibate and getting married. 
 
 The proposition that the moderate gratification of the sexual 
 instinct is necessary in a greater or less degree for the health 
 of the physical organism is usually affirmed or denied under 
 the influence of or in revolt from ethical considerations. 
 These, it is true, have to be taken account of in applying the 
 abstract truth, when that has been ascertained, to concrete 
 cases, for the real issue is extremely broad, comprising not 
 merely the physical life, but what is so closely bound up with 
 it, the moral and spiritual life of man. However, the starting 
 point of the inquiry must be the relation which, on the one 
 hand continence, and on the other moderate gratification, 
 have to the physical health. 
 
 This question is frequently approached in pamphlets and 
 booklets intended for popular circulation with a view to puri- 
 fying social morality. But the discussion is vitiated from a 
 scientific point of view by the premature introduction of such 
 ethical considerations. Something has even to be discounted 
 from the value of the utterances of eminent medical men ad- 
 duced for the purpose of disproving any kind of necessity for 
 sexual gratification, for these utterances have usually refer- 
 
DISCUSSION OF CONTINENCE. 53 
 
 ence to illicit gratification i.e., they contain an appeal to 
 
 ethics. 
 
 The contribution of anthropology to the study of the phys- 
 iological aspects of continence is of uncertain value. A large 
 body of primitive ideas does, it is true, emphasize the physical 
 superiority of continence (see Crawley op. cit., p. 188ff.), but 
 these ideas have arisen in an atmosphere of superstition, and 
 are uninformed by physiological knowledge. 
 
 As an instance of the confusion of thought, even in medical 
 works, upon the physiological aspect of celibacy, we may cite 
 the opinion of Dr. Guernsey in regard to the hygienic necessity 
 of regular sexual intercourse in marriage: "It is in the very 
 nature of the male to seek his mate; it is an inborn prin- 
 ciple for him to do so, and his health, even his life, certainly 
 his moral life, often depend upon an orderly and lawful indul- 
 gence of what this inherent principle demands. ("Plain Talks," 
 p. 93.) Yet the same writer, having illicit intercourse in mind, 
 strongly affirms, not merely the possibility, but the beneficial 
 nature of celibacy, and appears to regard any confession on a 
 patient's part that celibacy involves a physical and moral strain 
 as an indication of an immoral temper (p. 53ff.). In Dr. 
 Beale's work, "Our Morality," the same confusion appears, 
 the author asserting on the one hand (p. 53) that "marriage 
 is, physiologically speaking, the best state for most men, 
 and, upon the whole, certainly offers the best prospect of ac- 
 quiring the healthiest and, perhaps the highest, condition of 
 mind and body possible 1 ;" and on the other hand, that "the 
 yielding to desire is no more to be justified upon physiological 
 or physical than upon moral or religious grounds." The truth 
 is that throughout his discussion of the question he has other 
 considerations in view than purely physiological ones. Indeed, 
 
 1 In the series of essays on "Health and Disease in Relation to 
 Marriage," recently published from the German by Messrs. Eebman, while 
 the dangerous possibilities of marriage are clearly and unflinchingly 
 enumerated, it is emphasized that marriage is hygienically of value, not 
 only as a, defense of existing health, but as a means of benefiting or 
 curing several forms of ill health. 
 
54 USE AND NONUSE OF SEX ORGANS. 
 
 he admits as much. "The attempt to place marriage upon a 
 merely physiological basis is," he says, "not justified by facts." 
 That is so; that is the main position of the present writer; 
 nevertheless, the unhampered discussion of the purely physio- 
 logical question must come first in order, though not in im- 
 portance, in a scientific work on sex. 
 
 It is frequently suggested that the activity of the sexual 
 organs may be dormant in a state of continence, except for 
 an occasional orgasm in sleep, 1 without detriment to the gen- 
 eral health or to the nerve-power. It is even urged further 
 that the sexual department of continent adults is a kind of 
 storage battery of vitality. The organs go on fulfilling their 
 secretive functions, and it is maintained by distinguished 
 medical writers — though there is a lack of unanimity on the 
 point — that abstinence from sexual intercourse cannot be reck- 
 oned as a cause of impotence, and cannot be proved to diminish 
 fecundity. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that the notion of the harm- 
 less dormancy of the sexual organs conflicts with what we 
 know of the general relation of use to health. 2 The physical 
 well-being of organs is ensured by proper use, and when denied 
 that use the organ craves for it with an intensity which reacts 
 upon the whole organism. For example, the experiment has 
 been tried on long expeditions by sea of feeding men with food 
 essences. It is found that the digestive organs cry out for 
 their normal functioning in such a way as not only to cause 
 an unnatural craving for harsh and gritty foods, but seriously 
 to impair the general health and vitality. 
 
 Now it is true that the sex-cells occupy a unique position 
 
 1 See Additional Note E, on the Nocturnal Pollution. 
 
 •When it is considered that all the different systems, nervous, 
 vascular, digestive, and the rest, which compose the body of man, are 
 but specializations of a common primary form, and still interact and 
 mutually affect each other, it will be questioned whether physical an- 
 thropology allows of the withdrawal of one of these systems, the sexual, 
 from the operation of the law of alternate use and rest to which the 
 remaining systems are amenable. (See Duckworth, "Morphology and 
 Anthropology," pp. 14, 15, 546.) 
 
THE SEXUAL ACT. 55 
 
 in the organism. An early differentiation is made in the in- 
 dividual between the personal and the germinal elements, the 
 ontogenetic and the phylogenetic material; in other words, 
 between the body and the sex-cells. We must not, then, too 
 readily estimate the physical effect of continence by the help 
 of analogies derived from the functioning of other organs of 
 the body. Yet we cannot reason fully as to the results of 
 prolonged continence from the bare fact that the sex-cells 
 are, in a sense, physiologically isolated in the organism. Fere, 
 in his argument in favor of the physical harmlessness of con- 
 tinence, maintains that the sexual organs belong as much to 
 the species as to the individual. Certainly, if the sexual act 
 in humanity were a reproductive act and nothing more, the 
 organs with which it is performed would belong even more 
 truly to the species than to the individual; but it has other 
 objects than the sole one of reproduction. It is a love act. 
 Duly regulated, it conduces to the ethical welfare of the in- 
 dividual and promotes his efficiency as a social unit. The act 
 itself and its surrounding emotions stimulate within the organ- 
 ism the powerful movements of a vast psychic life. 
 
 In the light of the analysis of the sexual impulse recently 
 made by Moll and approved with modifications by Havelock 
 Ellis, the evolution of the sexual instinct may be stated thus: 
 In the lowest forms of life the species is propagated by fission, 
 by the liberation from the parent organism of other organ- 
 isms, the parent organism itself dying, or to speak more ac- 
 curately, becoming transmuted into other organisms. This 
 one procreative activity is in later and more highly developed 
 forms of life, or after sex has appeared, in the economy of 
 nature, expanded into two main sexual activities, the process 
 of detumescence by which impregnation is caused, and the 
 process of parturition. Detumescence itself requires prepara- 
 tory processes; thus the sexual instinct develops a subordinate 
 impulse, the impulse of contrectation, or the inclination to touch 
 and fondle the object of desire, leading up to the required state 
 of tumescence. The necessity of bringing about a state of 
 tumescence or sexual excitement in both male and female, 
 
56 THE SEXUAL ACT. 
 
 before the climax is reached at which detumescence, the im- 
 pregnating discharge of the pent-up nervous energy, takes 
 place, gives rise in the higher parts of creation to an elaborate 
 though secondary series of sexual activities, and it is on the 
 basis of these that sexual love in its highest development 
 comes into being. Here, in this impulse of contrectation and 
 its preliminary excitations, are the roots of other evolutionary 
 purposes of the sex instinct, besides procreation. Therefore, 
 the sexual activities in man cannot be considered apart from 
 the new functions which the sex instinct has taken on at 
 these later stages of its evolution. They cannot be thought 
 of as, in their legitimate scope, purely and solely procreative 
 activities. They fulfill legitimate purposes in the life of man, 
 even if their normal result, procreation, is not reached. 
 
 In the first stages of the evolution of sex the motive which 
 impels the connection between the male and the female organ- 
 isms is hunger. Hunger and love are divergent manifestations 
 of the same active principle. It is also true that this hunger 
 may be described as a procreative hunger, for procreation is 
 indirectly the end of the sexual act, but inasmuch as the de- 
 sire of procreation does not constitute the direct impulse to 
 the act, it is on the word hunger, not on the word procreative, 
 that the emphasis in this definition has to be laid. 
 
 Consequently, as before said, the sexual act is not to be 
 thoiight of as merely a procreative act, but as in addition or 
 even primarily, a love act. 
 
 Further, it has been proved in various ways that the sexual 
 instinct continues to exist in full activity, not only in man, but 
 in the lower animals, after the power of procreation has been 
 taken away, and even after the organs necessary to procreation 
 have been removed. 
 
 Yet again, it may be asked, does not the existence of such a 
 strange phenomenon as congenital sexual inversion, with its 
 intense emotions — where the reproductive instinct must neces- 
 sarily be inactive — indicate that coitus is not merely a repro- 
 ductive act, but that in the economy of nature it serves other 
 ends? In our discussion of the physical use of marriage in 
 Chapter IX, this point will be further proved. 
 
CONTINENCE. 57 
 
 Even if the analogy between the denial of functioning to 
 the sexual organs and the similar denial to the digestive organs 
 has to' be criticised by the light of the scientific dogma of 
 the differentiation of the sex-cells in the body, none the less 
 it retains a large amount of truth, for the "dormancy" of the 
 sexual organs in continence is in the experience of myriads 
 an illusive theory. Practically they are far from being dor- 
 mant; on the contrary, they become highly irritable from the 
 overfrequent activity of sexual desire, and in a person of low 
 principle, unnatural or illicit gratification ensues, 1 while in- 
 somnia, depression, mental obsession, and other neuropathic 
 conditions may develop in a high-minded man who, in spite 
 of all, struggles to be continent. The vitality gathered up by 
 that storage battery, the continent sexual department, is 
 heavily drawn upon by the expenditure of nerve-force required 
 for the conflict with temptation. It is true that sexual inter- 
 course is a catabolic act, involving an expenditure of energy. But 
 in humanity the catabolism has undergone modifications. The 
 activity implied in the process culminating in the orgasm is 
 followed by reactionary symptoms; but although in morbid 
 states pathological symptoms of a more or less alarming 
 character may appear, the normal reaction is sedative, and in- 
 volves a recuperation of the nervous energy expended in the 
 act, whereas in certain cases of prolonged continence the nerv- 
 ous expenditure due to the effort of self-control, does not, 
 indeed, proceed by so obvious a method as the ejaculation of 
 semen, but is none the less actual, and does not bring about 
 its own compensation by a natural sedative reaction. It is, 
 therefore, wrong to argue generally from the catabolism of 
 the act to a wholesale physiological condemnation of it — such 
 a condemnation as is implied in the cynical remark of Clinias, 
 
 1 Havelock Ellis and others have noted the recourse had to mas- 
 turbation, as being a nervous sedative, by persons greatly distressed 
 with sexual desire. This cannot be regarded favorably from the point 
 of view of Christian ethics, as I have shown elsewhere in this volume, 
 but it illustrates the extent of the physical strain caused in some cases 
 by the effort to observe continence. 
 
58 EFFECTS OF CONTINENCE. 
 
 quoted by Fere with some approval, that the best time for 
 a man to have connection with his wife is when he wishes to 
 injure himself, i.e., that such connection always inflicts more 
 or less of injury on the male. 
 
 There seems, then, to be no sufficient reason for ignoring 
 the cautiously expressed opinion of Dr. Flint that "prolonged 
 continence may react unfavorably on the nervous system." 1 
 This is practically the conclusion reached by Godfrey in his 
 lucid and temperate discussion of the physical and emotional 
 effects of celibacy. "The effect of the celibate life," he says, 
 "on the nervous system cannot safely be said to amount (with 
 man) to more than a general lowering of tone, a diminution of 
 organic activity, with periodic crises of nervous irritation." 2 
 
 Further, it will readily be admitted that in many cases the 
 unfavorable reaction of continence on the nervous system does 
 not eventuate in any marked manner. With healthy men of 
 naturally temperate passions and possessed of no great degree 
 of emotional activity, the assertion that in a life of continence 
 the generative organs remain dormant without detriment to 
 the physical health, is no doubt practically true, and a suf- 
 ficient source of consolation, but such a type in humanity is 
 not sufficiently representative to be taken as the sole start- 
 ing point from which to reason about the effects of celibacy. 
 
 Gruber, though he finds himself unable wholly to ignore 
 the possibility of oppression of the nervous system by the reten- 
 tion of semen, and of general nerve-strain as a result of the 
 effort of continence, largely discounts these possibilities. So, 
 too, does Fiirbringer ; though he finds it necessary to admit that 
 "there are some sensually inclined and neuropathically predis- 
 posed persons whose history does contain serious symptoms of 
 sexual neurasthenia." He immediately qualifies this admission 
 as follows: "Often enough it is not the continence which is 
 responsible for the illness, but masturbation and lascivious- 
 ness."* Yet it is here necessary to bear in mind that tbe said 
 
 1 Quoted in Trail, "Sexual Physiology and Hygiene,'' p. 100. 
 ■ "Science of Sex," Pt. ii, Chapter II, sees, ii and iii. 
 * Senator and Kaminer: "Health and Disease in Relation to Mar- 
 riage and the Married State" (from the German), pp. 20ff, 229. 
 
THE BATTLE OF CHASTITY. 59 
 
 masturbation and lascivousness may have to be understood in 
 very many cases of juvenile and ignorant depravity, long ago 
 repented of and as far as possible foregone; so that the sexual 
 tension and neurasthenia which render the effort of continence 
 so great a strain, and upon which that effort reacts, cannot be 
 regarded as an indication of deliberate wickedness and impurity, 
 and certainly deserve sympathy at least as much as condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 Dr. Allen, editor of the English translation of Ultzmann's 
 work on "Genito-TTrinary Neuroses," concludes as follows in 
 regard to the alleged detrimental influences of prolonged con- 
 tinence upon sexual power (and consequently upon nerve 
 power in general) : "The probability is that healthy, normal 
 men — that is to say, the vast majority of them — may practice 
 continence many years, or indefinitely, without any loss of 
 sexual power. On the other hand, it is also doubtless true 
 that a certain proportion, perhaps a large proportion of sexual 
 neurasthenics, 1 are injured morally and physically by prolonged 
 continence, and run a risk of losing thereby what little sexual 
 vigor they have" (p. 1C8). 
 
 But granting, as the facts oblige us frequently to do, that 
 prolonged continence may be detrimental to bodily health, we 
 
 l l would make here the obvious comment that it is not to be 
 supposed that the sexual neurasthenic is necessarily an invalid or 
 valetudinarian in a general way. On the contrary, his general health 
 may be maintained at a fair standard, though the neurotic condition 
 will partially unfit him for work, or at least only permit of his perform- 
 ing his duties under great difficulties. 
 
 Eulenberg (Senator and Kaminer, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 8S4ff) draws 
 a darker picture of neurasthenia and sexual neurasthenia. But this 
 somber coloring is due partly to an assumption which runs through his 
 discussion, that of the absence in neurasthenics of moral effort; and 
 also to the prominence given to the severer forms of neurasthenia. He 
 lays stress on the weakening and misdirection of the will in such subjects, 
 as if such moral defects were almost the invariable accompaniments of 
 their condition. But this presentation of the situation, at any rate as 
 regards young men, requires considerable modification. A just estima- 
 tion of the moral and religious factor among the psychical elements of 
 neurasthenia makes the general outlook more encouraging. 
 
60 CLAIMS OF SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 cannot yet concede that a man in whom this condition is pres- 
 ent may hreak the law of continence without more ado, and 
 by resort to any of the methods commonly regarded as breaches 
 of sexual morality. This were a reckless inference. For the 
 question as to the necessity of sexual intercourse in a given 
 case has wider bearings, as already suggested, than in relation 
 to bodily health. 
 
 The conflict must be fought out in each man's soul round 
 the great, comprehensive, and in itself perfectly legitimate 
 question: How far is the gratification of the sexual long- 
 ing a necessity of my whole life, of my spiritual, moral, intel- 
 lectual, and physical development? A vast multitude of cir- 
 cumstances will help in a conscientious mind to its decision. 
 It may be, in some lives it must be, that higher necessities 
 will outweigh this one; that from motives of prudence or of 
 unselfishness, a man will temporarily or altogether, in face not 
 merely of inconvenience, but of some degree of real suffering, 
 waive his right of seeking the indulgence of sexual love, 1 and 
 offer the sacrifice of his sex life upon the altar of humanity. 
 
 And with many people the struggle occasioned by the vol- 
 untary observance of celibacy for longer or shorter periods is 
 perhaps the hardest moral struggle in life. Multitudes of men 
 confuse the issues in their own consciences, and because the 
 strength of their passions goes in great measure to prove that 
 sexual intercourse is for them a necessity, argue themselves, 
 without pausing to give an honest consideration to their pros- 
 
 1 Cp. Driver's comment (which may fairly be quoted in this con- 
 nection) on Deut. 8:3. "The words 'Man doth not live on bread alone,' 
 are of wider application; and they are accordingly quoted by our Lord 
 in His answer to the tempter (Matt. 4:4), for the purpose of showing 
 that needs of sense do not exhaust the requirements of human nature, 
 that man leads a spiritual life as well as a physical life, and that by 
 yielding inopportunely to physical necessity, higher spiritual needs 
 may be neglected or frustrated." The self-sacrifice of celibacy is 
 reckoned in Christ's recorded sayings among the means by which men 
 possess the Kingdom or Presence of God (St. Matt. 19:12). For 
 reasons given by Dalman (Words of Jesus, E. T., p. 122), the words, 
 iiroixurav eavrcris have to be understood of symbolic self-mutilation. 
 
FORNICATION. 61 
 
 pects of marriage, into supposing that by consequence forni- 
 cation is a necessity. 
 
 Dealing first with casual fornication, or prostitution, we 
 observe that the proposition, "Prostitution is socially neces- 
 sary/' may be of force as a historical generalization, because, 
 however clearly the wrongfulness and unwisdom of fornica- 
 tion may be demonstrated, there always has been in history, 
 and there are now, multitudes of people who will not weigh 
 prudential and ethical considerations; but the proposition be- 
 comes dangerous and inadmissible when used by individual 
 men as a maxim by which to justify their own lapses into 
 sexual misconduct. To translate deductions which, though 
 true, are certainly painful and sad, into general rules of con- 
 duct, is the falsest of false philosophy. We must take the 
 world as we find it? True, but this does not justify us in 
 leaving it as we have found it, without any effort on our own 
 part to raise its ideals and to promote its welfare. 
 
 Indulgence in casual fornication, besides being physically 
 dangerous, is subversive of social order. Moralists, both an- 
 cient and modern, who have taken a profound, religious view 
 of life, have never ceased, on this point, to appeal to men's 
 noblest motives, to urge them at the cost of strong and pain- 
 ful effort to refrain from seeking indulgence in this manner, 
 to warn them away from the deep ditch wherein health is 
 jeopardized, self-control is destroyed, and pure affections are 
 plunged into the mire. But there is no need here to argue at 
 large against seeking indulgence in casual fornication. Men's 
 reasons for avoiding it are no novel ones. They are the old 
 danger signals which for ages past have stood before this dark 
 abyss. 
 
 The following history, lately given to the writer by a friend who 
 has seen much of the world, terribly exemplifies the results of general 
 demoralization which may follow a single visit to the brothel. 
 
 A case of gross misconduct had occurred at school, which it was 
 decided, at a prefects' meeting, to punish with flogging; and the 
 execution of this decision was deputed to one of the head boys, whose 
 character seemed as upright and his principles as religious, as his 
 physique was admirable. The flogging was duly performed, but a 
 
62 REAL PROFLIGACY. 
 
 melancholy interest attaches to the career, not of the culprit, but of the 
 boy chosen to punish him. This fine and strong young fellow went to 
 one of the universities, and there at first led, so far as could be known, 
 a singularly moral and careful life, avoiding fast and undesirable com- 
 pany. Then some vicious influence destroyed the resolution of this 
 young man. In an evil hour he was persuaded into a brothel. From 
 that moment a menacing and destructive element became fused with his 
 moral life. A year or two afterward my informant hears of him again, 
 but now the man is a member of the most dissolute set at the university, 
 and rapidly becoming, inter alia, a hard drinker. Then for some years 
 my informant loses sight of him, but at length hears casually that 
 
 , a member of the university, has been committed to prison to 
 
 serve a heavy sentence. The name mentioned was the name of this 
 very man, and, as far as my informant's observation went, the moral 
 rot which wrought such disaster to this once promising career, set in as 
 the direct result of the ill omened contact with prostitution. That 
 one touch removed the moral control, and caused the rapid exaggera- 
 tion of the sensual passions of the man. Such a record, whatever faith 
 one may have in the power of goodness ultimately to reverse the 
 temporal triumphs of evil, is surely miserable and fearful beyond our 
 powers of estimation. 
 
 Fornication broadly considered we shall deal with more fully 
 in another chapter. Here it is enough to lay emphasis on the 
 fact that the sexual instinct, almost more than any other in- 
 stinct in human nature, may be exaggerated to the great 
 detriment and hindrance of man's true development, if the 
 indulgence of it is claimed with reckless -haste, or wantonly 
 allowed. The men who throw the reins upon the neck of 
 their desire, whose eyes wander restlessly after the animal 
 beauty of women, who continually excuse themselves from 
 making any attempt to curb the excessive activity of their 
 morbid passions, whose utter want of manliness in seducing 
 women by lying promises and other base means, and then 
 deserting them, proves that their motive for seizing illicit 
 sexual pleasure is not merely the force of passion acting upon 
 a weak will, but a callous selfishness, destructive of the chival- 
 rous instincts which ought to ennoble masculine desire^these 
 wretches, not nervous youths who with gloomy forebodings 
 and many a miserable failure, still struggle upward out of 
 the unclean morass into which boyhood's ignorance has led 
 
MASCULINE BASENESS. 63 
 
 them, have cause to fear for the future. These are destroy- 
 ing their manhood, all that is noblest and best in it, to far 
 greater purpose than the other, and as surely as there is a 
 principle of justice in the universe, are heaping up against 
 themselves judgment and retribution before which the penal- 
 ties of juvenile weakness must fade into insignificance. 
 
 We have all heard of some ghastly tragedy of murder, fol- 
 lowing on outrage. The possibility within human nature of the 
 fearful revulsion of feeling which occasions such a crime is 
 marvelous, inexplicable; one of the darkest spots in the 
 world's mystery of iniquity. This gross crime is regarded by 
 society as a deed of almost superhuman wickedness, the act 
 of one whose state is not far removed from that of a maniac 
 or a fiend; but shall we, on a closer consideration, be disposed 
 to place it so entirely by itself? Shall we not see reason 
 rather to mark it as merely one hideous form out of a group? 
 Is its inner working, are the motives which prompt its com- 
 mission, any more hateful and unnatural than those with which 
 some men deliberately and of set purpose abandon the women, 
 whose virtue they have overcome, to desolation and misery? 
 The callous indifference, or the overwhelming hate swiftly su- 
 pervening on the accomplished desire, the cruel "Eise up ! 
 Begone I" * that fall first upon the ear of the seduced and hum- 
 bled woman — what difference is there, morally, between these 
 and the blow of the knife that rids the world of her? Woe is 
 unto men for the exceeding strength of sexual passion, for the 
 straitness of life's conditions, for the longings of love cruelly 
 checked and delayed, for a wearing struggle to preserve chastity, 
 and its sad, perhaps its inevitable, failures; but much more woe 
 for the godlessness and hardness of heart and want of sym- 
 pathy which make acts of unchastity a thousand times more 
 base and evil than oftentimes they are in themselves, for the 
 cowardly selfishness which snatches at delight, but will make no 
 movement to lighten, for her whose charms have bestowed it, the 
 consequent responsibility and shame I 
 
 'H Sam. 13:15. 
 
64 MARRIAGE. 
 
 As far, then, as fornication is concerned, the necessity of 
 sexual gratification, manifesting itself in a man's life, must 
 be said to be conditioned and overborne by higher moral ne- 
 cessities. None the less it exists, it presses, it gives rise in 
 secret to distressing physical trouble and mental anxiety; it 
 cannot be brushed aside by a statement of the abstract pos- 
 sibility of chastity in single life. It must be considered, in the 
 sphere of conscience, in relation to marriage. 
 
 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the author of well-known works on 
 sexual morality, would define the right of sexual intercourse 
 and the obligation to celibacy by reference to a hard and fast 
 rule of years. Men's lives are mapped out into zones or periods 
 of years. Puberty and nubility as physical states are not, ac- 
 cording to this writer, to be confused. Up to the age of 20 a 
 man's sexual development, apart from the consideration of his 
 immature experience of life, has not yet rendered him mar- 
 riageable, and even up to 25 years it is well for bim to re- 
 main celibate, for the same reason. After that age celibacy, 
 though no longer generally binding upon men, is still possible 
 for them. 
 
 These principles are too rigid to be ruthlessly applied. 
 Baldly stated they curtail unduly individual liberty, and they do 
 not, as here enunciated, take sympathetic note of the immense 
 diversity of life and circumstances, and of the varying strength 
 of passion among men. Moreover, the argument seems to fix 
 the age of physical nubility too late. In answering the ques- 
 tion: What is the ordinary age of nubility among men, an im- 
 portant place must surely be assigned to considerations of 
 fertility. The careful investigations of the New South Wales 
 statistician, Mr. T. A. Coghlan, 1 disclose the fact that the sum- 
 mit of natality for a man is at the youngest age of man- 
 hood, or rather at the age of 21, which is the lowest investi- 
 gated. It may be urged, however, on the other side, that even 
 if a man's fertility is greatest before his 26th year, the quality 
 of his procreative power is not at its best till after that age. 2 
 
 1 "Child-birth in New South Wales," p. 10. 
 
 'Lyman Sperry, "Coni. Talks Between Husband and Wife," p. 230. 
 
PROCREATION— RIGHT OF MARRIAGE. 65 
 
 The children born to a man over 25 will probably be more 
 vigorous than those born to a younger man. 1 This law of pro- 
 creation may hold good where sexual passions are normal and 
 there has previously been no great strain on the nerve power, 
 but it must receive many modifications from the circumstances 
 of life. In a case — and there are many such — where overwork 
 or the effort to preserve continence, or other circumstances 
 have caused an undue pressure on the early years of manhood, 
 it is likely that not only fertility, but general procreative health, 
 would be considerably diminished by the time the 26th year is 
 reached. A rash advocacy of early marriage has indeed, the 
 author trusts, no place in this essay; it is merely suggested 
 here that sex education ought not to involve the disregard of 
 real difficulties and natural facts, however great may be the dif- 
 ficulty of ascertaining the true place of those facts in the scheme 
 of social evolution. 
 
 At any rate, people who think it derogatory to allow that 
 marriage is in one aspect an indulgence granted to a physical 
 craving of human nature, are losing themselves in a cloud of 
 illusion. The Bible does say distinctly that marriage may be 
 regarded not only as a means of propagating the race, or of in- 
 terchanging social help and comfort between man and woman; 
 not only as a sphere in which lofty and noble sentiments find 
 free scope, but also as a lawful outlet for one of the strongest 
 physical impulses in human nature (I Cor. 7; Heb. 13: 4; 
 I Thess. 4: 3, 4). 
 
 That marriage may be contracted in part secundum indul- 
 gentiam has been inferred by the Christian Church from the 
 Scriptural teaching above referred to. Such is the opinion of 
 
 1 Gruber refers to statistics showing that procreation by men under 
 27, and by women under 20, among Northern Europeans, tends to pro- 
 duce a less vigorous offspring than when the parents are past those ages. 
 But no doubt facts could be collected which would modify this gen- 
 eralization. Havelburg mentions that very early marriages among the 
 Albanians do not seem to impair this athletic type of humanity. For 
 an instance of a man of exceptional mental power being begotten by 
 a. very young father, we may cite Warren Hastings, whose father was 
 in his teens. (S. & K. op. cit. pp. 27, 174.) 
 
 6 
 
66 DOCTRINE OF INDULGENTIA. 
 
 Peter Lombard 1 ; fortified by similar teaching on the part of Au- 
 gustine, who admits, in a somewhat reluctant tone, that the 
 titles of husband and wife cannot be denied even to those who 
 enjoy conjugal intercourse "mm gratia prolis, sed explendce lib- 
 idinis causa," with the reservation, however, that they do not 
 take actual steps to prevent procreation — a matter which will 
 later on engage our attention again. The simple doctrine of 
 St. Paul that if persons have not the gift of continency, they 
 should marry, becomes with the mediaeval schoolmen the germ 
 of some rather subtle ethical theories, the inspiring idea of 
 which is the sinfulness of desire even in matrimony, except 
 when absorbed in the intent of procreation. It has a better 
 reflection in the Anglican marriage service 2 ; and it is cer- 
 tainly an excess of delicacy that causes many of the clergy, 
 when that service is read, to wrong society by withholding this 
 important part of the Scriptural teaching on marriage. 3 
 
 Nothing is gained, but on the contrary much harm is done 
 by the fashion followed by too many moralists of ignoring the 
 struggle of the sexual nature on the strength of false, or at any 
 rate imperfect, theories, like that of the dormancy of the 
 generative organs in celibacy. In its own best interests society 
 must sharply criticise such theories, as tending to obscure the 
 right of marriage, and must study to distinguish the false from 
 the true limitations of that right. Not that a mere assertion 
 of the right of marriage will solve the conscience problems of 
 the sex life for the individual. In the married estate itself, 
 
 1 Lombard, "Sentences," Dist., xxxi, Sees. 3, 7. Cp. Aquinas, 
 "Suppl. Summse," qu. xlix. 
 
 2 See the Exhortation. Dean Comber ("Companion to the Temple," 
 
 vol. iv, $. 43) thus comments upon it: " there is an innocent 
 
 and honorable way to gratify these natural appetites, and a, secure refuge 
 against all that may assault our chastity offered to our choice by the 
 mercy of God. ... It is allowed to all to marry, but becomes a 
 direct duty to them who cannot be safe without it." 
 
 8 The author's own practice, in response to special request, has 
 been to read the second clause to the word "sin." By this procedure 
 the requirements of delicacy are sufficiently met, and the ethical point 
 in question is not ignored. 
 
MARRIAGE— ILLICIT UNIONS. 67 
 
 further questions of conscience will appear, which will engage 
 our attention in later chapters. 
 
 Further, it must be said that this book is not written for 
 people who are impatient of all proposed solutions of the sex 
 problem involving moral effort, and who seek for solutions no- 
 where but in materialistic philosophy. Just as it has been the 
 object of these pages to describe the true conditions of the 
 sexual conflict, so it is their object to estimate fully the oppor- 
 tunities of controlling, disciplining, and denying oneself af- 
 forded by this conflict. Men are by no means .justified in 
 ignoring or treating lightly the difficulties and hindrances which 
 the conditions of modern civilization place in the way of mar- 
 riage. The need must be admitted of exercising all possible 
 self-restraint and prudence, and the duty of embracing the 
 highest forms of self-sacrifice for which men have strength and 
 opportunity must be recognized. But what is here suggested 
 and emphasized is that a point exists, on the other hand, beyond 
 which in some lives self -suppression cannot be practiced with- 
 out considerable injury to the physical, mental, and even moral 
 health, and that it is better, on reaching this point, to disregard 
 in large measure the common social hindrances to marriage 
 than to embrace the alternative of a life broken with secret 
 impurity, or plunged into the mire of prostitution. Better is 
 it, according to the New Testament, to marry than to burn. 
 Many men might emerge safe, though scorched, from Moloch's 
 flame-bed, did they consider in a God-fearing spirit the applica- 
 tion of this profound advice to their own cases. And are not 
 those professed guardians of morality, who hide this divine word 
 under a false shame, worthy to be branded as cowardly and 
 unfaithful ? 
 
 In Godfrey's "Science of Sex," Chapter IX, a theory of 
 secret illicit sexual unions is developed with a certain degree of 
 attractiveness, as affording a relief to society amid modern 
 economic difficulties. But it is not clear that anything would be 
 gained, and much might be lost, by the adoption of such a sug- 
 gestion. Such illicit unions, where productive of happiness, per- 
 manent relations, and a normal sex life, are but little removed 
 
68 WHAT CONSTITUTES MARRIAGE? 
 
 from secret marriages; indeed, they are often to be considered 
 in Godfrey's own view, as a prelude to recognized marriage. By 
 his advocacy of preventives he endeavors to introduce an ele- 
 ment of physical security, which he claims to be free from 
 objection morally. 
 
 The answer to the question, what constitutes marriage, has been 
 variously given. Even in these days, when in civilized countries men 
 have grown accustomed to see marriages take place under due social 
 control, and even from the lips of persons whose habit is to respect such 
 control, one hears occasionally the opinion that a marriage would be 
 ethically valid if mutal consent simple and unwitnessed had been ex- 
 changed, without ceremony, civil or religious. This view, the view taken 
 from the ideal standpoint of the higher ethics, receives support in the 
 history of marriage. The conception of marriage as a sacrament was 
 pushed in the Middle Ages to its extreme logical conclusion. Consensus 
 per verba in prwsenti was held to make a, valid marriage even if ex- 
 changed in occulto. 1 This doctrine is inherent in the ideal conception of 
 matrimony, and seems referable to the earliest possible precedent, that 
 of marriage among primeval men. For when marriage first appears in 
 the human race, the inital consent has to be thought of as made in secret. 
 Nevertheless, human society soon comes to perceive the necessity of 
 publicity, of guaranteeing the consent by the presence of witnesses. 
 Howard shows how vast a crop of evils have sprung at various times 
 from the neglect of this precaution. Lombard himself was not responsible 
 for, and would have condemned, the rash applications of his teaching 
 which were afterward made. 2 Here as on other points in the considera- 
 tion of marriage, we perceive the Church upholding an ideal, yet consent- 
 ing in practice to the conditioning of its application. But in spite of all 
 that is urged, and justly urged, about the danger of an unguarded 
 translation of the sacramental conception into practice, the conception 
 itself need not be dismissed as wholly vain. The idea of a sacramental 
 union is the religious core of the utilitarian notions and social safeguards 
 which gather round marriage in the course of history. And since the 
 sphere of ethical judgments has a, wider reach than temporal social re- 
 quirements, it is not amiss that the Church has maintained that in the 
 last resort the ethical validity of marriage does not depend on conformity 
 With particular sets of social regulations. 
 
 'Howard: "Hist, of Matr. Inst.," vol. i, p. 315; Suppl. in "Sum. 
 Theol. Quaest," xlv, art. v. 
 
 2 Sent: iv, dist. 28, sec. 2. 
 
SPECIAL RESTRICTIONS OF MARRIAGE. 69 
 
 But if for the moment, and for argument's sake, the pos- 
 sibilities of social confusion may be ignored, and the secret 
 union viewed from the mediasval ethical standpoint, it is quickly 
 apparent where, in spite of a certain degree of approximation, 
 the real divergence of the secret union from the institution of 
 true marriage comes in. For according to Christian ethics it 
 might be conceded that in special circumstances marriage should 
 be performed by unwitnessed mutual consent. It might also 
 be conceded, though much more doubtfully, that couples who 
 were thus secretly married might have recourse to Neo-Mal- 
 thusian methods. But when a third concession is demanded, 
 the non-recognition of the need of any mutual guarantee of 
 fidelity beyond the spontaneous interchange of erotic passion, 
 it becomes clear that such a proposal strikes at the root of social 
 morality. Especially would it frequently be unfavorable to the 
 interests of the female partner, who when her physical attrac- 
 tions lost their power, would be in great danger of being left 
 desolate; the other having, according to this scheme, no sense 
 of responsibility in regard to her. The suggestion that the 
 period of engagement is often not a sufficient preparation for 
 the full sex life in matrimony is doubtless not without value, 
 but there are better and safer ways of meeting the difficulty than 
 the one proposed. 
 
 Most men nowadays are compelled to accept vocations to 
 which the temporary obligation to eelihaey is inevitahly at- 
 tached, and owing to the poverty of their ethical ideals, the 
 majority refuse to make any adequate effort to fulfill this obliga- 
 tion. To such men the right solution of sex prohlems may seem, 
 for a time, a matter of indifference, and it were perhaps a vain 
 task to reason with them. But there are others — even in the 
 case of soldiers and sailors, among whom the tradition that 
 continence is an impracticable obligation, one that may freely 
 be ignored, is peculiarly strong (though, in truth, young soldiers 
 and sailors are scarcely worse off as regards sexual constraint 
 than men in many other positions and circumstances, except in 
 so far as variations of climate and unavoidable contact while 
 voyaging or campaigning, with dissolute and immoral members 
 
70 SPECIAL RESTRICTIONS OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 of society, inflict a strain of peculiar severity upon the sexual 
 nature) — others, as we learn from Mr. P. T. Bullen's works and 
 many other sources, whose personal religion and sense of the 
 moral fitness of things make this obligation a real burden to 
 their consciences. 
 
 The question whether the regulations adopted in certain 
 professions restricting the members' access to marriage are 
 moral or not must be decided, not by the utilitarian motive un- 
 derlying them, but by the spirit in which they are enforced, and 
 the means taken to enforce them. The fact that they exist at all 
 is a sad fact, a lamentable necessity of civilization. Still, in all 
 the circumstances, it is reasonable to hold out to a man (as is 
 done in the British army) the prospect of certain privileges if 
 he practices sufficient self-control to defer marriage till he has 
 finished a certain period of service, and to let him clearly under- 
 stand at his entrance into the service that if he does marry he 
 will incur, not punishment or dismissal, but inevitably an addi- 
 tional burden of risk and anxiety, owing to the impossibility of 
 extending to him the aforesaid privileges. 
 
 It is obvious that such regulations may readily become in- 
 struments of oppression. In a hard official spirit authorities may 
 dispense these reasonable privileges to married employes with 
 unnecessary reluctance, or to a needlessly small percentage of 
 the staff. In the interests of chastity and of national welfare, 
 the army regulations and those of other professions in respect 
 of the marriage of employes ought from time to time to evoke 
 public interest and be subjected to criticism; otherwise even 
 well-disposed soldiers and clerks, when they discover that by 
 the mandate of superiors the great majority of them — without 
 respect to any differences of health or temperament — must for 
 a considerable time forego, under stringent rules, the lawful 
 gratification of sexual passion in marriage, and that this state 
 of things calls for no sympathetic comment, will find in their 
 exceptional position a strong additional reason for having re- 
 course to fornication or some other form of sexual immorality. 
 
 Let theorizers say what they will, a young man of vigorous 
 passions is bound to face the conscience question with which 
 
PERSONAL RELIGION. 71 
 
 this chapter has dealt. He can find a true answer to it only in 
 one way. The power of Christianity alone, not the clamorous 
 modem spirit which fretfully appeals to legislation for the 
 remedy of all social ills, as if the Gospel were a touchstone or 
 a talisman, hut the Divine force of personal religion can ensure 
 a right and satisfying decision. No hard and fast rules can be 
 laid down, no zones of years can be mapped out, to define the 
 right of entering on marriage. In the faith of the individual 
 soul toward God; in the sincere effort to interpret the Divine 
 Will in regard to one's self from the circumstances and experi- 
 ences of life; in the resolve and endeavor to wait, though the 
 delay should involve self-sacrifice and bitter conflicts to preserve 
 one's chastity, until the time comes when sexual indulgence can 
 be claimed without peril and without dishonor — in these things 
 is found the just test of character; by these, within a man's 
 soul, lives, struggles and triumphs, in spite of failures and de- 
 feats, the spirit of purity. 
 
 In passing from boyhood into the dangerous years of early 
 manhood, in encountering their wearinesses, hardships, desires, 
 temptations, toward what beacon-light can a man safely steer 
 but that of the undying truth which never at length proves a 
 false guide to any ? — God is Faithful. 1 He will not suffer you 
 to be tempted above that ye are able. The clouds of human 
 cynicism and despair, of unworthy and excessive timidity, of 
 rash theories of the obligation to celibacy, may not obscure for- 
 ever, to storm-driven voyagers upon the raging sea of sexual 
 temptation, the shore whereon shine continually not the least 
 bright of the golden rays of faith, hope and love by which 
 earth's darkness is lighted — the estate of Holy Marriage, under- 
 taken in the fear of God. To that shore, by a multitude of 
 more or less common circumstances, does Providence guide the 
 course of multitudes within whose souls is the power of faith. 
 
 Finally, it must not be forgotten that the influence of sex- 
 ual passion on its physical side, even where it is one of the most 
 powerful impulses to marriage, is never a man's only motive 
 
 ^Cor. 10:13. 
 
72 MOTIVES OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 for marrying. Even if legitimate sexual gratification was in- 
 deed one of the things which he sought in matrimony (as many 
 a man must acknowledge to himself in his heart of hearts), it 
 cannot be inferred that he did not expect to find therein, and 
 in the event actually found, thiDgs of far greater and more 
 enduring value. It is only therefore by overstatement of the 
 matter that the recognition of this incentive to marriage can 
 come to be considered as fostering a disproportionate increase 
 of sex energy, or as magnifying the value of woman's physical, 
 to the practical exclusion of her intellectual and moral attrac- 
 tions. 
 
 In short, it is not the recognition, as Howard seems to 
 consider, 1 but the accentuation of this aspect of marriage to the 
 exclusion of other aspects, that is fraught with moral danger. 
 
 "Howard: "Hist, of Matrimonial Institutions," vol. i, pp. 324IT; 
 iii, p. 249. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism. 
 
 Historical Aspects of the Question — Economic Aspect of — Moral 
 Aspect of — Analogies of — Methods — Dangers — Principle of Christian 
 Freedom — Neo-Malthusianism in New Zealand — Family Life. 
 
 In this connection a question naturally arises, the con- 
 sideration of which cannot be evaded. Considering the diffi- 
 culty of bringing up a family, in the hard circumstances and 
 amid the competition of modern life, and considering, notwith- 
 standing, the frequently imperative need, demonstrated above, 
 of sexual relief in matrimony, is it justifiable to claim the in- 
 dulgence of the natural instinct, and yet to prevent, by arti- 
 ficial means, this gratification from resulting in the procreation 
 of children? 
 
 Many races, at various stages of civilization, have attempted 
 by all kinds of expedients, some of them of the roughest descrip- 
 tion, to solve the problem of the regulation of population, know- 
 ing full well that otherwise Nature would present painful solu- 
 tions of her own. 
 
 But the particular form of the problem most prominent in 
 modern times, the artificial control of procreation itself, has 
 never before pressed so urgently for consideration. 
 
 To Juvenal, indeed, during the decadence of the Eoman 
 Empire it was an added symptom of the degeneracy of morals 
 that the Eoman ladies resorted to forms of immorality which 
 rendered conception impossible. He also alludes to the prac- 
 tice of taking drugs with the same object (Sat. VI, 366 ff). 
 But these allusions do not cover the ground of the present prob- 
 lem. Nor does the matter appear to be mentioned in the Bible, 
 Onan's trespass (Gen. 38) being primarily, against the law of 
 levirate marriage, and not precisely to the present point. 1 
 
 Marriage being in one of its aspects contracted secundum 
 
 'See Driver's note on Gen. 38:8, 10 (Westminister Commentary). 
 
 (73) 
 
74 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 indulgentiam, it might be considered a logical inference that 
 methods of preventing conception may be resorted to by mar- 
 ried people, to whom the indulgentia is a necessity, but who 
 have small prospect of being able adequately to fulfill the 
 obligations of parentage. And it must be confessed at once that 
 arguments based upon the principle of the indulgentia are not 
 without force, and render it possible to make out something of 
 a case (as is done in a book like "Scientific Meliorism") for the 
 lawfulness of such a practice, considered in its relation to right 
 moral ideals. 
 
 Opponents of the Neo-Malthusian doctrine, like E. Ussher 
 ("Neo-Malthusianism," London, 1898), while they rightly dwell 
 upon the physical and moral evils which a widespread and reck- 
 less acceptance of the practice mentioned might conceivably 
 give rise to, and as a matter of fact appears to have actually 
 created and fostered in some countries, nevertheless greatly un- 
 derestimate the real pressure of circumstances by which some 
 are driven to adopt this practice. Students of social science 
 may indeed adduce arguments to prove that the right ultimate 
 solution of the population question is to be found, not in Neo- 
 Malthusianism, but in a readjustment of economic conditions; 
 but while this readjustment is slowly taking place, what is to 
 be the attitude of married people toward the Neo-Malthusian 
 doctrine? If only the moneyed classes or healthy individuals 
 were concerned with this question, it would be easy and fair 
 to urge that their attitude ought to be one of strict repudiation. 
 It is impossible to think that a mere desire to keep up a high 
 social position, or to revel in luxurious and expensive surround- 
 ings, would justify people in artificially preventing procreation. 
 But in the case of those who have some hereditary delicacy, or 
 who are involved in a specially hard struggle to maintain them- 
 selves, it is not so easy to decide what are the rights of the 
 question, nor can the arbitrary suggestion of many social scien- 
 tists — that it is immoral for such people to marry at all — be 
 regarded as a successful attempt to cut this Gordian knot. 1 
 
 1 See for a noticeable instance of this arbitrariness Dr. S. Stall's 
 book, ''What a Young Man Ought to Know," Chapter X. Such an 
 
PREVENTION IN AUSTRALIA. 75 
 
 It is for instance medically recognized that tuberculous 
 persons are frequently subject to unusual sexual desire. 1 To 
 forbid their marriage by law would therefore be a hardship of 
 exceptional gravity; and might even tend, by promoting loose- 
 ness of life, to defeat itself in regard to its main object. It is 
 not in the direction of arbitrary restraint of marriage, but in 
 that of the enlightened use of marriage, that the solution of 
 this and kindred problems should be sought. 
 
 Of course, the witness of history, as already observed, is 
 strongly against the rash and general adoption by a society of the 
 practice of prevention. 2 A widespread disinclination to accept 
 the responsibilities of parentage, and a diminishing birth-rate, 
 constitute a formidable menace to the progress and future pros- 
 perity of a nation. That this disinclination may arise as much 
 from the declining hardihood of a race as from any increased 
 social pressure is an inference which may perhaps be drawn 
 from the frequency of prevention in Australasian society. The 
 Australasian Colonies are described, somewhat vaguely and 
 inaccurately, as young nations; in reality they are off-shoots of 
 an old nation, which have carried with them from their former 
 home preconceived ideas as to a standard of living. Life in 
 the British Colonies is expensive, and involves considerable 
 wear and tear, as few people have private means adequate to 
 
 endeavor to make short work of sex problems discounts to some extent 
 the value of what is in many respects an excellent book. To illustrate 
 further the danger of placing arbitrary hindrances in the way of mar- 
 riage, it should be observed that the power vested in French parents of 
 withholding consent from their adult children's marriage, may and 
 probably does increase the frequency of free unions — a point which, I 
 understand, is emphasized by Bourget in his novel "Divorce." 
 
 1 Senator and Kaminer: "Health and Disease in Relation to Mar- 
 riage," vol. i, pp. 370, 391. 
 
 2 Among the most recent, as well as most noteworthy, of the many 
 warning utterances on the national dangers arising from this reckless- 
 ness, may be cited a, speech by the President of the United States of 
 America, delivered at New York before the National Congress of Mothers, 
 and referred to by English, French and doubtless other journals, and an 
 article by Bishop Barry on "Agnosticism and National Decay" in the 
 "National Review" for March, 1905. 
 
76 PREVENTION IN AUSTRALIA. 
 
 the support of a family. Good salaries are hard to get in the 
 Colonies, as elsewhere, and the price of many commodities is 
 high. 
 
 "Moreover, not a few modern Australasians, from climatic 
 and other causes which tend to depreciate the average expression 
 of the inherent vitality of the Anglo-Saxon race, have not the 
 stamina, the reserve of muscular and nervous power, which en- 
 abled their ancestors to sustain the burden of peopling, as 
 well as of subjugating and exploiting, vast territories." 1 The 
 struggling Colonial who marries is thus afraid of finding himself, 
 after some years of married life, possessed of a small and uncer- 
 tain income, and surrounded by a large family, for the duty of 
 maintaining which he becomes year by year more physically 
 unfit. No doubt a selfish desire to live in comfort decides peo- 
 ple in many cases to use preventives, but a good deal must 
 probably be allowed for the sense, in some degree justified by 
 circumstances, that parentage on a large scale, added to the 
 burden of many other necessary duties, involves not merely a 
 loss of comfort, but a thorough overtaxing of the strength. 
 Accordingly, we have the spectacle of communities settled in 
 new countries requiring population, but unequal from both 
 physical and moral causes, to the task of supplying this want. 
 
 It will readily be apparent to the reader of M. Zola's great 
 novel, "Recondite" — which must be noticed at this point — that 
 with all its good moral purpose, the exaltation by an ideal por- 
 traiture of healthy married life to its right place in a nation's 
 estimation, it does not give us a full solution of all the conscience 
 problems involved in the question of artificial prevention. It 
 carries us no further than the position already taken up in this 
 chapter, that on every ground of religion and right reason the 
 rash and general adoption of the practice is to be avoided. M. 
 
 1 The question of the physical degeneration of the Anglo-Saxon race 
 or of any part of it cannot be discussed here in extenso; and the above 
 opinion is given subject to qualifications, and simply as the writer's 
 personal impression, on the strength of sixteen years' acquaintance with 
 Australasian — mainly New Zealand — life. 
 
ZOLA'S "FECONDITE." 77 
 
 Zola's contention that number spells victory is subject to cer- 
 tain qualifications. The dictum in the setting he has given 
 it really means that number, combined with vigor, spells 
 victory, not number alone. In his ideal portraiture of married 
 life he has not, indeed, endowed his married pair with private 
 worldly wealth, and thus far has been true to the actual, 
 ordinary facts which people have to face when they marry; 
 but he has endowed them in a measure which is not, unfor- 
 tunately, reflected in the lives of all married couples, with 
 physical health and gaiety. We certainly cannot conclude, 
 from the case of the vigorous Mathieu and Marianne, triumph- 
 ing, not seemingly by virtue of any extraordinary moral or 
 religious effort, but by sheer exuberance of vitality, over the 
 strain and anxiety of both procreation and toil, that all mar- 
 ried couples can, if they will, equally support this strain, or 
 that it would be beneficial either to themselves or to the com- 
 munity for them to attempt to do so. Neither can we say, as 
 can be perceived from other lines of reasoning followed in this 
 essay, that only such couples as have the physical vitality to 
 support this strain ought to have a social existence. 
 
 The student of this question of prevention, therefore, will 
 read Zola's book with a certain intellectual reservation, as not 
 feeling that it gives the matter a full treatment as to either its 
 ethical or its utilitarian aspect; which, indeed, was perhaps 
 impossible in a novel. However, considered not as a philo- 
 sophical treatise, but as what it is, an attack upon the unques- 
 tionably evil and dangerous aspect of prevention, the appear- 
 ance of Zola's book and its circulation in English — albeit the 
 force of the French original has been perhaps unduly weakened 
 in the translation — are events which anyone who desires the 
 revelation to society of right ideals in the sphere of sexual 
 ethics will thankfully welcome. 
 
 All this, then, does not fully establish the case against 
 prevention as an occasional resource, but only as a rash and 
 common practice. From the point of view of national welfare 
 a declining birthrate is indeed matter of serious concern, but 
 such concern is not removed by the addition to the population 
 
78 INTERFERENCE WITH NATURE. 
 
 of infants whose heredity may reasonably be expected to make 
 them eventually a burden on the community. 
 
 The proverb "Necessity has no laws" will not indeed en- 
 dure incautious applications; but in this connection it seems to 
 have a certain weight of truth. In circumstances of real and 
 proved necessity, it would appear that the law of procreation 
 might be isolated from the rest of the sex life, and either tem- 
 porarily or absolutely suspended. In other departments of life, 
 a man may in numberless ways interfere with natural processes 
 or phenomena, as they affect his own person, or the persons of 
 those under his care, with a view to the increase of health and 
 well-being, and the removal of physical inconveniences and de- 
 formities. Such interference would not be regarded as im- 
 moral, provided that reasons existed sufficient to justify it, and 
 that it was exerted after "a manner which would not set at 
 defiance the results of scientific inquiry and advance. On the 
 other hand, for people to undergo, or to cause others to undergo, 
 interferences with natural developments without sufficient rea- 
 son, or recklessly to remain blind to the light of science in the 
 method and conduct of such interferences, would be an immoral 
 violation of Nature's laws. 
 
 Similarly, an interference with nature of the kind con- 
 templated by the Neo-Malthusians would doubtless be immoral 
 if it was based on manifestly insufficient reasons, or was carried 
 out by reckless, dangerous, and unscientific methods, but it is 
 not so clear that it would be immoral if it was conducted 'by 
 methods which science showed to be comparatively free from 
 peril to man and wife, and if its object was to prevent the con- 
 ception not of healthy children in a household where there was 
 a fair prospect of supporting them, but of those who would 
 inevitably from the start of life be afflicted or seriously men- 
 aced by some hereditary disease, and who would be born into 
 households where, in spite of every effort, proper maintenance 
 and education could not be provided for them. 
 
 Again, man may curtail the birth rate of the lower ani- 
 mals, though to do this without sufficiently good reasons would 
 be a wanton, cruel and immoral interference with Nature. Is 
 
INTERFERENCE WITH NATURE. 79 
 
 it certain that the principle upon which this right of interfer- 
 ence is based — the need of checking an increase of life when 
 the conditions requisite for its proper support do not exist for 
 the time being — may not he extended with the greatest caution 
 and reverence, by the use of appropriate methods, and with 
 a due regard to the circumstances which differentiate man's 
 sexual nature from that of brutes, to the sphere of human pro- 
 creation ? 
 
 Nature represses potential life, in man and in creation gen- 
 erally, on a vast scale, by methods which though they may be 
 regarded as ultimately providential, act nevertheless in an un- 
 intelligent way. May not man, within certain limits, follow, 
 by the exercise of a reasoned and conscious control of the birth- 
 rate in his own race, the precedent thus given by blind natural 
 forces ? 
 
 Nor is it unimportant in this connection to observe that in 
 the human race the chances are against any particular act of 
 sexual intercourse proving fruitful. As if to demonstrate that 
 parentage is not the only aspect of sexuality, Nature's rule for 
 man, or at least for highly developed, civilized man, seems to 
 be, much love for a little procreation. 
 
 The writer of No. xviii in the White Cross Series quotes 
 a passage from Geddes and Thomson's "Evolution of Sex," 
 which he uses to support his wholesale condemnation of Neo- 
 Malthusian methods. It is scarcely honest to separate the 
 passage from its context in this way. The argument of the 
 chapter whence the extract is taken does not lead to any such 
 wholesale condemnation. It recognizes the general importance 
 of the Neo-Malthusian position, and pleads for a cautious criti- 
 cism of the Neo-Malthusian proposals. The particular passage 
 in question is directed against the rash and licentious use of 
 preventives. The writers urge strongly that sexual temper- 
 ance is an essential, indeed the most important, factor in the 
 regulation of the birth rate; that any use of artificial means 
 by married people without the ethical cooperation of this 
 higher factor would be dangerous and wrong, but their reason- 
 ing justifies the inference that where the necessity for temper- 
 
80 ANALOGY OF SEXUALLY IMPERFECT. 
 
 ance and moral regulation is recognized, the artificial check 
 may, in some cases, become a legitimate aid to the solution of 
 the problem of birth rate control. 
 
 The principle that coition may be justifiable apart from 
 procreation may be considered proved for certain recorded 
 cases in which not only potentia generandi was known to be 
 absent in one of the parties to a marriage, before the marriage 
 was contracted, but even potentia cwundi could be exercised 
 only under peculiar conditions. Such an absence of power 
 might be due to a malformation of the genitals, as in the case 
 cited by Ultzmann, and might exist along with a normal or even 
 an unusual degree of sexual desire. It cannot safely be 
 urged, on ethical grounds, that the sexually imperfect, yet 
 highly amative, subject should deny himself marriage — sup- 
 posing him at any rate capable of assisting the orgasm in his 
 wife, as well as of obtaining it himself — and should expose him- 
 self to the temptations of masturbation and the strain of celibacy 
 on account of his physical unfitness for procreation. 1 
 
 These cases indirectly involve an ethical point which 
 brings them into connection with the problem of Neo-Malthu- 
 sianism. Only by a narrow and a doubtful view of the matter 
 can we assert that this principle may never be extended to cover 
 cases other than those of actual sexual imperfection; cases, 
 namely, where procreation, though not physically impossible, 
 is undesirable on account of the delicacy of some other part of 
 the organism, or for some other urgent reason. 
 
 Ellis's argument is of doubtful validity in the two sentences in 
 which he places preventive intercourse involving checks in ttie category 
 of sexual perversions, comparing it to the employment of contact between 
 parts of the body other than the distinctively sexual, for the purpose 
 of producing detumescence. (See Havelock Ellis, "Studies," iv, p. 20.) 
 For if A (an organ of the human body, not one of the sexual organs) 
 intended to produce only B (tumescence), produces not only B, but soma- 
 
 1 Blumreich, while regarding procreation as the main object of mar- 
 riage, presents in regard to the marriage of the sexually imperfect, a 
 conclusion similar to the one in the text. (See Senator and Kaminer, 
 op. tit., p. 797.) 
 
METHODS OF PREVENTION. 81 
 
 thing further, C (detumescence), that is perversion, or at least extension 
 of function. But D (a sexual organ) is intended to produce, and does 
 produce C, and also E (conjugation), the primary result of C. The fact 
 that it is not also used to produce F (fecundation), a normal, yet not 
 primary or inevitable result of C, involves limitation of function; and 
 this fact can scarcely be classed with sexual perversions of the former 
 group. 
 
 A discussion of the different methods of prevention will be 
 found in Dr. Lyman Sperry's popular medical work, "Confiden- 
 tial Talks Between Husband and Wife", p. 1-102. Some of 
 these methods are physically and morally dangerous. Dr. 
 Sperry suggests no one method which is at once certain and 
 harmless in its operation. 
 
 The theory of continence for a part of the month, under 
 medical instruction, goes some way toward giving society the 
 relief it requires in regard to marriage and parentage. Little 
 if any exception can be taken to this theory on ethical grounds, 
 for copulation, when thus regulated, though denied one of its 
 proper and natural ends, viz., procreation, fulfills its other pur- 
 pose, that of intensifying the mutual affection of man and 
 woman. Nor does this theory involve any direct or obviously 
 pernicious tampering with nature, as the use of artificial checks 
 often does. 
 
 But it is open to two considerable objections: 
 
 Eirst, it is not, as is well known, certain in its operation. 
 It is not an established fact that every woman has a sterile 
 period in the month ; some appear to be almost constantly able 
 to conceive. Secondly, as stated in Dr. Sperry's handbook — 
 though his statement does not claim to be final — it seems fre- 
 quently to require too much of human nature. The sterile 
 periods, according to this writer, "extend from about the 
 twelfth or fourteenth day after the cessation of the men- 
 strual flow to a day or so preceding the next menstruation. 
 . . . There are approximately about ten or twelve days each 
 month during which the woman is not likely to conceive." In 
 the doctor's opinion "these sterile days during each month 
 furnish all the opportunity that any reasonable couple can 
 demand for sexual indulgence. A man who cannot, or will 
 
82 THE STEEILE PERIOD.. 
 
 not, accommodate himself to such conditions, when necessary, 
 is so brutal a sex glutton that no woman ought to be required 
 to live with him." 1 
 
 Dr. Sperry at this point appears to the present writer to 
 overstrain the theory under consideration. In the five or six 
 first years of married life, at any rate, many husbands, and 
 possibly some wives, however pure and temperate their inten- 
 tion, would probably find a restriction involving continence 
 for sixteen or eighteen days out of each month intolerable and 
 impracticable. The physical conditions excitative of desire in 
 a man would frequently be present just during the period when 
 continence was required, for masculine desire does not come and 
 go at a man's mere will. The Doctor has elsewhere emphasized 
 the physical harmfulness of prolonged and intense sexual ex- 
 citement which does not have its natural consummation. Such 
 excitement, it must be observed, would frequently be the in- 
 evitable experience of at least the husband in the restricted 
 period. 
 
 . Further, Dr. Sperry in this part of his essay has found it 
 convenient to omit all reference to the woman's desire, which, 
 it should be noted, manifests itself with a special activity, ac- 
 cording to some authorities, in the week or so following men- 
 struation. The suppression of desire during that time, until 
 the "sterile period" is reached, might present great difficulties, 
 not merely to the husband, but to both the parties. Moreover, 
 in cohabitation a subtle reciprocal excitation of masculine and 
 feminine desire takes place. In fine, the theory can only be 
 stated in Dr. Sperry's way if the wife is assured to belong to 
 his third class of women (see p. 123 of his book), and to be 
 quite unmoved by carnal feelings 2 ; and if the physical factors' 
 
 1 <•! 
 
 "Husband and Wife," p. 156. 
 ' The controversy among medical scientists as to the average force 
 of sexual passion in women is still undecided. Fiirbringer refers to the 
 opinion of a lady doctor, J. Elberskirehen, who considers that desire is 
 equally powerful in both sexes. But his own view, in support of which 
 he gives other opinions, is that a certain disparity exists. (Senator and 
 Kaminer, vol. i, p. 217.) 
 
ARTIFICIAL CHECKS. 83 
 
 in the husband's amorous inclination be ignored and the incli- 
 nation falsely referred to some depravity in his will. 
 
 The "periodic continence" theory, then, is practical and 
 acceptable rather in reference to the limitation of the family 
 than to the total avoidance of procreation. In the five or six 
 first years of wedlock it would be found to involve an imprac- 
 ticable discipline, in probably the majority of cases, but it is 
 possible — we can hardly say more — that it could be translated 
 more fully into practice as the years go on. For the natural 
 tendency of marriage, whenever it is soberly and religiously 
 undertaken, is to limit and moderate desire. Hence, after a 
 marriage has been fruitful to the extent of four or five children, 
 the number requisite to the proper maintenance of the nation's 
 welfare, husband and wife might then be able, as they would 
 doubtless frequently be willing, to limit themselves to acts of 
 intercourse timed so as to escape procreation. Even so, how- 
 ever, there will be cases in which such abstinence cannot be 
 relied on to secure this result. 
 
 It belongs, however, to medical science to recommend ade- 
 quate methods where needed, and the proper course for a mar- 
 ried couple to whom the need of an artificial check has become 
 imperative, is to act on Dr. Sperry's advice to refer their special 
 case to a thoroughly competent and careful physician. 
 
 Medical science seems still unable confidently to put forward any 
 method of prevention which is at once hygienically unobjectionable and 
 reliable for its own purpose. In the most recent work at the author's 
 disposal, Furbringer selects the "safe" or "condom" as the most satis- 
 factory means when properly constructed. Kossmann somewhat modifies 
 this judgment. Kaminer approves of condomatic coitus in tuberculous 
 individuals, where the genital organs themselves are affected. The main, 
 if not the only hygienic objection which these writers have to the condom 
 — for as to its reliableness "as a means of prevention, that can be ensured, 
 according to Furbringer, by proper construction — is that in some cases 
 its use may prove injurious by unduly delaying the consummation of the 
 sexual act. If the suggestion of Sperry, that the female organs would 
 suffer from want of contact with the semen of the male, be valid, it is 
 curious that it does not occupy an important place in these scientific 
 discussions. These recent and able opinions, in fact, lend little if any 
 support to the alarmist view of Sperry, who seems to regard satyriasis 
 
84 EUGENICS. 
 
 and nymphomania as the consequences which may be expected to follow 
 the use of the condom. The present writer would suggest that the con- 
 dom, if otherwise satisfactory, compares favorably with the pessary on 
 the grounds of simplicity, cleanliness, and not least, chivalry, the onus 
 of employing the preventive falling mainly on the man. 
 
 Furbringer and Kossmann regard interrupted intercourse on the 
 whole unfavorably; the latter especially warns against the risk of in- 
 ducing nervous conditions to the wife by preventing the completion of 
 her orgasm. But they admit that the practice is frequently followed 
 without apparent detriment to either male or female. Von Leyden and 
 Wolff condemn it absolutely, as tending to produce cardiac affections 
 in the woman. 
 
 C. A. Ewald, who holds that artificial prevention is not infrequently 
 responsible for nervous affections of the digestive functions, considers 
 that this result is due largely to the sexual excess which is a too fre- 
 quent, but as is here suggested, not an inevitable accompaniment of 
 Neo-Malthusian methods. 1 
 
 After allowing fully for the real difficulties and perplexi- 
 ties of society in this matter of procreation, we cannot be 
 too earnest or emphatic in exposing the dangers involved in 
 the reckless application of the Neo-Malthusian doctrine. 
 Some of the exponents of this doctrine take quite insufficient 
 account of the possible degeneration of the moral sense in 
 regard to the sexual relation amid the conditions of vastly 
 increased freedom and indulgence which that doctrine would 
 allow, of the aversion to the endurance of hardship, the lack 
 of self-control, and the consequent declension from lofty stand- 
 ards of self-sacrificing conduct, which would thus be engendered. 
 Much uncertainty as yet surrounds even the theoretic possibility 
 of breeding gentle, pure and attractive natures by artificially 
 regulating procreation among humankind — a theory which the 
 author of "Scientific Meliorism" tries to establish; but even 
 granting this possibility, with what degree of confidence can it 
 be expected that such natures would develop in correspondence 
 with the start thus given them — that mere care in breeding 
 would maintain them on a high moral level, in the absence of the 
 
 1 Senator and Kaminer: Op. (At., vol. i, pp. 234, 8, 9; 254; 351; 392; 
 409. 
 
SELF-SACRIFICE AND SIMPLICITY. 85 
 
 moral discipline of hard social conditions? 1 Would not multi- 
 tudes abuse the indulgentia (nay, in the face of facts, one must 
 say, Do they not?), knowing that part at least of the temporal 
 inconveniences consequent on such abuse need no longer be 
 feared ? In the long run, it would surely prove the reverse of 
 a boon to society at large to have recognized access to an intense 
 pleasure without running any risk of incurring the chastening 
 responsibilities which God, as a safeguard against license, has 
 attached to it. 
 
 Eegarding the matter broadly, we observe that in the pres- 
 ent order of things, the majority of people are called upon, by 
 the wisdom of Providence, to face some kind of struggle and 
 anxiety, and whatever may be the apparent justice of it, to see 
 others involved along with them in the same conflict. Escape 
 from the troubles and strain of celibacy can, in the general 
 rule, only be lawfully bought at a price — the price of undertak- 
 ing the responsibility of matrimony and possible anxiety of 
 parentage. If in our days marriage is increasingly difficult, 
 jet morally as needful as ever, people should consider what 
 legitimate ways there may be of making it easier of access. To 
 tamper with nature's processes will not, unless in exceptional 
 circumstances, be one of these ways. But there are many fic- 
 titious wants and obligations in the household life of certain 
 classes which might resolutely be curtailed by people who find 
 marriage necessary to their health and happiness, yet are of 
 straitened means. A good deal might be done in modern society 
 in this direction, and any right movement — possibly aided by 
 
 1 The subject of eugenics, or the improvement of the race by breed- 
 ing, forms a special department of the science of sex, and is too large 
 a field to be entered in the present work. No more than a brief reference 
 to it can be made at this point. That it is a subject full of importance 
 is evidenced by the attention which has been bestowed upon it by both 
 ancient and modern thinkers. But as yet definite results cannot be 
 presented. For a suggestive and brilliant exposition of the special diffi- 
 culties to be encountered in applying the science of eugenics to human 
 development, the reader may be referred to H. G. Wells's "Alankind in 
 the Making," Chapter II. 
 
86 SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 legislation — which by lightening the pressure of social condi- 
 tions and introducing inexpensive modes of living and methods 
 of education, helps toward the attainment of this end, renders 
 an inestimable service to the twin causes of morality and of 
 health. 
 
 Although we look to the Bible in vain for a definitive solu- 
 tion of certain modern difficulties in the sphere of sexual 
 morality, it will be found that a careful, devout study of the 
 general moral and religious principles laid down therein will 
 help the individual conscience to the decision of such questions 
 as may affect itself. 
 
 "Ye have been car.ed," says St. Paul to the Christian So- 
 ciety, "for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion 
 to the flesh." (Gal. 5 : 13.) * Viewed in the light of the princi- 
 ple of Christian freedom, it becomes apparent that the answer 
 to a question of conscience — in the region of sexual morality as 
 elsewhere — may not be the same in every case. We are not 
 brought face to face in the Bible with any explicit or uncom- 
 promising prohibition of the artificial prevention of conception. 
 It is true that the whole tenor of the Scriptural teaching is 
 strongly against a licentious and wanton use of this practice. 
 Such a use would imply a neglect of the duty of self-sacrifice and 
 a false development of freedom. It cannot be too carefully and 
 conscientiously considered whether the circumstances do really 
 justify the use of freedom for a purpose which human selfish- 
 ness only too readily perverts to corrupt and abominable ends. 
 
 The manuscript of this essay was yet awaiting publication 
 when a vehement discussion of sexual ethics was begun in some 
 of the New Zealand newspapers, notably the Christehurch 
 "Press," and the point upon which attention was chiefly con- 
 centrated was the practice of prevention. A commission of 
 clergy and others was also set up in Christehurch to collect 
 facts with regard to sexual morality in New Zealand, and to 
 suggest remedial measures. It does not seem, however, to the 
 
 1 Zockler's comment brings out the point of this admonition. 
 Eh iuf>of>iiT)v ttj vapid, "as an occasion for the increasing domination (das 
 Herrschendwerden) of carnal behavior and practices." 
 
LEGISLATION IN NEW ZEALAND. 87 
 
 author that anything that has been said either in the news- 
 paper articles and letters, or in the report of the commission, 
 necessitates any modification or restatement of the conclusions 
 tentatively expressed in the above chapter. 
 
 The discussion contained more than one letter of consider- 
 able power, but, taken as a whole, can hardly be said to have 
 set the morality of prevention in any new or striking light. 
 The evidence gathered by the commission of Christchurch gen- 
 tlemen allowed them to declare the prevalence of prevention in 
 the society of New Zealand, and in view of this they made the 
 following recommendations to the New Zealand Government, 
 in the hope of their eventually becoming law : 
 
 1. That the sale of preventives be restricted to qualified 
 chemists. 
 
 2. That the sale of preventives to any person under 21 
 years of age he subject to penalty. 
 
 3. That the hawking of preventives be made a criminal 
 offense. 
 
 4. That the wholesale dealers in preventives, whether such 
 preventives are imported or manufactured within the colony, 
 be required to keep a register of their sales. 
 
 5. That any advertisement or notification of preventives 
 be made illegal, except in trade catalogues. 
 
 The existence of such regulations, however difficult it 
 might be to enforce them satisfactorily, might at least have an 
 educational value, and in some measure induce the members of 
 the community to give prevention a conscientious considera- 
 tion, instead of resorting to it with the reckless eagerness which 
 which now appears to prevail, and which fills far-sighted people 
 with grave alarm for the future of the British Colonies. 
 
 Among the letters which have appeared in the Christ- 
 church "Press'' on this subject, two of the most remarkable 
 have been written by Mr. James Ashcroft, of Wellington. 
 While vehemently denouncing the commonness of prevention 
 in New Zealand, and expressing his opinion that the time has 
 come to make an organized effort or crusade to oppose educa- 
 tional and moral influences to the spread of the practice, he 
 
88 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 admits that "each parent has a right to put by natural and 
 harmless means which any doctor can suggest, and without the 
 use of unnatural checks, a reasonable limit on his family/' 
 We have dealt elsewhere with the precaution to which we sup- 
 pose him to refer. 
 
 Mr. Ashcroft urges married people to trust Divine Provi- 
 dence in the matter of parentage. It is indeed impossible to 
 press this point too strongly; that the difficulties of the sexual 
 problem will not find their deepest solution without the aid of 
 personal religion is the foundation of all the reasoning of this 
 essay, but the question of prevention is not disposed of in detail 
 by such a consideration. 
 
 Although a system of artificial birth control, within some 
 such limits as are defined above, has to be taken account of as a 
 probably legitimate factor in the solution of the difficulties sur- 
 rounding the development of the sex life in civilization, yet one 
 inclines to distrust such sanguine estimates of its importance as 
 appear in literature of the type of Lady Florence Dixie's "Bila- 
 belle;" and a healthy society will always keep prominently be- 
 fore its view the vigorous and beautiful aspects of procreation as 
 being a more desirable expansion of the sex life than anything 
 which can be attained through the Neo-Malthusian teaching; 
 and right-minded individuals, even if they have to abandon the 
 idea of family surroundings in their own case, will do so only 
 with reluctance and regret. It is true, indeed, that children — as 
 may be inferred from the cases cited week by week in a maga- 
 zine like the "Woman at Home" — are not seldom, owing to the 
 fussiness or unkindness of one of the parents, the rock on 
 which the happiness of the marriage union is wrecked, but 
 more usually they are one of the chief factors in cementing 
 that union and rendering it full of permanent happiness and 
 peace. Family life may be viewed in its aspect of beauty, as it 
 has been appealingly portrayed by Carolus Duran in his 
 picture "En Famille," or in its aspect of robust strength and 
 vigor, which Zola has so well described. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 Fornication. 
 
 A Definition of Impurity — Promiscuity — Biblical Views of Fornica- 
 tion — Concubinage — Antenuptial Intercourse. 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas ("Summa Theol.," ed. Migne, vol. ii, 
 qu. 154, Art. I) defines the sin of impurity as the enjoyment 
 of sexual pleasure, not according to right reason. This may 
 take place in two ways; one as concerns the matter or object 
 in which any one seeks sexual pleasure; the other, according to 
 which certain appointed conditions are not observed in the use 
 of the lawful matter. In other words, this sin may occur by 
 way of perversion, as when a man seeks to gratify his desire 
 upon some object forbidden him by the law of nature; by way 
 of lawlessness, as when in the gratification of his desire he dis- 
 regards appointed conditions, i.e., the moral law, in the use of 
 the lawful matter ; or by way of excess, as when he uses the law- 
 ful pleasure of the marriage bed to an immoderate and danger- 
 ous extent. Obviously, perversion and excess, or lawlessness 
 and excess, may be present at the same time, and lawlessness 
 (as here defined) may coexist with some degree of perversion. 
 
 With regard to some forms and degrees of both sexual per- 
 version and sexual excess, the healthy instincts and normal 
 moral sense of humanity experience no difficulty about cherish- 
 ing a proper repugnance toward them. We are not, at any 
 rate, considering them here. But where the distinction con- 
 sists not in the violation of a law of nature or the disregard of 
 another's rights, but simply in the infringement of social obli- 
 gations, the reason for which is not readily discernible, as in 
 the case of healthy intercourse out of wedlock, many people 
 will be disposed to disallow the use of the term lawlessness in 
 such a connection. It will be thought that the condemnation 
 of simple fornication, as enunciated by the Christian Church, 
 is arbitrary. 
 
 (39), 
 
90 TEACHING OF AQUINAS. 
 
 At this point, then, we may bring forward the reasons, 
 stated with such clearness and power by Aquinas, upon which 
 this condemnation is based. {Op. cit., vol. iii, qu. 154, Art. II.) 
 
 "Mortal sin is all sin which is committed directly against 
 the life {i.e., against the due growth and expansion of the 
 life) of man. Now simple fornication brings in an element of 
 lawlessness which tends to the detriment of the life of him who 
 is to be born of such intercourse. For we see in the case of all 
 animals among which the care of male and female is requisite 
 for the bringing up of the offspring, that among them there is 
 no casual copulation, but the approach of the male to a particu- 
 lar female, one or more, as is evident among all birds. But it 
 is otherwise in the case of animals among which the female 
 alone is needed for the bringing up of the young, for among 
 these there is a casual copulation, as is evident among dogs and 
 such like animals. 
 
 "Now, it is obvious that to the bringing up of man is 
 requisite not only the care of the mother by whom he is fed, 
 but to an even greater extent that of the father by whom he 
 must be instructed and defended, and caused to progress in 
 matters that affect his inward as well as his outward well-being. 
 Hence it is against the nature of man to indulge in promiscu- 
 ous intercourse, but the male must have intercourse with a 
 chosen female, with a view to cohabiting with her, not for a 
 short space, but for a long time, or even for their lives. This 
 is the cause that there is naturally among the males of the 
 human species anxiety whether a man's reputed offspring is 
 really his, because upon them is incumbent the duty of bring- 
 ing up offspring. And there would be no certainty on this 
 point if promiscuity were the rule. 
 
 "Now this selection of a particular woman is called matri- 
 mony, and on this account it is said to stand on a basis of 
 natural law. But because sexual intercourse is ordained with a 
 view to the common good of the whole human race, and because 
 it falls within the province of law to determine things which 
 pertain to the common good, it follows that the union of the 
 man with the woman, which is called matrimony, should be 
 regulated by some law. 
 
FORNICATION NOT PRIMITIVE. 91 
 
 "Consequently, since fornication is promiscuous inter- 
 course, inasmuch as it exists beside and beyond matrimony, it 
 is opposed to a good, viz., the bringing up of offspring, and, 
 therefore, it is mortal sin. Nor does it make any difference if 
 any one knowing a woman by fornication makes sufficient pro- 
 vision for the bringing up of the offspring, because whatever 
 falls under the regulation of law is judged according to its com- 
 mon method of occurring, and not according to circumstances 
 which may attend it fortuitously." 
 
 Viewed in the light of the most recent and careful research 
 into the origins of sexual morality, the great mediaeval teacher's 
 statement of the general case against fornication retains its 
 worth and force. Professor Westermarck, in the work already 
 cited, has shown by an accumulation of evidence which invests 
 his case with a high degree of probability, that man's healthy 
 sexual instinct has normally found its gratification in more or 
 Jess durable monogamic unions, not in promiscuous intercourse. 
 
 According to the nature of things, then, the practice of 
 fornication, whether prostitution or promiscuity of a physically 
 healthier kind, is abnormal. When its history is traced, it does 
 not establish a claim to a natural and legitimate existence in 
 human society. 
 
 Exponents of laxer views on sex relations sometimes claim 
 to derive a measure of support from the fact that in passages 
 of Holy Scripture which reflect the morals of remote and 
 obscure stages of social evolution, fornication is not treated 
 expressly as a moral offense. It becomes, therefore, incum- 
 bent upon us at this stage to review the ideas of the Biblical 
 writers respecting extra-conjugal sex relations. The moral 
 teaching of a Biblical document stands in a setting of con- 
 temporary moral ideas. If these are in Divinely recognized 
 accord with the true progress of human evolution, the 
 Scriptural teaching embodies and sanctions them; if they are 
 adverse to this progress, it repudiates and condemns them. 
 Sometimes the Biblical document reflects ideas which later 
 inspired writers disallow; in this case the older writer has had 
 no deeper insight into the matter in question than his contem- 
 
92 SCRIPTURAL VIEWS OF FORNICATION. 
 
 poraries — to use the language of religion, we might say that 
 the Divine Will on that point has not been declared to him. 
 Thus, if we find concubinage or antenuptial intercourse referred 
 to in the Old Testament without any clear mark of moral con- 
 demnation, we can only infer that it was not vouchsafed to the 
 early composer or the primitive lawgiver to see further into the 
 ethics of the matter than other moralists of his time. None 
 the less, the practice in question may stand condemned ex- 
 plicitly by some later writer taking a wider view of life and pos- 
 sessed of a deeper insight into ethical conditions; or implicitly 
 by comparison with the principles ultimately made manifest, in 
 the Bible, regarded as a whole, as the true basis of the ethics 
 of sex. 
 
 Now the moral systems of most heathen nations, 1 as well 
 as the Hebrew and Christian moral systems, uphold the insti- 
 tution of marriage as a necessary factor in social welfare. They 
 place marriage on a higher footing than even the forms of con- 
 cubinage most nearly resembling it. Marriage differs from 
 hetairism or the cohabitation of a man and a woman by private 
 mutual consent, in that the consent given in marriage is refer- 
 able to an objective standard of obligation; such being, accord- 
 ing to Christian ethics, the ideal of monogamic indissolubility. 
 Hetairism has no such objective standard. 
 
 It differs more markedly still from promiscuous fornica- 
 tion. Let us consider further, from the Biblical writings, 
 why is the refusal of a man and woman to initiate their sexual 
 relations by this contract an offense against morality? What 
 detriment to social or to individual welfare does it involve in the 
 view of Biblical writers? 
 
 Among the primitive Semites the matriarchate gave 
 
 * As a result of his survey of primitive ideas on sex, Crawley con- 
 cludes (The Mystic Rose, p. 147) that the "rights" of the individual in 
 property, marriage, and everything else, were never more clearly defined 
 than by primitive man. It is true, at quite early stages of human de- 
 velopment, the strictness of these individualistic notions becomes re- 
 laxed; yet they retain the prior claim to be the right point of departure 
 from which to commence a study of the ethic of marriage. 
 
FORNICATION AMONG SEMITES. 93 
 
 women a larger and freer sexual selection than fell to their lot 
 in patriarchal communities. Consequently, fornication of all 
 kinds, from concubinage to gross prostitution, found a congenial 
 soil amid Semitic ideas. 1 A sort of temporary cohabitation was 
 not merely tolerated, but was regarded as a lower form of mar- 
 riage — the mota'a marriage of the Arabs. Promiscuous sexual 
 relations of a lower grade were encouraged by the custom of 
 religious prostitution, which one of the greatest of modern 
 Semitic scholars describes as "an element of pollution ; a blacker 
 spot even in the darkness of heathenism." In more or less sharply 
 defined contrast, these sexual unions stood over against the 
 monogamic ideal which it was the one of the purposes of the 
 Israelite revelation to uplift before humanity. 
 
 Accordingly, Hebrew legislation repressed religious prostitu- 
 tion with severe enactments. 2 Casual seduction it disallowed and 
 penalized to the extent of making subsequent marriage with 
 the woman — or a pecuniary equivalent for marriage — incum- 
 bent on the seducer. The view of fornication as a moral 
 offense against God does not come out here as distinctly as in 
 modern ethical thought; such a conception is as yet latent and 
 undeveloped, though the germ of it has already come into being. 
 The act may be compounded for in the manner stated, but it 
 appears as an offense against the honor and welfare of the girl's 
 household; and in Deuteronomy, where some degree of force 
 seems to accompany the seduction, as an offense against her 
 womanhood. 
 
 One of the elements of wrong in fornication is that it 
 deprives a brother man of a virgin wife. True, the value set upon 
 virginity in his bride by primitive man differed not in kind, but 
 in degree, from his estimate of all property. He preferred a 
 whole banana to a half-eaten one. Similarly, his sexual in- 
 stinct, developing in the direction of monogamy, made him 
 desire to be the first and only possessor of the person and 
 
 1 W. K. Smith, "Kinship," p. 143, 174ff. 
 
 2 As we may infer from Gen. 38:24, Lev. 21:9, though no punish- 
 ment is specified for this offense in Lev. 19:29, Deut. 23:17. 
 
94 NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING. 
 
 affections of his wife. Thus the man who stepped in before 
 his fellow and took away the virginity of the woman who might 
 have become the latter's wife was thought of as having 
 offended, not against Divinity, not against the womanhood of 
 his victim — those are later ideas — but against the rights, exist- 
 ing actually or in idea, of his brother man. A partial, and yet, 
 as far as it goes, a true view of the iniquity of fornication, a 
 view sanctioned by the New Testament and finding expression 
 in the teaching of St. Paul. 1 
 
 Then, as a woman's personal right to the conservation and 
 due development of her sexual nature comes more distinctly 
 into view, the conception is formed that fornication is an 
 offense against her womanhood — an idea which came into 
 existence in very early times wherever force was used by the 
 seducer. 2 
 
 The higher considerations, that fornication is a breach of 
 the Divine will (which had been thought by a large portion of 
 mankind to approve and even to demand it), and consequently, 
 that it is a sin against a man's own body, preventing its sancti- 
 fication by the indwelling God, were possible only to a more 
 developed and enlightened moral sense. St. Paul arrives at 
 them by a process of spiritual reasoning, and thus finally and 
 conclusively shows fornication to be a misdirection of the sex- 
 ual nature, both for man and for woman. 3 
 
 Neither in the New Testament in general, nor in the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, the writer who deals most with the subject 
 under consideration, do we find any attempt to place hetairism 
 on a different moral footing from prostitution. It is his- 
 torically probable that the writers of the New Testament had 
 not got before them any general manifestation of hetairism in 
 its best aspects, such as we find in the stronger and purer days 
 of Greek and Eoman life. Hetairism as an expression of the 
 
 J I Thess. 4:6. 
 
 2 This idea is present in the Hebrew phrase "to humble a woman" 
 (Piel of 'anah, Gen. 34: 2, and passim). 
 'I Cor. 6: 18. 
 
CONCUBINAGE. 95 
 
 sex life in humanity had failed; it had proved too unstable to 
 become the foundation of sexual morality within a community. 
 The meretrix of Terence's plays had not raised the common 
 harlots of the town; rather, she had descended to their level. 
 
 It is not indeed improbable, as will be shown in our chapter 
 on "The Gospel and Sex Kelations," that the morality of hetair- 
 ism came before the first Christian teachers as a theoretical ques- 
 tion. There are some indications of a movement having taken 
 place in the Church in Corinth to obtain for this form of sexual 
 union the sanction of Christian opinion. But, as will be ex- 
 plained later, this attempt failed. The ethical worth of mar- 
 riage as against hetairism was vindicated. 
 
 Marriage is universally requisite, for the reasons above 
 alleged, as the sanction of sexual relations. Without it society 
 has no guarantee of the permanence of the union. Therefore 
 sexual relations without this sanction are classed in the New 
 Testament as fornication (iropvaa). 
 
 The just conclusion is that the Bible, although it does not 
 indeed in every case accompany the mention of fornication with 
 condemnatory reflections, assuredly shows it to be at variance 
 with the true law of man's sexual nature, and repugnant to his 
 enlightened moral sense, to be no part of the original Divine 
 scheme for the perfecting of human good and happiness. 
 
 Hallaui notes that in Elizabethan times, before the mar- 
 riage of clergy was recognized by English law, certain of the 
 clergy, especially of the Bangor diocese, resorted to concubin- 
 age. But such concubinage, being entered upon under episcopal 
 license, is made a social and semi-public matter, and in so far 
 as it is brought, by this conditioning and regulation, into touch 
 with the standard of mutual obligation already premised in 
 regard to marriage, it becomes in reality morally equivalent 
 to marriage. It was a revolt of a body of men, not against 
 Divine law, hut against a human law, by which they were 
 wrongfully condemn) ed to celibacy. 
 
 Another kind of fornication — the intercourse of engaged 
 couples who, without waiting for the public sanction of wedlock, 
 
96 ANTE-NUPTIAL INTERCOURSE. 
 
 yield to their desire — is perhaps to some extent on the increase, 
 and cannot be passed over without remark. 1 
 
 Intercourse before, and as a preliminary step to marriage 2 
 is certainly not on the same footing, as a moral offense, as pro- 
 miscuity and prostitution. It must be noted that in some 
 societies betrothal is of greater solemnity and obligation, than 
 it is with us. In a society where this is the case, it is not to be 
 expected that intercourse after betrothal and before marriage 
 will receive the stigma of immorality (Cp. Howard, "Hist, of 
 Matr. Institutions," i, 374) ; but we need not infer that such 
 examples can safely and legitimately be followed in societies 
 like our own, which, owing to the maintenance in their midst 
 of the Christian ideal doctrine of marriage, possess a truer 
 reflection of the scheme of ethics pointed to by both reason and 
 revelation as intended for the human race, in respect of sex. 
 In practice, most modern nations do not recognize, or at least 
 are coming more and more to see the social necessity of refusing 
 to recognize marriage unless celebrated by mutual consent ex- 
 changed in public before witnesses; whereas in regard to be- 
 trothal, these conditions of publicity are not essential. An 
 allegation of previous betrothal does not, therefore, carry with 
 it a sufficient social guarantee of the lawfulness of an act of 
 intercourse. And this being so, to have intercourse before 
 marriage, even when subsequent marriage is the undoubted 
 intention of the parties, is to tempt Providence ; for no one can 
 be so secure of the duration of his life as to allow of his taking 
 
 'For the existence in England of a low standard of opinion in 
 regard to antenuptial intercourse, see Booth, "Life and Labor," Final 
 Vol., p. 44. 
 
 2 In the ethical consciousness of the natural man we see a strife 
 between two opposing tendencies during the period of engagement, the 
 one the influence of the taboo between himself and his future wife 
 (Crawley, op. (At., pp. 314, 315), which makes for strict morality and 
 strengthens monogamy; the other a practice, not perhaps licentious in 
 idea to primitive man himself, but in its essence destructive of morality, 
 viz., the lehearsal of the sexual activities which he was soon to be called 
 on to exercise in marriage (id., 307fi\). 
 
ANTE-NUPTIAL INTERCOURSE. 97 
 
 the risk of being able to compensate by future marriage for an 
 act which without such compensation would be morally wrong. 
 
 Further, even if the ultimate validity of the mediaeval view 
 be maintained, betrothal does not justify antenuptial inter- 
 course; for the mutual consent to undertake life together in 
 accord with the standard of obligation recognized in the social 
 environment, is not yet definitely made in the sphere of con- 
 science. (Cp. Aquinas, "Suppl. Sum. Theol.," qu. xlvi, art. 2.) 
 
 Consequently, although the special circumstances in which 
 such intercourse takes place may conceivably be such as to 
 soften judgment upon it; for it may come in, as it were, acci- 
 dentally in the life of an engaged couple who are ordinarily 
 well-principled and well-conducted; none the less, it cannot be 
 doubted that intercourse before marriage is sinful. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 Venekeal Disease and Legislation. 
 
 Statement of the Question — Modern Ethical Thought and Prosti- 
 tution — The Problem of Reglementation — The Morals Service — A Policy 
 Outlined — Venereal Diseases and Marriage. 
 
 To entee upon a general survey of the efforts made from 
 time to time in civilized society to repress or control prosti- 
 tution, to attempt a history of the successive changes and de- 
 velopments in its moral estimate of that phenomenon, does not 
 belong to the design of the present chapter. Prostitution, 
 which for 7arious reasons becomes an object of melancholy in- 
 terest, here comes into notice only as the most effective means 
 of spreading certain loathsome and dangerous forms of disease ; 
 for in comparatively modern times this aspect of the matter 
 has acquired a gloomy prominence. 
 
 The experience of history forbids us to entertain hopes of 
 the immediate repression of prostitution, and it therefore be- 
 comes our object to form a policy by which its attendant 
 physical dangers — dangers by no means confined to its guilty 
 patrons — may be minimized, and which at the same time con- 
 serves and develops the only attitude responsible thinkers hold- 
 ing high moral ideals and taking a wide view of life can ever 
 assume toward prostitution on ethical grounds — an attitude of 
 reprobation. 
 
 It cannot be said that as yet any one aspect of this problem 
 has been satisfactorily solved. Reglementation, or the sani- 
 tary regulation of prostitution, has its difficulties on the medi- 
 cal side. The practical inadequacy of periodic medical exami- 
 nations conducted amid conditions of great difficulty in large 
 centers of population has been frequently demonstrated. Such 
 examinations to be effective require not only a considerable 
 degree of skill on the part of the examiner, but expensive 
 medical appliances and time in which to make full use of them. 
 (98) 
 
PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES. 99 
 
 Where these conditions have been wanting, men have been 
 known to become infected by prostitutes who have only recently 
 left the physician's examining room. The proper conduct of 
 these examinations is, therefore, a matter of great expense, 
 which would be defrayed by the community at large only with 
 considerable reluctance. 
 
 But were the practical difficulties of reglementation the 
 only ones they would not be insurmountable. Medical methods 
 in the future will doubtless receive improvement and simplifi- 
 cation, to the increase of effectiveness and the diminution of 
 expense; and with regard to the ill grace with which, it is 
 alleged, the community would bear an expense created by the 
 profligacy of a section, it must be observed that the community 
 already bears analogous expenses, bearing the burdens imposed 
 by the follies and wilfulness of some of its members. It should 
 not and would not make the case of the reglementation of 
 prostitution an exception. This burden with the rest it would 
 accept from its governments, provided that — this is indeed a 
 most necessary proviso — adequate and unremitting efforts were 
 made by the sanction and with the cooperation of governments 
 for the continual reduction of this burden. Such efforts belong 
 to the departments of moral suasion, of rescue and reclamation 
 work, of the repression of aggressive prostitution, of the pro- 
 tection and control of minors. These and kindred efforts may 
 be made, as will be shown in this chapter, simultaneously with 
 a modified and carefully framed policy of reglementation. The 
 clearer ideas formed by modern, as contrasted with ancient and 
 with medieval society, of its duty toward the prostitute herself, 
 urge the performance of this manifold obligation, the fulfilment 
 or neglect of which is also seen vitally to affect the general 
 welfare of the community for good or for ill. 
 
 The authors of the New York report on the "Social Evil' 5 
 appear to magnify the difficulties involved in the attempt to 
 find a legal basis for reglementation. In their anxiety to em- 
 phasize the fact that in the modern conception the prostitute 
 still remains a citizen, they manifest an excessive tenderness in 
 regard to her liberty, and while enumerating the objections to 
 
100 LEGAL DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 particular theories of legal compulsion as applied to prostitutes, 
 push overmuch into the background the general truth that hu- 
 man society may and does pass laws for the regulation and con- 
 trol of sexual relations. The idea of liberty can be used only 
 too readily in democratic communities as a hindrance to social 
 reform, and when set forward in this connection needs careful 
 scrutiny. Some kind of legal supervision of, and on occasion 
 some measure of legal interference with sexual conduct, in the 
 interests of social welfare, has been a recognized function of the 
 social organism from the earliest dawn of human history. The 
 existence of this function is a fundamental principle of social 
 life, however varied and difficult it may be in its application. 
 
 H. G. Wells ("A Modern Utopia," Chapter VI, "Fort. Rev.," Feb., 
 1905) finds considerable difficulty in maintaining his general position 
 that the state has no concern with the sexual morality of the adult 
 citizen, except in relation to parentage. He imperfectly estimates the 
 influences which affect the future of the species. His principle in its 
 practical application would seem to foster an increase in the abuse of 
 Neo-Malthusian methods; and by narrowing the social purport of mar- 
 riage would tend to depreciate that institution in the popular estimation, 
 and thus to affect unfavorably the future of mankind. It is a more 
 correct description of the state function in this matter, to hold that the 
 state must discover and recognize certain limitations in dealing with 
 sexual immorality. Wells himself, among his own modifications of the 
 principle he enunciates, allows an aggrieved wife to invoke the assistance 
 of the state in dealing with her husband's adultery. 
 
 The inference of present importance is that legal interfer- 
 ence is justified in regard to prostitution, when prostitution 
 threatens society's welfare by becoming aggressive, e.g., by 
 manifesting itself as the chief agent for spreading venereal dis- 
 ease. Such interference, indeed, needs the most careful con- 
 sideration as to its methods and limits. Constant vigilance is 
 requisite lest the moral members of the community should be 
 subjected to annoyance and damage at the hands of a moral 
 service which is obliged to use suspicion — the suspicion of the 
 propagation of disease — as one of the chief methods of its work- 
 ing, and stringent measures should be adopted to prevent the 
 willful misdirection of suspicion. 
 
THE MORAL ASPECT. 101 
 
 Much as these aspects of the matter require thought, the 
 moral question connected with reglementation is still more 
 difficult. 
 
 The existing intellectual confusion on this subject centers 
 round the attitude which governments, while promoting sani- 
 tary measures with the object of repressing disease, are con- 
 strained to take up in respect of the general question of pros- 
 titution. 
 
 Would such legislation, it is asked, be immoral, in that, 
 while attempting to remove a physical evil, the result of prosti- 
 tution, or at least greatly intensified and increased by prostitu- 
 tion, it leaves prostitution itself still in existence as a social 
 phenomenon? Is it an immoral government which announces 
 its position in the matter thus: "The community may look to 
 us for the suppression of prostitution where it becomes aggres- 
 sive; where it forces itself upon public notice by disorder, by 
 importunity, by disease ; but the wholesale suppression of pros- 
 titution cannot be effected by a civil government with ad- 
 vantage to the morals of the community?'' 
 
 If this is a tenable position — and to some such position the 
 generality of conscientious thinkers on the subject seem to be 
 arriving, 1 it forms a basis on which to frame a policy for oppos- 
 ing preventive legislation to the spread of venereal disease, 
 although in the carrying out of such a policy many complicat- 
 ing circumstances would have to be taken into consideration, 
 and the practical application of even a just and right theory 
 may prove to be fraught with many difficulties. 
 
 A good deal of real value attaches to the aphorism, "Men 
 cannot be made moral by Act of Parliament." Such aphorisms 
 are usually the fruit of centuries of experience, and this one 
 has a close and important bearing on the matter now under 
 consideration. It seems to allow a government to define its 
 position in the manner suggested above. Are we right, it 
 forces, us to ask, in expecting from governments more than 
 
 'See "The Social Evil" (G. Putnam). The author had already 
 reached this position independently. 
 
102 FUNCTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 comes within the scope of their functions ? They can deal with 
 a matter like the spread of physical disease; against that they 
 can wield the weapons furnished by human legislation, but the 
 whole vast phenomenon of sexual immorality is more than they 
 can cope with successfully. History demonstrates this ; we have 
 no warrant in human experience for expecting governments to 
 execute work which requires a more delicate moral machinery 
 than theirs, the machinery of personal contact and example, of 
 sympathetic and judicious education, of religious influence and 
 control. It is incorrect to imagine that if a government uses 
 its police system with some discrimination as regards pros- 
 titution, only employing this weapon in the case already indi- 
 cated, where prostitution is in one way or another aggressive, 
 it is thereby throwing open the door to illicit sexual love. 
 
 That door has never been shut through the long ages of 
 human history. No human legislation can shut it. Should 
 any government formulate a contagious diseases policy on lines 
 which this essay is an attempt to indicate, its action need not 
 be construed as implying an acquiescence in the existence of 
 prostitution. It is unnecessary, in the wording of such an act, 
 to use any such phrase as "state toleration" or "recognition" 
 of brothels. 1 The general question of prostitution is not, so 
 far, touched by government. All that we could justly infer 
 from the enunciation of such a policy by a government is that 
 it perceives a limit to its powers and responsibilities in the 
 moral sphere ; it recognizes a point beyond which the action of 
 governments cannot go, a region where more subtle forces than 
 
 1 It seems gratuitous to import any considerations of sophistry 
 here. In a policy such as is here contemplated even the idea of tolera- 
 tion does not become prominent, so long as the state encourages and 
 assists efforts — short of police compulsion — for the general reduction 
 of prostitution. It must not be forgotten that the state is regarded 
 by a large portion of the community as an educator; and its policy, 
 therefore, properly enunciated, while denning the limits of legal action, 
 should not, and I venture to think need not, lend support to what is 
 rightly recognized as a fallacious generalization, the necessity of prosti- 
 tution. 
 
SYSTEMS OF REGLEMENTATION. 103 
 
 those of human legislation can alone effectually operate. The 
 act would not attack the "broad principle always recognized by 
 Christian society, that lawful sexual intercourse cannot he 
 found in fornication. It would not be an attempt to weaken 
 the obligation to chastity, sanctioned by the moral law. It 
 would have to be regarded as nothing more nor less than an 
 attempt to get rid of certain physical evils, frequently affecting 
 innocent persons, which prostitution helps to intensify and ex- 
 tend. This, the sole aim of such an act, must not be confused 
 by careless wording or strained interpretation, with other issues 
 of the great sexual problem. 
 
 The general question of prostitution must be approached 
 by education and by moral and religious influence, not by legis- 
 lation. Laws may deal with symptoms of the phenomenon, 
 such as those we have been considering; they may protect to 
 some extent juvenile and helpless classes, but they cannot, in 
 any sweeping, wholesale fashion, abolish fornication. The re- 
 sponsibility for the existence of prostitution rests with indi- 
 viduals, not with governments. It is unwise and dangerous to 
 attempt to shift this responsibility on to the shoulders of gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 The exact form, including details, which government inter- 
 ference on this question ought to take would vary somewhat 
 with circumstances. A great conflict of opinion is still in 
 progress as to the rights of a system of compulsory examination 
 and detention of persons suffering from venereal disease. 
 Figures and results are pointed to by both sides, with the re- 
 spective objects of commending and of discrediting the system. 
 So far as the figures are accessible to the present writer, they 
 seem to prove, not that the principle of compulsion by govern- 
 ment in this matter is wrong, but that right methods of apply- 
 ing that principle and embodying it in legislation have as yet 
 been only partially discovered. Some of the past legislative 
 experiments for the suppression of venereal diseases appear to 
 have failed to produce satisfactory results because, as in Prance, 
 they have been made in such a way as to weaken the claims of 
 morality; others because in them the principle of compulsion 
 
104 A "C. D." POLICY. 
 
 has been applied with too little tact and discrimination, as 
 formerly in Sweden, or in regard of one sex to the exclusion of 
 the other, as formerly in England. 
 
 This, then, is the point at which to enlarge our considera- 
 tion of the argument already referred to, that apart from the 
 consideration of statistics and results, the principle now under 
 discussion is inherently wrong. It is urged that a government 
 cannot place venereal diseases on the same footing as other dis- 
 eases for treatment, because in the case of venereal diseases a 
 moral qustion is involved. 
 
 There is an element of truth in this; but it must not be 
 inferred that governments are to have no hand at all in the 
 treatment and remedy of venereal diseases. So long as a gov- 
 ernment, to the best of its power, refrains from touching the 
 moral question, so long as it avoids the reality or even the ap- 
 pearance of becoming a purveyor of clean prostitutes for the 
 lusts of immoral persons, 1 there seems no reason why it should 
 not undertake the task of healing diseased ones by a lock hos- 
 pital system, any more than why it should not establish inebri- 
 ate homes for the remedy of evils produced by drunkenness. It 
 should carry out this, its special function, in cooperation with 
 other agencies, which can deal more effectively with the moral 
 aspect of the question. 
 
 For example, in the case of the cantonments of troops in 
 India, it is conceivable that the authorities may not be able 
 
 1 Or of a landlord or licensing agent of buildings, whether brothels 
 or houses of accommodation, in which the business of prostitution is 
 to proceed unchecked. But the proposal made by C. Booth ("Life and 
 Labor/' Final Vol., pp. 128ff.) is so framed as to be free from this 
 objection. It is on the negative side that reglementation seems ethically 
 justifiable. Prohibitions should be the basis of the policy. The state 
 should proceed by directly forbidding and repressing prostitution in any 
 of its aggressive aspects, yet not by in any way indicating the directions 
 in which prostitution can maintain itself without coming into collision 
 with the law. The onus of discovering those directions should rest with 
 with the persons interested in prostitution. In short, while the state 
 cannot directly suppress fornication, it may so frame its contagious 
 diseases policy as not only not to encourage, but indirectly to discourage 
 it and to make it more difficult of access. 
 
A "C. D." POLICY. 105 
 
 wholly to prevent the entrance of prostitutes into the canton- 
 ment. It is not possible for them to make sure of the character 
 and motives of every native woman who wishes to reside in the 
 cantonment's bazaars. Nor, consequently, does it seem to fall 
 within their special province to notice officially the possible 
 existence of prostitution within the cantonment, unless by dis- 
 ease or by some other method it becomes aggressive. If now, 
 a person is brought to the hospital, suffering from venereal dis- 
 ease, the authorities may detain him or her for medical treat- 
 ment, on the same principle as they would detain a lunatic at 
 large, or a person affected by any common contagious disease, 
 without regard being had to the question whether the diseased 
 person has or has not been indulging in sexual intercourse. 
 So far, the moral question usually connected with venereal dis- 
 eases is not touched by the authorities in a cantonment or other 
 community. 
 
 While the patient is thus under legal detention, every pos- 
 sible facility might be afforded to clergy and benevolent persons 
 to consider the moral aspect of the particular ease, and to bring 
 good influence to bear in the direction and by the methods 
 which may seem most expedient and most likely to ensure 
 success. 1 If any course of medical treatment is known to be 
 effectual in diminishing sexual desire, and to be otherwise 
 harmless, that too should be employed. It is when the period 
 of detention under medical supervision is over, then comes in 
 
 1 Commenting on the special difficulties of rescue work, Booth 
 ("Life and labor, Final Vol., pp. 126, 127) observes that a. sense of 
 sin is little discoverable among prostitutes. The moral perceptions are 
 dull to begin with, in the class from which prostitutes are ordinarily 
 recruited, and even the first fall evokes little but a vague feeling of 
 shame and loss. Still, according to the same writer, even professional 
 prostitutes manifest often a considerable dissatisfaction and disgust 
 with their position, a general sense of degradation. Here, it would seem, 
 is the readiest approach to the prostitute's inner self, with its dormant 
 potentialities of good. The lady already referred to, in conversation 
 with the author, emphasized the value of letting the lowest prostitute 
 feel that in the social strata above her own there existed some degree 
 of real, even if ineffective, interest in her redemption and welfare. 
 
106 A "C. D." POLICY. 
 
 the danger that the action of the authorities, if the case be 
 shown meanwhile to he that of a known prostitute, may clash 
 with the interests of morality. If a prostitute, cured of vene- 
 real disease, is again allowed to enter a cantonment which she 
 may have frequented previously to her admission to hospital, 
 it may be argued with considerable cogency that by extending 
 such permission the authorities thereby place themselves in a 
 false position — that of purveyors of clean prostitutes, to facili- 
 tate the indulgence of the troops in fornication. On the other 
 hand, if the prostitute, when cured, is forbidden to enter the 
 cantonment or to approach within a certain distance from 
 its boundaries, under penalties likely to prove a sufficient de- 
 terrent, it is hard to see how the governing power can in such a 
 case have exceeded its right, the right of combating aggressive 
 prostitution; or how it can have made light of the moral ques- 
 tion with which venereal disease is associated. 
 
 The policy to be adopted for dealing with prostitution in 
 cities will not be in every detail the same as that which might 
 be applied in cantonments. It might not be possible to expel 
 cured prostitutes from the city, but a special watch could be 
 kept over women who had once been discharged from a lock 
 hospital, and who during their residence there had been dis- 
 covered and proved to be prostitutes. It would indeed be im- 
 moral to issue to such women a government certificate of 
 health, as this would amount to sanctioning their trade; but 
 the authorities might keep a private register of these cases, as 
 being suspicious and dangerous, likely to develop and spread 
 disease, in other words likely to become aggressive. The 
 function of the state in this matter seems to extend thus far. 
 
 It was somewhat on these lines that reglementation was re- 
 organized in Berlin in 1846. The authors of "The Social Evil" 
 draw particular attention to the fact that government inter- 
 ference with the control of prostitution did not cease at that 
 date, though they assumed forms less exceptionable from a 
 moral point of view than the previous ones. 1 But the Berlin 
 
 1 "The Social Evil," pp. 48, 49. 
 
VENEREAL DISEASE AND MARRIAGE. 107 
 
 morals and sanitary service of 1846 did not receive a fair trial. 
 It was not worked with proper thoroughness and enthusiasm; 
 and later on there was a return to more doubtful methods. 
 Viewed, however, in conjunction with the recommendations of 
 the Committee of Fifteen in "The Social Evil," the Berlin 
 policy of 1846 must be welcomed as giving a precedent for a 
 state treatment of the problem of prostitution by methods which 
 both moralists and sanitary reformers can unite in developing 
 and rendering more efficacious. 
 
 Another question, venereal disease in relation to marriage, 
 calls for consideration before the conclusion of the present 
 chapter. Several modern writers recommend that men shoitld 
 be required to obtain a state medical certificate of freedom from 
 syphilis, gonorrhoea, or other contagious disease of the genitals, 
 before receiving the state license to marry. The suggestion is 
 attractive, as it removes the reproach often brought against the 
 sanitary service, that it deals only with women in the matter 
 of venereal disease. 
 
 Such a measure as the examination of men before marriage 
 would indeed require careful safeguarding. All attempts to 
 institute legal hindrances to marriage and establish a state- 
 enforced celibacy are of doubtful expediency, and need special 
 consideration. The decision of one state-appointed medical 
 officer should not be final in a matter of this kind; a subject 
 who believes his certificate wrongly withheld should have some 
 right of appeal. The physical examination should not be 
 extended to cover other general morbid conditions, e.g., phthis- 
 ical conditions, nor even to include weakness of the genital 
 organs; for partial impotence in the male, the result of mas- 
 turbation or nervous strain, tends to recover itself in the married 
 state. 1 
 
 'Although medical science, as expounded by Posner (Senator and 
 Kaminer, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 728, 729) sees in extreme stages of sexual 
 weakness when the exciting causes have been a long time in operation, 
 a contraindication to marriage, it would be inadvisable to give this view 
 a severe social expression; for the reason that the percentage of such 
 
108 CERTIFICATES OF IMMUNITY. 
 
 But with such safeguards, the suggestion seems right and 
 feasible enough. Such a physical examination before marriage 
 could not indeed safely be extended to women; for many of the 
 best women would probably be deterred from marriage alto- 
 gether by the thought of having to undergo this ordeal. At any 
 rate, even granting (as statistics adduced by Neisser demand) 
 the existence of a number of venereal patients among female 
 candidates for marriage, the time is not yet ripe, the sexual 
 education of the community not yet sufficiently advanced, the 
 number of women doctors not yet large enough, to encourage 
 the consideration of such a proposal in regard to women. But 
 men would not be oversensitive in such a matter, any more than 
 they would shrink from a medical examination as a preliminary 
 to life insurance. And even in cases where the certificate is 
 withheld, a temporary celibacy only would frequently be re- 
 quired; seldom would it happen that the state required of 
 anyone a permanent abstinence from marriage — a principle 
 which, as already affirmed, is undesirable and unworkable. 
 
 On a purely medical question, a non-medical writer must speak 
 with a due sense of his limitations. The optimistic judgment given above 
 is perhaps only justified (as concerns gonorrhoea, and the position is anal- 
 ogous in regard to syphilis) if we take up the position of Neisser, who 
 holds (Senator and Kaminer, vol. ii, pp. 495ff.) that so long as after the 
 most exhaustive examination possible, gonococci do not reveal themselves, 
 infection is not to be anticipated, though its possibility cannot categoric- 
 ally be denied; and marriage is consequently permissible; inasmuch as 
 marriages have frequently been recorded in which some of the 
 secondary effects of gonorrhoea continued, without communication of the 
 disease resulting. Even if medical science can do no more than affirm 
 the improbability of infection, the principle of certification would be 
 useful as ensuring that diseased men had submitted themselves to expert 
 and adequate treatment before marriage; and a check would at least be 
 placed on the reckless and selfish marriage of such persons. It is cer- 
 tainly important to emphasize that any such measures as are here in 
 question, should be based on the most lenient principle and administered 
 
 cases does not seem large enough in this class of sexual infirmity, nor the 
 lines of demarcation between fitness and unfitness for marriage suffi- 
 ciently pronounced, to justify the imposition of legal disabilities. 
 
GENERAL REGULATIONS. 109 
 
 in the most liberal spirit possible, consistent with a reasonable degree 
 of efficaciousness. 
 
 And in spite of Neisser's objection, it would seem that the state 
 could look after this matter better than the intending parties to a mar- 
 riage themselves. Many women, from want of realizing the importance 
 of the issues involved, and from the emotional power of their own erotic 
 passion, would not be deterred from marrying a man, even if he had to 
 show them an unsatisfactory certificate of health. They would decide 
 the point from subjective considerations. The state on the other hand 
 would look to an objective standard of health, — ex hypothesi, the demon- 
 strable absence of gonococci — in permitting men to marry. 
 
 Obviously, to require a certificate of freedom from the said 
 morbid conditions before marriage would not entirely solve the 
 question of venereal disease among men; for these diseases are 
 frequently contracted as a result of adultery; but this latter 
 aspect of the matter must be considered in connection with the 
 dissolubility of marriage. It should be established as a broad 
 principle of action that persons of either sex, married or single, 
 who transmit venereal disease may be legally restrained and 
 confined for treatment. If cases of syphilis in infants were 
 required to be reported by doctors, it would become more prac- 
 ticable to detect the existence of venereal disease in marriage 
 and to bring measures to bear upon it. 
 
 Nevertheless, voluntary submission to regulations having 
 the suppression of venereal disease as their object is in every 
 way preferable to compulsion. 1 Not only should patients feel 
 that if they willingly fall in with the regulations they are con- 
 sulting their own best interests as regards health, but they 
 should know that registration and treatment will be conducted 
 with proper privacy and consideration. These are especially 
 
 1 Uneducated men, as would naturally be expected, show less readi- 
 ness than the educated in availing themselves of medical assistance to 
 ascertain their marriageableness, in view of their having contracted 
 venereal diseases. Neisser, it is true, considers that the dissemination of 
 right knowledge has produced an improvement in this respect in the 
 last twenty years. But the question still presses whether legislation 
 might not embody some general principle in regard to the certification 
 of sexual health as a necessary preliminary to marriage. 
 
110 MEDICAL SECRECY. 
 
 necessary in regard to married patients. The innocent partner 
 (probably the wife) would in many eases dread shame and 
 discord more than actual disease; and so would assist the hus- 
 band in hiding his sin, to the great physical detriment of them 
 both. 
 
 It is urged — apart from the special question of a mar- 
 riage certificate of health — that the tradition of secrecy in 
 medical ethics would be a hindrance to the treatment of male 
 patients by compulsory periodic examination. Doctors when 
 consulted by a male venereal patient who might have received 
 the contagion from one fall and be otherwise of good character, 
 would shrink from breaking a confidence and so bringing shame, 
 not merely on the patient himself, but on the innocent house- 
 hold to which he belongs. His case seems to demand greater 
 privacy and consideration than that of a known prostitute. 
 But here the tradition of secrecy, excellent in itself, becomes 
 of dubious worth. In a matter of such grave sanitary im- 
 portance, society, acting through the doctors as its executive, 
 cannot afford to be too considerate. Cases of venereal disease 
 should be reported to a central authority, without regard to 
 circumstances. It is for the central authority, not the report- 
 ing agent, to consider those circumstances. A properly organ- 
 ized morals service should be able to deal with cases as they 
 arise, with all possible privacy, tact, and consideration. And 
 after all, innocent households frequently have to suffer shame 
 in many forms from the delinquencies of particular members. 
 Often, too, in spite of their innocence, such households are not 
 so much to be pitied on these occasions as they seem. A mis- 
 demeanor in the family involving medical treatment or legal 
 action, has usually its roots in the folly, ignorance, sloth, or mis- 
 directed tenderness of the parents. The sexual education of 
 their children is, as we have seen, a paramount duty of parents ; 
 and such education must of course include a warning given 
 opportunely against the various forms of venereal disease, and 
 about the ill health and disabilities contagion involves — a warn- 
 ing which does not always relieve from the duty of further 
 watchfulness. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 Further Aspects op Fornication. 
 
 Suspected Increase of Immorality in Australasia — Causes of In- 
 crease^ — Some Proposed Remedies — Age of Consent — Removal of Disa- 
 bilities from Illegitimates — Legitimation — Registration in the Man's 
 Name. 
 
 Even yet the moment has not arrived in our present study, 
 when fornication, the aspect of the sex life which has hitherto 
 claimed the largest share of our attention, can be quitted for 
 another part of the subject. The following chapter was written 
 some years ago, when the author was resident in New Zealand 
 and to some extent in touch with Australasian life; and al- 
 though such human interest as it contains has thus a kind of 
 local coloring, it is retained as a contribution to the discussion 
 of certain points hitherto undealt with in this work. 
 
 An increase of illicit intercourse, apart from prostitution, 
 has been suspected in the British Australasian colonies, per- 
 haps elsewhere; and it faces society with a menace which fre- 
 quently engages a good deal of popular attention in the news- 
 papers and elsewhere. 1 
 
 As has been already said, there is small reason for thinking 
 that the sexual instinct has undergone any general modification 
 in modern civilized humanity; on the contrary, amid the in- 
 creasing complexity of life's conditions many causes contribute, 
 more powerfully than formerly, to exaggerate sexuality. To 
 
 1 After careful inquiry the writer finds sufficient evidence that of 
 recent years intercourse out of wedlock has tended toward an actual 
 increase in parts of Australasia. Trustworthy evidence is derivable 
 mainly from the statistics of birth; and the question as to the increase 
 of illicit intercourse in proportion to the growth of population is not 
 easily settled, owing to the undoubted prevalence among married peo- 
 ple of the practice of prevention already referred to. 
 
 (Ill) 
 
112 SUGGESTED CAUSES. 
 
 enumerate and classify these causes, and to distinguish the 
 diverse methods and the varying degrees of power with which 
 they act on particular classes, is no easy task. If an increase of 
 unchastity is noticeable in the cultured and brain-taxing class, 
 it will not be due to the very same causes as a similar increase 
 in the laboring class ; at any rate, the action of these causes will 
 be somewhat different in the two cases. In a high state of 
 civilization, the brain-taxing class, experiencing no diminution 
 of desire, would find the control and suppression of it add 
 greatly to their existing mental and physical strain; and unless 
 the extra will-power requisite to meet the increased strain 
 could be developed by religious or other influences, the condi- 
 tions of the case would inevitably foster an increase of chastity 
 in that class. 
 
 The sons of manual toil, on the other hand, would not have 
 to endure the same nerve-strain as the brain-workers, in rela- 
 tion to the control of sexuality; nor perhaps would their condi- 
 tions of life develop among them habitually excessive desire. 
 As regards certain regions — as the British Australasian Col- 
 onies, for example — considerable allowance must be made for 
 the general departure of the growing population from the phys- 
 ical type which is their heritage, for particular evil influences 
 of heredity, which may be specially strong and, as it were, 
 concentrated in certain regions; and for climate — causes which 
 may conceivably do much to disturb and exaggerate the sexual 
 function and passion, and to impair physical and moral stamina. 
 Apart from these, one would have to seek for the cause of an 
 increase of unchastity in the weakening of some extraneous 
 controlling influence. 
 
 The chief influence which is weakened with this disastrous 
 result is usually considered to emanate from two kindred 
 sources, parental control and religious fear. 
 
 One hesitates about venturing an opinion as to how far 
 the lack of religious instruction in schools is responsible for the 
 growth of sexual immorality among the youth of a country 
 where such instruction is not given. The recognition of reli- 
 gion in schools may indeed be considered to have a vast indirect 
 
DISCUSSION OF CAUSES. 113 
 
 and ultimate good effect upon, morals; but vague religious 
 teaching will not, in any case, do all that is required. It would 
 be easy to discover and point to a great number of schools filled 
 by English-speaking youth, where the Scriptures are system- 
 atically taught, where prayer is held and sacraments are cele- 
 brated, where duly-qualified clergy have scope for their in- 
 fluence and ministrations; but which, if conclusions may be 
 drawn from evidence possessed by many, but used by few, are 
 on no higher level, in respect of sexual morality, than schools 
 which have not these advantages. 
 
 In point of fact, no amount of teaching on other branches 
 of ethics can render needless the watchfulness over sexual de- 
 velopment, and teaching to correspond with it, which is here 
 desiderated. 
 
 Emphasis is sometimes laid on one of the aforesaid sources 
 of moral influence, in this connection, sometimes on the other; 
 but they are in truth closely united, and the weakening of the 
 disciplinary influence which comes from them is a lax develop- 
 ment of what is in the main true and good, the modern move- 
 ment of thought and feeling in the direction of a greater appre- 
 ciation and realization of moral freedom, and a deeper insight 
 into moral problems. Eor the trend of modern ethical thought, 
 however much of truth and greatness it may contain on its 
 higher side, has, like all stages of human advance, a false 
 aspect. On the one hand thoughtful, pious, and conscientious 
 people feel themselves to be receivers of an inestimable bless- 
 ing in the outpouring of the illuminating Spirit — for such we 
 reverently hope the modern thought-movement in the main to 
 be — which has made it possible to consider the development of 
 morality and the power of religious sanctions from hitherto 
 unnoticed points of view; which has shown how and where and 
 how far- to make allowance for the circumstances which sur- 
 round particular breaches of the moral law ; which has revealed 
 the working of secret laws of love and mercy in dark depths of 
 human depravity from which our forefathers believed the 
 Divine Spirit to be forever excluded; which has immensely 
 widened the horizon of our hopes; which has freed religion 
 
114 TREND OF ETHICAL THOUGHT. 
 
 from a vast amount of gloomy horror, and parental discipline 
 from much morbid savagery. 
 
 But on the other hand, with the unthinking multitude, in 
 their partial survey of this growth of ideas and with their feeble 
 power of appreciating its true meaning, false notions of moral 
 freedom are easily developed at a time like the present, 1 and 
 these are the unhealthy and dangerous elements in the modern 
 reaction against the harshness and savagery and ignorance, 
 which in bygone generations darkened religion and infused 
 bitterness and unkindness into the family relation. 
 
 It must not be inferred, however, that to counteract modern 
 unhealthy symptoms and lax developments, there is requisite 
 a sweeping condemnation of the present trend of ethical thought 
 and feeling. What is needed is the effort to discern clearly 
 the actual points at which sexual immorality is most success- 
 fully encroaching on the life of modern society, the causes 
 which render particular classes of people specially or increas- 
 ingly liable to specific forms of immorality; the methods by 
 which vice is fostered, hardened, organized, developed; the 
 evil factors in human nature which take advantage of the in- 
 evitable complications and difficulties of life to wrest and 
 distort ethical doctrines savoring of freedom into acquiescence 
 in moral remissness and criminal self-indulgence. It must be 
 by a carefully considered strategy, based on a clear and dis- 
 criminating view of the situation, that the encroachments of 
 impurity on the health and morals of society are met. 
 
 Another possible factor in the increase of immorality in 
 Australasia will be the lack of a sufficient number of upper class 
 
 1 Cp. Beale, "Our Morality," p. 165: "While it is undoubtedly true 
 that some kinds of knowledge are spreading at a. greater rate, and 
 entering more widely and more deeply than at any previous time, it 
 is doubtful whether the disposition to think over important "questions 
 is as general as it was, while that invaluable mental acquisition 
 known as judgment is probably more rare than in times when informa- 
 tion and knowledge were less widely diffused." For other causes of 
 the weakening of parental control, see Booth, "Life and Labor," Final 
 Vol., pp. 42, 43. 
 
AGE OF CONSENT. 115 
 
 women to act as a salutary leaven in the democratic communi- 
 ties. That a fast set exists among the upper class women is not 
 to be denied ; but it is certain that the English gentlewomen, as 
 a body, have nobly maintained a high standard of feminine vir- 
 tue and dignity, and have set a fine example in this respect to 
 other social grades. Virtue has been strengthened by the maxim, 
 "noblesse oblige." The weakening of this influence in Aus- 
 tralasia may assist looseness of morals among the rank and file 
 of young women in those parts. 
 
 The criticisms already made in this volume upon co-educa- 
 tion need also to be considered here. 
 
 A favorite theory among women is that protection will be 
 given to their own sex, and benefit accrue to morals generally, 
 if the age of consent is considerably raised — fixed, as some ad- 
 vocate, at twenty-one years. 
 
 A thorough study of legislation on the age of consent, and 
 of its history, and a comparison of the forms it has taken in 
 various countries, has not been possible for the author of this 
 essay. Yet it must be observed that to give such a measure of 
 protection to female virtue as is desiderated by some seems to 
 lie beyond the functions of the state. It is for the state, in- 
 deed, to protect helpless classes in the community against the 
 ravages of impurity; but where persons of a responsible age 
 and condition are concerned, nothing can be more unwise than 
 to attempt to transfer the responsibility for moral delinquencies 
 from individuals to the state. It is right to emphasize the 
 danger of fixing the age of consent too high. The moral effect 
 on the minds of young women of sixteen to twenty-one years 
 of age, and the consequent social disturbance, would be disas- 
 trous, if they knew that without heavy consequences to them- 
 selves as regards social condemnation, they could gratify unlaw- 
 fully their sexual passions. And further, such legislation would 
 afford room for cases of gross miscarriage of justice in respect of 
 young male partners in fornication, cases of a nature so 
 obvious that it needs no explanatory comment. 
 
116 AGE OF CONSENT. 
 
 In short, it is extremely difficult to draw a fair line of 
 legal demarcation between responsible and irresponsible classes 
 in respect of illicit intercourse ; and the section of public opin- 
 ion in a democracy which looks for the solution of this difficulty 
 in the constant raising of the age of consent by the legislature, 
 is pushing its responsible rulers toward somewhat dangerous 
 ground. As soon as such legislation fails to recognize the ex- 
 istence of a sufficiently developed moral will in the female 
 offender, of her power of wilfully attracting the male's desirous 
 regard, of the possibility of her entertaining other bad motives 
 than those to which the animal instinct itself gives rise, and 
 regards her as the passive and irresponsible instrument of 
 the man's indulgence, its principle becomes seriously unsound. 
 To fix the age of consent above the time in a girl's life when 
 puberty becomes distinctly marked, seems to conflict with 
 Nature's declared intention in the matter, viz., to allow within 
 the individual of either sex, as soon as a certain age has been 
 passed, the experience of sexual desire, and the free action of 
 the will in regard to the gratification or denial of that desire. 
 If there is a period past puberty when doubt exists as to the 
 moral responsibility of the female, the governing power that 
 punishes the male offender ought at least to assert its right to 
 treat each case on its merits as regards the female, to provide 
 for her detention — where the circumstances after proper inves- 
 tigation seem to call for it — in a suitable institution, or for the 
 punishment of her parents or guardians, if her immorality is 
 shown to be largely attributable to their neglect. 
 
 The removal of disabilities and a social stigma from the 
 offspring of illicit unions is sometimes made a subject of dis- 
 cussion. It is impossible here to accord to this proposal the 
 careful consideration it merits. It may be observed that the 
 existence of such a stigma and its accompanying legal disa- 
 bilities is due to the instinctive desire of a rightly organized 
 society to defend itself against an increase of illegitimacy. The 
 presence of an injustice inherent in this fact cannot indeed be 
 denied; but it is an injustice seemingly inevitable, like others 
 
LEGITIMATION. 117 
 
 which occur under the operation of the law of heredity — a part 
 of the present imperfect order of things. And a rash endeavor 
 to abolish the stigma and disabilities of illegitimacy would 
 injure the moral sense and weaken the foundations of society. 
 
 Nevertheless, seeing that those natural and social laws 
 whose operation is harshest are not intended to act with a rigid 
 uniformity, the frequent softening of society's severe regard of 
 illegitimacy, by merciful considerations, is not to be regretted. 
 The regulations under which in any country illegitimacy is 
 placed certainly deserve attentive study from time to time on 
 the part of thoughtful and moral members of the community, 
 with a view to possible modification in detail, as the outcome of 
 sentiment at once healthy and increasingly humane, on the 
 subject. The Legitimation Act, of 1894, in New Zealand, which 
 makes provision for the legitimation of children born before 
 marriage, on the subsequent marriage of their parents, seems 
 based on the extension of a sound ethical principle — the possi- 
 bility of recovering a forfeited position or privileges, by making 
 amends for a piece of wrongdoing — so as to apply it not merely 
 to the wrongdoers, but to those who are injuriously affected as 
 to social status by their act. 1 Society, while it rightly main- 
 tains a jealous watch against the introduction and subsequent 
 incorporation by law into its system, of sentiments and ideas 
 subversive of the moral sense which refuses to consider fornica- 
 tion as a recognized social custom, is not justified in disallowing 
 any sort of efficacious repentance on the part of offenders 
 against its laws. From the short experience which New Zealand 
 has had of a Legitimation Act we do not draw the inference 
 that an increase of illegitimacy has been caused, or is likely to 
 be caused, by it. 
 
 But it is perhaps needless to develop further in these 
 pages the foregoing line of thought. Society's increasing 
 
 1 As regards the heredity of illegitimates, I understand that ac- 
 cording to some investigations carried out by French savants (La Revue, 
 July, 1902), no average congenital inferiority for illegitimates can be 
 demonstrated. 
 
118 REGISTRATION OF ILLEGITIMATES. 
 
 proneness to soften its regard of the stigma of illegitimacy is 
 sufficiently evident, and already in some danger of exceeding 
 the bounds of prudence. Such a questionable tendency is per- 
 haps visible in recent Russian legislation on illegitimacy, as 
 given in the "Australasian Review of Reviews" for September, 
 1902. 
 
 In another part of this essay some reflections are made on 
 the baseness and cowardice with which some men contrive to 
 escape their share of the responsibilities consequent on an act 
 of illicit intercourse followed by conception. But these re- 
 sponsibilities cannot always be brought home to them by moral 
 influences; and it is difficult to see by what means the selfish- 
 ness of individuals can be effectually visited upon them. 
 
 The obvious consideration at once arises that all attempts 
 to introduce legal or social penalties for fornication have the 
 effect of causing people of loose principles to avoid with greater 
 care and ingenuity, not the sin itself, but the conception which 
 may follow it. 
 
 Nor is this the only difficulty. Say what we will about it, 
 we have to recognize that in the order of Nature it is easier for 
 a man to escape the inconvenience of illicit parentage — while 
 enjoying the foregoing pleasure — than for the woman. Doubt- 
 less in the economy of the universe, in the evolution of morality, 
 there is some good reason for this ; in any case there is a special 
 risk of social disorder in applying legislation to the change of 
 social conditions which go back to fundamental principles. 
 For instance, that illegitimate children should be registered in 
 the father's name sounds a simple proposal; but in reality it 
 contains at least two formidable difficulties, first, the natural 
 reluctance of women pregnant from illicit intercourse to dis- 
 close the male partner's name, a reluctance arising from an 
 instinct which, however unpractical it may appear, has yet 
 much of moral beauty about it; and second, the facility with 
 which, unless such registration were adequately safeguarded, 
 conspiracies could be formed by unscrupulous persons to ruin 
 and blackmail innocent men. Cases are met with — one would 
 hope they are not widely representative — in which the girlj 
 
REGISTRATION OF ILLEGITIMATES. 119 
 
 though not a professional prostitute, has frankly admitted that 
 she does not know who is the father of her child. In what 
 spirit, and with what regard to truth, such a girl would be 
 likely to avail herself of a law permitting her to register her 
 child in a man's name, may be conjectured. It is not probable 
 that the fear of a heavy penalty consequent on a conviction for 
 conspiracy to defame would deter a badly disposed woman — 
 for women do not ordinarily calculate the chances of the future 
 very carefully — from making a false declaration of a man's 
 name, with a view to having it registered as that of the father 
 of her child. Pull solutions of these difficulties will be hard to 
 come by. The present writer has little or no light to throw 
 upon them, and would merely make the suggestion that sup- 
 posing registration in the man's name to be adopted in principle, 
 it might be preferable that the legal proceedings (where the 
 paternity is denied) having this registration for their object, 
 should be initiated, not by the woman herself or her relatives, 
 but on her or their application, by such agents as the authori- 
 ties in charge of the maternity home to which she may have 
 been admitted, or by special committees of purity guilds. This 
 may seem a cumbrous method of obtaining the registration, and 
 the mechanism of it would require careful adjustment in detail ; 
 but there seems to be value in the principle that the first view 
 of the case would be taken by disinterested experts, whose sole 
 objects would be justice, morality, and the assertion of the rights 
 of women. 
 
 On the whole, the proposal to register in the man's name is 
 not in any case much of an advance on the present condition of 
 things ; by the very fact of its existence it may stir up forces to 
 counteract its own operation; but the proposal is the outcome 
 of a growing desire in society for greater justice, and points 
 toward what is certainly a moral desideratum, the social ostra- 
 cism of an obdurate male offender. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 Marriage. 
 
 Various Doctrines of Marriage — Rationale of Sexual Desire — Inter- 
 course During Pregnancy — Aversion During Menstruation — Control of 
 Desire — Frigidity — Mutual Consideration — Hygiene — A Parable Inter- 
 preted. 
 
 Our view of the circumstances, conditions and problems of 
 marriage has already made it abundantly clear that men will* 
 not all find the fruit of physical pleasure therein sweet with the 
 same measure of delight, or to be plucked with the same 
 freedom from care. In mediEeval thought, as we have already 
 had occasion to observe, sexual intercourse even in matrimony 
 was regarded as in some measure sinful though venial, unless 
 it took place solely with a view to procreation. Peter Lombard 
 may be taken as the exponent of this opinion : his judgment is 
 that where (in matrimony) there is copulation beyond the 
 purpose of generation, it is not good * * * For necessary 
 copulation with a view to procreation is blameless, and this 
 alone is nuptial copulation. But that copulation which exceeds 
 this necessity belongs to the domain, not of reason, but of lust; 
 and it is the duty of a consort not to require this for himself or 
 herself, but when it is required by the other party, to grant it, 
 lest the other may be driven to fornication. If only one partner 
 feels this, ex hypothesi, excessive desire and claims its gratifi- 
 cation, the blame rests with that partner; the other, though 
 consenting, is innocent. But if both are subject to such desire, 
 they do that which is not a function of marriage. 1 
 
 It is admitted, however, by this school of moralists that such 
 copulation is venial. "Marriage," according to Augustine, 
 "does not compel the commission of the sexual act minus the 
 procreative intent; but it obtains pardon for it even in such 
 circumstances." 
 
 'Lombard, "Sentences," Bk. iv, Dist., xxxi, section 7. 
 (120) 
 
MEDIEVAL AND OTHER VIEWS. 121 
 
 Dr. Trail enunciates a doctrine of marriage similar to 
 that of the medisevalists. "It ought," he says, "to be under- 
 stood by all men and women that the sexual embrace when 
 either party is averse to it — when both parties are not inclined 
 to it — is wrong." 1 
 
 There is certainly need for self-control and forbearance in 
 the physical use of marriage; but the mediaeval theory is un- 
 scientific; and neither that nor the view of writers like Dr. 
 Trail is in full accord with the ethical teaching which 
 Christians at any rate regard as most authoritative, that of the 
 Bible. A true principle of exegesis will not indeed allow of our 
 collecting detached texts to support a theory; but we must 
 attach great significance to the fact that in both Testaments 
 an ethical view of the use of marriage is put forward in books 
 of which the special purpose is the giving of moral guidance; 
 books written by inspired men whose knowledge of human life 
 and human nature and of the operations of the Divine Spirit 
 upon them, was extraordinarily sympathetic, accurate and pro- 
 found. And this view is more comprehensive, more liberal 
 than either that of the mediaeval moralists or that adopted by 
 Dr. Trail. 
 
 So completely is sexual intercourse legalized and hallowed 
 by marriage that in the Bible no explicit mention is made of 
 excess in this physical use of marriage. Some scholars have 
 seen a reference to such excess in the Biblical use of the word 
 -irXtovetiia..- The reference is by no means clear; the passage 
 which Bishop Nicholson adduces in support of it (Heb. 13 : 4) 
 seems rather to allow than to view with suspicion a free enjoy- 
 
 1 "Sexual Physiology and Hygiene," p. 200. 
 
 * Nicholson, "On the Catechism." Com. vii. Greek scholarship has 
 not established that the word ir~heove%la. standing alone ever connotes 
 impurity. The most that it seems permissible to say is that ir\eove£ia, 
 in passages where it stands in a close juxtaposition with words denoting 
 sexual sins, itself receives a general notion or taint of impurity; in the 
 same way as, by a converse process, a word used of sexual sin, the word 
 &Ka8apcrla, may expand its sense so as to include ir\eove£la (See Zockler 
 on I Thess. 4: 7, in Strack and Zockler, Kurzg. Komm.), 
 
122 PURPOSES OF CONJUGAL PLEASURE. 
 
 ment of sexual pleasure in the married estate. In the thought 
 of another of the Biblical writers (Prov. 5 : 15ff), vigorous and 
 energetic desire is innocent and even commendable, provided 
 that it is governed by the moral sanction of the monogamic 
 marriage relation. The wife is viewed not merely as the po- 
 tential mother of children, but as the source of innocent sexual 
 pleasure. (See Toy's commentary in loc.) Still more widely 
 known in this connection is the judgment of St. Paul (I Cor. 
 7 : 3ff), with which the view of Dr. Trail, already referred to, 
 is obviously to some extent at variance. 
 
 Monogamic unions of long duration being the form which 
 marriage is intended to take in the human race, as Wester- 
 marck, the great student of the history and evolution of mar- 
 riage, shows at length, it may be inferred that the force and 
 frequent operation of carnal desire in man, when controlled 
 and directed by right moral ideals, is a powerful factor in 
 cementing such unions. 
 
 To the human race belongs the experience of sexual desire 
 during the pregnancy of the female. 1 It is not quite an ex- 
 clusively human experience; for copulation has been observed 
 to take place between monkeys in similar circumstances; but 
 it would seem at least confined to man and the stage of creation 
 next below him. Intercourse during pregnancy is not 
 
 1 It may be considered that an ethical objection to the practice of 
 intercourse during pregnancy arises from the side of anthropological 
 science, inasmuch as there is a certain body of evidence (adduced by 
 Crawley, "The Mystic Rose," p. 54) to the effect that such intercourse 
 is avoided among primitive peoples; and the inference may be drawn 
 that it is an unjustifiable development in civilized man. But neither is 
 the evidence conclusive as to the primitive obligation of this avoidance, 
 nor the inference sufficiently safe. It might indeed well be expected 
 that pregnancy as a sexual crisis would fall within the range of the 
 sexual taboos in primitive races; but as we have elsewhere had occa- 
 sion to observe, nothing could be more unsafe than to accept un- 
 critically the guidance in sexual matters of either savage asceticism or 
 savage licentiousness. At best, the anthropological evidence alone 
 does not appear sufficient to outweigh the other considerations here 
 adduced to justify a moderate and occasional use of such intercourse. 
 
INTERCOURSE DURING PREGNANCY. 123 
 
 prompted by male passion alone; for the desire is felt by at 
 least some women for some time after conception. This un- 
 usual continuation of desire has perhaps a reason in the fact 
 that sexual unions in the human race are evidently intended 
 to be durable and monogamic. Mutual desire continued during 
 pregnancy must be a potent physical factor in the process of 
 cementing and rendering permanent the marriage contract. It 
 has not been suggested, so far as is known to the author, that 
 acts of intercourse during pregnancy serve any particular 
 physical purpose, apart from this ethical one. It is not per- 
 haps likely that any such physical purpose exists; for some 
 couples find it practicable, indeed expedient, to refrain alto- 
 gether from intercourse at this time. But it may be said with 
 some confidence that a sweeping prohibition of intercourse 
 during pregnancy is scarcely justified by the circumstances of 
 human life, or required by the hygiene of pregnancy. 1 Paley 2 
 refers to the prohibitio concubitus cum gravida uxori as an aus- 
 terity wrongly imposed. Some moderate and helpful advice 
 on the point now under consideration, combined with excellent 
 general teaching on the physical use of marriage, will be found 
 in the leaflet, entitled "The Proper Discipline to be Observed 
 by Married People in Eegard to Conjugal Intercourse/' pub- 
 lished by Messrs. John Bale & Sons and Danielsson, Ltd., 
 London. 
 
 Fiirbringer regards medical permission of intercourse up to the end 
 of the fifth or sixth month as a reasonable and sometimes necessary 
 concession, unobjectionable on hygienic grounds, where the wife has no 
 special weakness. He emphasizes, however, the special need of gentleness 
 on the husband's part at this time, and indicates precautions by which it 
 may be ensured. And he insists that the permission is of the nature of 
 a concession, one that, as we have already seen, and as Fiirbringer illus- 
 trates, has been regarded with suspicion or even strenuously refused, 
 among various races and in various periods of history. Kossmann offers 
 a similar opinion. (Senator and Kaminer, op. cit., pp. 225, 257.) 
 
 l Moll adduces additional reasons against a general prohibition of 
 such intercourse (Senator and Kaminer, op. cit., p. 999). 
 ' "Moral Philosophy," Bk. iii, Chapter U. 
 
124 INTERCOURSE DURING MENSTRUATION. 
 
 The phenomena of human sex periodicity would also seem 
 to indicate that marriage is intended to be a durable union. If 
 sex periodicity can be made out in man — and the investigations 
 of Perry Coste and others appear to demonstrate a rhythmical 
 and somewhat rapid recurrence of sexual activity in the male 
 subject — its existence may be teleogically interpreted as justi- 
 fying, so far as the man is concerned, considerable though regu- 
 lated frequency of sexual gratification ; although it is true that 
 a great many other regulating influences ought to find their 
 scope in a man's sex life besides the rise and fall of sexuality. 
 
 Sex periodicity is far more clearly marked in woman. In 
 her, too, it is rapidly recurrent. Anabolism, the continuous 
 accumulation of nutritive power, reaches a culminating point in 
 the woman in the course of a lunar month; beyond that point, 
 the anabolic process is interrupted either by effectual contact 
 with the male, or in the absence of this, by the menstrual over- 
 flow of the anabolic surplus. Sexual desire, and even an in- 
 crease of it, may be experienced by woman during the menstrual 
 flow; but it must not be inferred that this symptom marks the 
 period as the best time for coitus; for such an experience is 
 not perhaps the ordinary one on the woman's part, and may be 
 pathological. The flow itself expresses a eatabolic condition 
 in the organism. Feminine desire is usually strongest before 
 and after the flow ; and as at these times the anabolic process is 
 either going on or has reached its culmination, so that the 
 woman's general vitality is higher then than during the eata- 
 bolic flow, such times would seem more suitable for coitus than 
 the menstrual period itself. It is further admitted even by 
 Ellis that for the man at least the period is an unsuitable time 
 for coitus. 
 
 Havelock Ellis, returning to the discussion of menstruation in its 
 relation to desire, in vol. iii, of his "Studies," p. 22, quotes W. Heape as 
 concluding his survey of the sexual season in mammals with the observa- 
 tion: "In those animals which suffer from a considerable discharge of 
 blood during the pro-oestrum or menstruation the main portion of that 
 discharge, if not the whole of it, will be evacuated before sexual inter- 
 course is allowed." But Ellis maintains that this conclusion may be 
 subject to special modifications in the case of man. 
 
THE RUT IN MANKIND. 125 
 
 Fiirbringer, while adducing several reasons for disallowing inter- 
 course during menstruation, nevertheless considers that the contact of 
 menstrual blood with male organs has not been proved injurious in any 
 marked degree. Kossmann suggests that in cases where the wife is 
 ordinarily frigid, this frigidity disappearing during the latter stages 
 of menstruation, intercourse at that time might be advisable. (Senator 
 and Kaminer, op. cit., pp. 225, 249.) 
 
 Hence it is quite unscientific and superficial to refer the 
 common aversion to sexual intercourse during the period to a 
 basis of superstitious ideas and priestly interference. This 
 instinctive aversion must rather be regarded as part of nature's 
 design in the sex life of humanity. It is a sexual safeguard to 
 women in a condition of catabolism. 
 
 The rapid recurrence of periodic sexual change in both 
 man and woman prevents mutual desire from being merely 
 transient, a thing of a day or two, as it is in most of the lower 
 animals. If after sexual connection both partners to the act 
 knew that thereafter they would feel no mutual desire for many 
 months, one of the factors in their union which makes most for 
 its permanence and durability would be gone. The absence of 
 a continually recurring mutual desire would probably long ago 
 have caused promiscuity, rather than monogamy, to represent 
 sexual union in humanity. 
 
 Although these considerations do not physiologically ex- 
 plain the menstrual blood flow, they give the rationale of the 
 rut in mankind, with its characteristic of rapid recurrence. The 
 form of the rut has regulative effects upon sexual desire, and 
 educational effects in the direction of monogamy. Many super- 
 stitious notions have accrued to the instinct of periodic aver- 
 sion. It is easy to show that the menstruating woman is 
 widely regarded as an object of dread or of disgust. But these 
 notions are the effects, not the cause of the aversion. The 
 cause must rather be sought in the catabolism of the menstrual 
 flow. 
 
 It would be lawless and dangerous to strain either the 
 ethical teaching of the Biblical writers, or the scientific explana- 
 tion of desire in the human subject, in the interests of selfish 
 
126 ETHICS OF CONJUGAL INTERCOURSE. 
 
 and inconsiderate license. The physical use of marriage has 
 its moral bearings; it has its peculiar attendant dangers. 
 There is a right and a wrong in it, though the line which divides 
 them is not easily discerned. If we are right in thinking that 
 no actual reference is made in the Bible to this form of sexual 
 excess, yet it is certain that such excess is implicitly condemned 
 by the general principles of self-control and forbearance incul- 
 cated in the Bible. And it is equally certain that such excess 
 often exists, though rather perhaps from ignorance of physiology 
 and weakness of will than from any depravity, in the marriage 
 relation. The three to five acts of intercourse a month suggested 
 (see the above-mentioned leaflet) as a reasonable allowance, is 
 far exceeded on some marriage-beds. 
 
 Fiirbringer, who discusses at considerable length the permissible 
 frequency of conjugal intercourse, and illustrates in various ways the 
 difficulty of laying down rules on this point, finally concludes that in 
 anything like normal circumstances and apart from periods of pregnancy 
 and menstruation, 50 to 100 acts in the year are hygienically justifiable. 
 These would not of course be equally divided among the weeks of the 
 year. (Senator and Kaminer, op. (At., p. 221.) 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the continued refusal by 
 either husband or wife to render to the other party the physical 
 due of marriage is not infrequently a danger to chastity and to 
 conjugal love. When a woman, not being incapacitated from 
 sexual intercourse by sufficient ill-health or some other just 
 cause, persistently repels her husband's advances, she runs the 
 risk of eventually giving him a sexual distaste for her; and 
 as a logical result, of causing his affection for her to diminish. 
 The same is true vice versa; though such cases, where the sexual 
 frigidity is on the husband's side, are probably more rare. Of 
 course, frigidity or impotentia cceundi may be absolute; in 
 which case it has been regarded as affording a just cause for the 
 dissolution of a marriage — a marriage, indeed, which could 
 never have been perfectly contracted. But the cases we have 
 now in mind are rather those in which sexual intercourse is not 
 physically impossible, but highly distasteful, to one party; and 
 where, accordingly, every effort is made to avoid it, with the 
 
FRIGIDITY. 127 
 
 result of ignoring one of the objects for which marriage was 
 instituted. 
 
 Here, as so often elsewhere, extreme opposites have the 
 same or similar effects. Sexual frigidity, like excessive venery, 
 is a sin against conjugal peace. 1 And as some seeds are planted 
 in the winter, and when well settled in the soil, sprout and grow 
 abundantly in the warmer weather; so many an adultery may 
 have its first origin in a frigid and undutiful marriage-bed, to 
 flourish and bear abundantly the fruit of misery amid some 
 ensuing circumstances of external sensuous temptation. 
 
 It is well known that frigidity, like excessive desire, has a 
 physical basis ; and the frigid partner might argue that physical 
 defects are no fault of his or of hers. But the point here em- 
 phasized is that scope should consciously be given to volition 
 and the direction and education of the intention, in the matter 
 of the use of the marriage-bed. If constitutional tendencies 
 err either in the direction of frigidity or in that of unusual sex- 
 uality, an effort of the will, supported by religious and other 
 influences, should be made to prevent such tendencies producing 
 the disaster which is their natural fruit. As the result of wide 
 observation, Sperry maintains that there is a certain number 
 of women to whom sexual intercourse affords no carnal pleas- 
 ure; there are others in whom erotic passion on its carnal side 
 is as strongly developed as it is in the male; but with most 
 women the physical impulse is moderate in its action. 2 The 
 existence of the frigid class affords an argument for the in- 
 struction of women in the physiology of sex before marriage. 
 Many girls have not a theoretical knowledge of the sexual act 
 when they marry. It may be said that it is fair neither to the 
 man nor to the woman to allow of the latter's entering unin- 
 
 1 See Guernsey, "Plain Talks/' p. 95 : "Quite too many cases have 
 come under my observation where the marriage vow has never been 
 consummated, or, if consummated at all, in a very begrudging manner, 
 owing to the insubordination of the wife." 
 
 2 Havelock Ellis illustrates by copious references the great di- 
 vergences of modern opinion relative to the intensity of physical sexual- 
 ity in women. ("Studies," iii, p. 155ff.) 
 
128 ANTE-NUPTIAL EDUCATION. 
 
 structed and unwarned on a state in which an act, physically 
 always repulsive to her, will frequently have to be performed, a 
 duty which she will never render with anything but distaste and 
 reluctance — reluctance eventually leading, perchance, to serious 
 unkindness between her and her husband. On the other hand, 
 it may be urged that some young women might be deterred alto- 
 gether from marriage by such instruction, women who being 
 married would make excellent wives in general respects, and 
 who might be educated to a moderate appreciation of sexual 
 pleasure. 
 
 Probably, however, with regard to the difficulty of giving 
 this instruction, it might usually be said, "solvitur aw,bulando." 
 If mothers with marriageable daughters would carefully and 
 rightly consider the matter, they would in almost all cases find 
 the duty a possible one, and would be able to give a theoretical 
 knowledge of the sexual process with such considerateness and 
 tact as neither to stimulate unduly nor to stifle the just growth 
 of sexual emotion. Then a young wqnian, on marrying, would 
 fully understand the physical direction her duty to her husband 
 ought to take. She would be prepared to make the effort — if 
 an effort were required — necessary to the pure and temperate 
 enjoyment of the marriage-bed. 1 She would allow herself to 
 form no false and illusive theory of wedded love disjoined from 
 physical pleasure. She would try to give that pleasure its 
 proper place in the new life of her sexual nature, now no longer 
 under her sole control. She would not think it right, after 
 accepting the obligations of matrimony, to rebel against the 
 law of nature by rejecting one of the most vital and important 
 of those obligations. 
 
 Moral effort on the wife's side will, however, fail in this 
 matter unless met by responsive patience and gentleness on the 
 part of the husband. Havelock Ellis illustrates, with his usual 
 wealth of reference, the physiological fact that tumescence in 
 the woman is ordinarily slower than in the man ("Studies," iii, p. 
 
 'Moll urges the occasional necessity of such effort, or simulation 
 of passion, on the part of married women (Senator and Kaminer, op. 
 tit., p. 983). 
 
MUTUAL CONSIDERATION. 129 
 
 185ff.). The lack of this knowledge on the part of newly mar- 
 ried husbands, or their selfish and petulant failure to act on it 
 if they possess it, accounts for the repulsion some wives con- 
 ceive to sexual intercourse on their first experience of the 
 marriage-bed, a repulsion which may develop into chronic 
 frigidity. 1 The self-restraint of a husband in regard to the first 
 acts of intercourse with his bride will assist sexuality on her 
 side and bring it to the point proper for coition. It would be 
 well indeed, whenever it is practicable, that the husband should 
 deny himself coition for the first night or two after his mar- 
 riage, remembering that caresses and close contact take longer 
 to produce tumescence in the woman than in himself. 2 A 
 courtship, in short, must take place, not merely before mar- 
 riage, but before acts of sexual union in marriage. Yet again, 
 this line of reasoning must not be pressed unduly far, else might 
 arise a danger of tantalizing and straining to a harmful extent 
 the husband's organs and constitution. 
 
 Says the great French novelist, speaking of the physical 
 consummation of conjugal love, in the book wherein the sex 
 life is so wonderfully reflected : "If in one another's arms, they 
 had restrained the act, they would no longer have loved one 
 another with the whole being, they would have been retaining, 
 
 ^iirbringer calls attention to the physical power of the excited 
 male organ and the occasional severity of its operation, and to the con- 
 sequent injuries which a. wife's delicate organ may suffer from the hus- 
 band's undue force and impetuosity in conjugal intercourse. (Senator 
 and Kaminer, op. (At., p. 214.) See further on the need of physical gen- 
 tleness with a wife, Blumreich (Senator and Kaminer, op. eit., pp. 770ff.), 
 and Eulenberg (Id., p. 905), who refer to other medical opinions. It 
 should be observed, however, that some of these authorities maintain 
 that exaggerated sexual irritation on the woman's own part frequently 
 cooperates with the impetuosity of the male in producing vaginal in- 
 juries. 
 
 2 Such temporary abstinence at the entrance to married life, is a 
 frequent phenomenon among uncivilized races (Crawley, "The Mystic 
 Rose/' p. 342ff.). Here it is indeed complicated by superstitious ideas 
 and occasionally by useless and cruel practices, such as night watching 
 and severe fasting. It serves, however, the purpose of a discipline, and 
 at the same time of a subtle stimulus of erotic passion. 
 
 » 
 
130 THE GUIDANCE OF RELIGION". 
 
 withdrawing some part of them, the one from the other. The 
 living bond would have been untied : he would have seemed to 
 himself to be treating her as a stranger; and she would have 
 believed herself to be no longer his wife. They gave them- 
 selves the one to the other utterly, without any reservation 
 either of heart or of body; and it was for the life-force tc 
 complete its own work, if it so seemed right." 
 
 But the question is complicated by so many considerations 
 that any definition of sexual temperance in matrimony must 
 retain some elasticity. Husband and wife must be guided in 
 the matter, not by hard and fast religious sanctions or hygienic 
 rules of universal application — such do not seem discoverable 
 in this connection — but by nature and common sense, allied 
 with personal religion. Such are those whom Bishop Andrewes 
 prays for in his beautiful intercession, who use the world as 
 not abusing it, by a discreet and moderate enjoyment of the 
 most lawful pleasures, under the constant direction and re- 
 straint of religion and Godly fear. 
 
 The religious aspect, referred to by St. Paul (I Cor. 7 : 5), 
 of temporary continence between married people — as an auxil- 
 iary to prayer — should not escape notice at this point. It is 
 not to be inferred that conjugal relations have any taint of 
 impurity, or are necessarily a hindrance to the performance of 
 spiritual functions; only that the general attitude of self- 
 denial, finding expression in the discipline of temporary mutual 
 abstention, proves favorable to the exercise of prayer. Ab- 
 stinentia prmvia servit precibus. (Bengel.) 
 
 The Anglican Marriage Service has taken over from the 
 New Testament a wonderfully luminous expression about con- 
 jugal duty, one that searches the inmost depths of married 
 life : "Ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowl- 
 edge, Kara yvSxnv." 
 
 Men of earnest and right purpose who, in spite of the strain 
 to which celibacy has subjected them, in spite of their failure 
 to observe perfect chastity, have never allowed themselves to 
 think it a light thing to know a woman, will recognize how wide 
 and profound that knowledge becomes in the state of matri- 
 
SELF-DISCIPLINE. 131 
 
 mony. By means of it man and woman are drawn into the 
 most intimate physical relation, which wisely used will create 
 a surpassingly intimate moral and spiritual relation as well. A 
 man who wishes to prove a good husband to his wife will appre- 
 ciate the responsibility which this privileged knowledge lays 
 upon him. Eejoicing in its freedom, he will strive with Divine 
 aid to preserve and increase within it every element of purity 
 and beauty. "rV5o-is," says the commentator Bengel on 
 this passage, 1 "dicit moderationem," a remark which contains 
 implicitly a fine appreciation of the meaning of the phrase; for 
 an instinctive self-government and healthful moderation in 
 physical pleasure is the natural fruit of conjugal knowledge de- 
 veloping under the shadow of the fear of God. How many men 
 by unwatchfulness and petulance in regard to the carnal instinct 
 have marred the delicate life of conjugal knowledge in several 
 of its highest aspects; how many have created bitterness and 
 caused cruel disillusionment by heedlessly ignoring the unique 
 sacredness of the married relation, wounding the wife's feel- 
 ings or disturbing her moral sense, by coarseness in the ex- 
 pression of their own desire; or by unkind levity in alluding 
 to the dangers which at no great distance surround them both; 
 waking jealousy by thoughtlessly simulating it; rousing 
 thoughts of adultery by tactlessly jesting about it. 
 
 The cause which destroys married happiness may be only 
 indirectly connected with the sexual nature of either of the 
 parties, some divergence of interests, some sensitiveness or 
 irritability of temper, an inability to bear and forbear — one 
 cause or another out of a whole multitude. 2 But there is a class 
 
 1 1 Pet. 3:7. Moderatio, such a judicious government of the wife 
 as implies self-government in the husband. Bengel is indeed speaking 
 generally of the relation between husband and wife; and we would 
 not reject his wider interpretation in favor of our own particu- 
 larized one; but the light of the passage and of his comment thereon 
 may be, as it were, focused on conjugal sexuality, and will then convey 
 such a special admonition as is here suggested. 
 
 ' Independently of what is directly and primarily sexual, there are 
 enough of general moral and psychical aspects in married life to call for 
 treatment in such books as Hardy's well-known essay, "How to be Happy 
 
132 CONSTANCY. 
 
 of cases in which the destructive cause is directly sexual, a 
 change of desire occurring in one or other of the parties; and 
 the consequent experiencing of a sexual distaste for the other 
 party. Few sights are more painful and pathetic than that 
 of a desolate woman who has ceased to be attractive to her hus- 
 band, a woman whose charms have faded all too soon by reason 
 of ill health or trouble. 
 
 Such circumstances may indeed create a severe trial to the 
 physical man; but the highest ethics of sex certainly demand 
 that at this point the effort of loving fidelity should support 
 such strain as there may be upon the carnal sense. A moving 
 and profound appeal to the highest human emotions is found 
 in the allegorical representation so well known to the prophets 
 of the Old Testament, 1 where God appears as the ever-faithful 
 Husband of the personified Israel; observing the marriage- 
 covenant when the glory of the wife's womanhood has been 
 worn to shreds and dragged in the dust; remembering still, 
 after the passage of sad years, the grace of the woman's youth 
 and the love of her betrothal-time. Such an ideal of constancy 
 introduces, indeed, other considerations than those of physical 
 deterioration in the wife. In its fullness, it is an ideal which 
 no husband in this life can attain to; but its lesson is at least 
 practical and forceful in this matter of the decline of a wife's 
 physical attractiveness. Let a man when tempted to unfaith- 
 fulness or coldness toward his wife, consider and investigate 
 the cause of his temptation; and if the cause be the change of 
 desire here contemplated, let him, instead of alleging and ex- 
 ploiting the physical reasons for this change, in the interests of 
 lawless self-indulgence, summon to his aid the moral and 
 spiritual force which the previous years of his married life 
 should have caused to develop 2 ; let him prove that the power 
 
 though Married," where much sympathetic advice is given, enforced by 
 a wealth of anecdote, on mutual consideration, forbearance, gentleness, 
 tact, household management, and other matters of importance in re- 
 lation to matrimonial happiness. 
 
 'Jer. 2:2; Ezek. 16; Hos. 2:16, al. 
 
 1 In the progress of years, provided that the rational control of the, 
 sex-life is made the object of conscious moral choice, various psychic 
 
THE PROGRESSING SEX LIFE. 133 
 
 of the ethical elements in sexual love may exist and increase 
 even when its physical balance is disturbed. And let a wife 
 whose physical attractions fail in greater or less measure to 
 win her husband's regard in the same degree as formerly, strive 
 to compensate, nay, far more than compensate, for the partial 
 loss, by strengthening the subtle charm of feminine tact, sweet- 
 ness and grace of character. 
 
 "Happiness dwells not/' says a modern French writer, 1 "in 
 the unbridled multiplication of sensual pleasures. Human ex- 
 istence will find its highest meaning, its most lively and endur- 
 ing joy in the progressing operations of the mind and in the 
 duly controlled gratification of the senses. The sexes will 
 understand that their happiness depends definitively on a large 
 sobriety respecting indulgence in amorous intercourse." 
 
 These observations are framed in the high-flown, almost 
 the illusive, language of theory. Married people will fail again 
 and again to realize the ideal set forth in them. But we may 
 use them here to illustrate and enforce the truth that one of 
 the legitimate objects of marriage is to reduce carnal desire to 
 its proper relative position among the other interests and crav- 
 
 forces will come into play, pressing back the carnal impulse into its 
 proper perspective and due subordination in life as a whole. The culti- 
 vation of intellectual interests, the extension of the sympathies not 
 merely by intensified emotion, but by sustained thought and active effort, 
 everything, in short, that is directly or indirectly implied in the spirit- 
 ualization of human life and in communion with God in Christ — all this 
 aggregate of spiritual power, combining with the physiological processes 
 which normally modify carnal desire, tends to produce in man, as he 
 passes the physical prime of his sex-life, not necessarily a sexual frigidity, 
 but an increasing capacity of self-control and a greater ability to respond 
 to the call of self-sacrifice and sexual temperance which is not infre- 
 quently given by the circumstances of married life. 
 
 Op. the line of thought followed by Leconte, "Evolution and Re- 
 ligious Thought," p. 24:— 
 
 "Youth, glorious youth, must also pass. If the next highest group 
 of reflective and elaborate faculties do not arise and dominate in adult 
 manhood, then progressive deterioration of character commences here — 
 thenceforward the whole nature becomes coarse." 
 
 1 J. Lourbet: "Le Probleme des Sexes," p. 194 (Paris, 1900). 
 
134 EROTIC CARESSES. THE KAREZZA. 
 
 ings of life. And as this is its object, so it is also its natural 
 tendency. In a married life which is otherwise kindly and 
 religious, sexual desire should naturally and without any severe 
 strain tend to become moderate and subject to reason. "Mar- 
 riage hath a natural efficacy, besides a virtue by Divine blessing, 
 to cure the inconveniences which might otherwise afflict persons 
 temperate and sober." 1 
 
 Finally, the moral purpose must learn to mark, and to co- 
 operate sympathetically with the changes, ordinary or extraordi- 
 nary, due to age or to illness, in the subject's constitution. The 
 gratification, with its preceding strong excitement, which at 
 one time of life may be a seasonable and beneficial relief, may 
 become in altered circumstances of health — for example, by 
 reason of its accelerating influence upon the heart's action — the 
 means of emphasizing and developing some latent bodily weak- 
 ness, with prejudicial or even dangerous effect. Such vigilance 
 at this stage of the sex-life will reduce further the danger of 
 inadvisable self-indulgence in marriage. It may result in an 
 understanding between man and wife to keep apart for an in- 
 definite time; albeit here, as elsewhere, this result may not be 
 arrived at without repeated mistakes and failures, and should 
 at all times be considerately entertained by both parties, to 
 obviate possible conjugal discord. 
 
 There is little difficulty in these days about getting in- 
 formation, conveyed in a popular and intelligible style, on the 
 hygiene of conjugal intercourse. Much information of the 
 kind may be found in Dr. Lyman Sperry's book, "Confidential 
 Talks Between Husband and Wife." It is true that such in- 
 formation occasionally contains inferences of doubtful value, 
 and is open to criticism. The suggestion, e.g., which is con- 
 tained in the remarks on page 119 of Sperry's book, that mar- 
 ried people must allow themselves no caresses tending to arouse 
 sexual excitement unless with the intention of gratifying it, 
 may require in practice some modification. Habitually pro- 
 longed erotic excitement, involving a heavy nerve-strain, is 
 
 'Jeremy Taylor, "Holy Living." Chapter H, sections 3. Finis. 
 
CONTRECTATION. 135' 
 
 certainly not to be encouraged. Especially should no attempt 
 be made to substitute habitually such excitement (ungratified) 
 for sexual intercourse itself. This method is known as the 
 Karezza. But Dr. Sperry's suggestion must not be given an 
 extreme interpretation savoring of prudery; for although it 
 is doubtless the duty as well as the interest of married couples 
 to watch and control themselves in their erotic caresses, the 
 prohibition of such caresses, except where sexual intercourse is 
 actually contemplated, would impose an intolerable yoke upon 
 the mind and conscience. 
 
 The moral question here involved may be clearly stated by 
 the use of the terminology adopted from Moll by Havelock 
 Ellis ("Studies," vol. iii, p. 17). One of the impulses contribut- 
 ing to the formation of the sexual instinct in man is, according 
 to Moll's analysis, the impulse of contrectation, or the desire to 
 touch and fondle the object loved. Tumescence or sexual ex- 
 citement is the product of this impulse; and the normal end of 
 tumescense is detumescence, the act by which impregnation 
 takes place. Are married people, then, to restrain the impulse 
 of contrectation under moral penalty, unless they purpose pro- 
 ceeding the full length, to detumescence? This would be a 
 hard doctrine of marriage, and would stunt the development of 
 warm reciprocal emotions. By parity of reasoning it would 
 have to be considered immoral for a man and woman to dance 
 together, unless the result of such action was an engagement. 
 
 Indeed when the sexual process in man is viewed in extenso, 
 as consisting of a series of stages from the first reciprocal at- 
 traction, through contrectation up to detumescence and impreg- 
 nation, moral considerations leave it at least uncertain whether 
 special circumstances may not allow man to stop at any par- 
 ticular stage, without proceeding to the subsequent stages. "We 
 saw as much in our chapter on "Birth Control." 
 
 Nevertheless, it is true, as has been already affirmed, that 
 married people should always reverently consider the normal 
 end of the impulse of contrectation, and not allow themselves, 
 in a reckless self-indulgence, in calling that impulse into play, 
 or in diverting it from its natural end. 
 
136 FALSE ASCETICISM. 
 
 While it is urgently necessary to uphold and to strive for 
 the ideal of sexual temperance in the married estate, modern 
 society, not less than ancient, is liahle to witness the growth, 
 and experience the unwholesome influence of a falsely ascetic 
 sentiment in regard to the physical use of marriage. 1 We have 
 already found this sentiment expressed in the Manichsean and 
 other systems, and in the writings of certain modern moralists. 
 Here we refer to its unsystematized manifestation in private 
 life. Even where the theory of false asceticism might be re- 
 pudiated, it occasionally has some practical influence. For 
 example, great caution must be used in the endeavor to distin- 
 guish right from wrong in conjugal intercourse by reference to 
 the reactionary feelings following coitus. 2 The act has been 
 adjudged to be wrong if followed by feelings of regret, shame, 
 depression, etc. These feelings, though they must by no means 
 be ignored, do not always form a safe criterion. A religious 
 man of nervous organization may experience exaggerated reac- 
 tionary feelings of this nature, even when he and his wife in 
 the main strive to regulate their life according to the canons 
 of temperance. The moral effort he may need is partly one of 
 faith, to control the excess and morbid activity of reactionary 
 emotions after coitus. Sexual intercourse that is innocent in 
 itself, i.e., as performed in matrimony with a due and reason- 
 able regard to temperance, ought not to be "made wrong by 
 thinking." 
 
 Near the close of his earthly life, our Lord Jesus Christ 
 acted in the presence of His disciples a parable containing a 
 reference with which we may fittingly close the present chapter 
 in our consideration of sexual morality. 
 
 The symbolic act of washing the disciples' feet (St. John 
 13 : 5fl\), viewed in connection with the rest of St. John's teach- 
 ing about human sin, has always been taken to refer to the 
 
 'For a doctor's criticism of modern asceticism in respect of sex, 
 the body of opinion of which Tolstoy is the most prominent literary 
 exponent, I may refer to Eulenburg,in Senator and Rammer, op. eit., vol. 
 ii, pp. 877ff. 
 
 'Cp. Sperry, "Husband and Wife," p. 115. 
 
WASHING OF THE FEET. 137 
 
 Divine forgiveness of sins of mere infirmity, the inevitable 
 stains affecting man's moral nature, even when endued with 
 the highest spiritual purpose. In St. John's mind there is a 
 clear distinction between willful rebellion against God, the state 
 of sin which the man whose soul is in communion with God 
 cannot enter (I Jno. 3 : 8, 9 ; 5 : 18), as being contrary to the 
 law of his renewed nature; and the sins of infirmity which are 
 found even in the lives of men of right and good purpose, and 
 in regard to which they need a continual intercession, forgive- 
 ness, cleansing (I Jno. 2:2). 
 
 The symbolism of Christ's action has no doubt a general 
 application; but we may suggest here that it has a peculiar 
 and pointed reference to the moral infirmities so bound up in 
 our sexual nature. Though the language of the narrative is 
 Greek, its spirit and imagery are Oriental: to this passage we 
 may appropriately apply the remark of Harnack that the Greek 
 language lies upon the Gospels only like a diaphanous veil ; and 
 it requires hardly any effort to translate their contents into 
 Hebrew or Aramaic. 
 
 In Hebrew imagery, then, "the feet" is a euphemism for 
 the sexual organs, 1 and remembering this, we cannot fail to see 
 in the symbolic washing of the feet from inevitable stains, the 
 forgiveness by the Divine mercy of those declensions from the 
 true ideal of sexual morality which stain the souls even of men 
 whose purpose is pure. Apart from the willful, deliberate sins 
 of sex, the gross fornications, the cruel seductions, the abom- 
 inable perversions, the ingenious incitements to sin, there is 
 a whole world of lesser phenomena, the unavoidable infirmities 
 of sex. The full control of the sexual nature, the perfect 
 subordination of the carnal impulse to the government of rea- 
 son, the laws of health, and the higher law of self-sacrifice, is 
 an ideal which frequently is not actually attainable either in 
 celibacy or in marriage. In the best of circumstances, desire 
 is often a source of trouble, even of danger. It exerts itself 
 with an excess of force, or at unseasonable times; it becomes a 
 
 'Isa. 6:2; 7:20; 36:12. 
 
138 FORGIVEN INFIRMITIES. 
 
 disturbing influence, weakening the concentration of the pur- 
 pose on noble and elevating aims. A certain element of 
 morbidness and intemperance mingles with it almost irre- 
 sistibly. The deeper grows one's insight into human life, the 
 more sadly does one murmur in this connection Hooker's ques- 
 tion, "Since the first foundation of the world what one can 
 say, my ways are pure ?" Hardly, if at all, can a man, though 
 he keep upright and come by no great and visible fall, escape 
 the "stain on the feet," some hidden detriment to his sexual 
 nature. And amid secret fears arising from this cause, in 
 the hidden struggle between the flesh and the spirit, there is 
 much encouragement in the teaching of this parable. We have 
 here the Divine assurance that so long as man's purpose is 
 right, so long as he does not turn aside in conscious and willful 
 rebellion from the law of purity, so long as his life progresses 
 toward the ideal of chastity, he will not suffer deep and perma- 
 nent loss from those infirmities which he cannot wholly avoid. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 Spiritualized Sexual Love. 
 
 Its History — Its Basis, Significance, and Place in the Economy of 
 Life. 
 
 Moving to and fro as it does in humanity upon a wide sea 
 of emotions and sensations, sexual love is enabled to sound the 
 human spirit to some of its remotest depths, whether of good 
 or of ill. Strange and weird indeed are the perverted forms 
 of sexual emotion which, as we have had occasion to observe 
 elsewhere in this volume, lie in the obscure deeps of our social 
 life. In other directions sexual love discovers within man 
 spiritual movements and yearnings which the soul can hardly 
 interpret even to itself, a love of the beautiful, a longing for its 
 rarest, most refined manifestations — such a love as elevates 
 human nature toward the Divine. 
 
 Both the history and the analysis of the love-ecstasy in 
 humanity are surrounded with great difficulty and obscurity. 
 The opinion has been entertained that the spiritualized sexual 
 longing which men and women of the modern world often 
 experience, made its appearance in mankind during the age of 
 chivalry, animality being before that time the chief element in 
 love. It may safely be asserted, however, that in ages long 
 anterior to the age of chivalry the sexes had felt the mutual 
 magnetic attraction of souls with a force which at times 
 transcended that of carnal desire. The general tone of social 
 life in all ancient nations may have been coarse, regarded from 
 our modern standpoint; but none the less women were found 
 for whom a refined and spiritual passion was possible, and who 
 reciprocated it with equally exalted sentiments. The treat- 
 ment of sexual love in the writings of the ancients varies indeed 
 largely in spirit and tone, as it does among moderns, though our 
 social usage does not give to the latter a corresponding freedom 
 of expression. 
 
 (139) 
 
140 LOVE IN ANTIQUITY. 
 
 The sensuous side of sexual love has heen portrayed with 
 marvelous power and warmth of coloring in poems like the "In- 
 cantation" of Theocritus, and the "Song of Songs." In the 
 former of these, and in the latter also, if we disregard the 
 mystical interpretation, the sensuous element is most promi- 
 nent; indeed, it is only in the circumstances which may be 
 supposed to lie in the background of the "Song," and support 
 the plot, if plot there be, that any other motive can be found 
 other than those which spring from the rapturous contempla- 
 tion of physical beauty. 
 
 Although, however, its character may primarily be sensu- 
 ous, the love of physical beauty does not remain forever co- 
 extensive with the carnal hunger of the sexual instinct. It 
 awakens higher instincts of the soul. It gives an impulse to 
 the development of moral perceptions, and of spiritual emo- 
 tions. When we find in classical literature instances of pure 
 self-sacrifice, deep emotion, and unshaken fidelity having their 
 roots in sexual love, as in the characters of Penelope in Homer, 
 of Alcestis in Euripides, of Panegyris and Pinacium in Plautus, 
 of Sostrata in Terence; and in the history of Pollutia's widow- 
 hood and death in Tacitus; when we find that the Hebrew 
 word ahabhah is used with equal facility of sexual attraction, 1 
 and of the Divine love, 2 we must conclude that the "love of 
 women," even at the point of evolution which the human race 
 had reached two or three thousand years ago, had frequently 
 other and more refined elements than the carnal impulse; and 
 that the ecstasy of expectant sexual love may at times have 
 reached then, as it sometimes does now, an intensity in which 
 carnal excitement no longer predominates in the consciousness. 
 
 The strange spiritual intensity of sexual expectancy at- 
 tracted the notice of Plato, whose theory of love, while it post- 
 ulates the existence of the carnal impulse, allows for the move- 
 ment of subtle forces in the mind agitated by sexual expectancy 
 — forces which, even if they be considered to exist in germ in 
 
 'II Sam. 13:15. 
 
 l Hos. 11:4, Jer. 31:3, Is. 63:9, Zeph. 3:17. 
 
SUBLIMATION OF SEXUALITY. 141 
 
 the carnal impulse, 1 if they cannot wholly in this life sever 
 their connection with it, none the less afford an indication of 
 an ideal state in which the human soul filled with sexual love 
 may rise above, may become in some measure detached from, 
 carnal excitement; may experience and harbor intense and 
 eager longings for the possession and enjoyment of beauty, 
 longings which have larger elements of spiritual and moral, 
 than of carnal attraction. 
 
 Plato's conception of love as a cosmic and not merely a 
 planetary force — a contrast drawn out by F. Myers, "Human 
 Personality," etc., i, 335ff — is thus of far-reaching significance, 
 raising, as it does, sexual love in its highest aspects, above the 
 transience of Earth and Time, and demonstrating its connec- 
 tion with eternal processes. 
 
 It cannot escape the notice of the student of the Gospels 
 that Christ had a powerful influence over women. That He 
 practiced reserve in His dealings with them may be inferred 
 from St. John 4 : 27 2 ; yet His Person had an intense attraction 
 for them (Matt. 27 : 55, Mark 15 : 40, Luke 8 : 2, 23 : 49). Other 
 great leaders of men have possessed this peculiar power of 
 attracting to themselves the admiring and loving regard of 
 woman, of winning from women a voluntary obedience for the 
 furtherance of their purposes. Themistocles in a moment of 
 danger saved his life by a decisive appeal, an appeal which was 
 yet "masterful and partook of the nature of a command, made 
 to a woman. 
 
 *Cp. Letourneau, "Evol. of Marriage," p. 9: "If we are willing to 
 descend to the foundation of things, we find that human love is essen- 
 tially rut in an intelligent being. It exalts all the vital forces of the 
 man just as rut over-excites those of the animal. If it seems to differ 
 extremely from it, this is simply because in man the procreative need, 
 a primordial need beyond all others, in radiating from highly developed 
 nervous centers, awakens and sets in commotion an entire psychic life 
 unknown to the animal." 
 
 2 It was especially forbidden for a man to speak to a woman about 
 questions of the Law (Luthardt in loc). The astonishment displayed by 
 the disciples on this occasion testifies to the Master's ordinary regard 
 for the rabbinic custom. 
 
142 SUBLIMATION OP SEXUALITY. 
 
 One of the chief elements in this mental condition in the 
 woman is an unconscious sublimated sexuality. Christ's per- 
 sonality, by winning the affections and dominating the will of 
 women, subjugates the perfect female organism, and attracts to 
 itself the whole range of feminine emotion. The history of 
 female insanity, as appears from cases given by Havelock Ellis, 
 shows how, when the balance of the religious emotions is upset, 
 the latent, subconscious physical element may temporarily re- 
 assert itself and dominate the spiritualized sexuality. 1 
 
 The common experience of humankind shows, not less 
 clearly than philosophical speculations, the existence of these 
 connected yet diverse elements in love. Men and women of rich, 
 refined, and generous natures feel within themselves a longing 
 of unutterable intensity for the enjoyment of the ideal counter- 
 part and complement of themselves. This deep, indefinable 
 longing for ideal beauty, and the more or less imperfect realiza- 
 tions which meet it in the actual experience of life, have been 
 over and over again described and dwelt upon, as far as the 
 powers of human insight, language and imagination were able 
 to do so, in the literatures of mankind. The highest imagin- 
 ative genius wearies itself in its efforts to shadow forth a rep- 
 resentation of spiritualized sexual love. Some of the finest 
 ethical conceptions in literature have been inspired by the idea 
 of the love-ecstasy; it has, in truth, a mighty influence over 
 the natural dispositions of men, and while it lasts, endues them 
 abundantly even with those virtues in which they have been 
 most conspicuously lacking. Men of the world whose minds 
 have become mature in coarseness, and who in their lives repu- 
 diate, more and more expressly, high moral ideals, may indeed 
 and do see nothing in a woman's outward beauty but a stimulus 
 to -sexual excitement ; but there is that in the minds of younger 
 men which causes them instinctively to look for moral beauty 
 
 1 Cp. Forel ("Die sexuelle Frage," Munich, 1905), who observes, 
 following Krafft-Ebing, that ecstatic love and religious ecstasy are 
 closely allied, the latter condition often supervening as a solace and 
 recompense for a disappointment in love; and who describes various 
 psychic results of the relation between the two ecstasies. 
 
PLACE OF ECSTATIC LOVE. 143 
 
 alongside of the highest physical beauty; and in many love- 
 affairs, especially those of young lovers, a point is reached at 
 which sexual expectancy becomes almost overpowered by 
 ethical aspiration. 
 
 But these higher developments of love are as yet uncertain 
 in their duration. Their progress needs to be watched and 
 considered with soberness; otherwise the love-ecstasy, with its 
 vast power of stirring the emotions and moral consciousness, 
 will be like a potent draught which first invigorates and in- 
 spires, and then induces exhaustion and debility. Even in a 
 love-affair which seems to its actors purely spiritual, carnal 
 excitement sooner or later supervenes. Indeed, these emo- 
 tional developments of love are not to be rashly translated into 
 practice, with a view to eliminating from the matrimonial rela- 
 tionship the element of animality which naturally and rightly 
 belongs to it. The idea of marriage as a purely spiritual bond 
 without any carnal connection, does not seem, in the circum- 
 stances of this present life of ours, a healthy or acceptable one. 
 
 Nevertheless, as aforesaid, ecstatic love should be mor- 
 ally bracing. It should be helpful in the work of directing 
 and controlling the physical desire. Further, as a psychical 
 phenomenon it has a bearing on the interpretation of life. 
 "Love," said Eenan, "is the most wonderful and the most sug- 
 gestive fact in the world." The existence of the love-ecstasy 
 may point to the future development in the human soul of 
 strange powers of love, and of a spiritual appetite for beauty. 
 The Christian revelation does not make clear the future of sex 
 in the hereafter. The doctrine of a continuous personal iden- 
 tity which seems to be implied in the New Testament makes it 
 evident that the division into sexes in this world must somehow 
 bear permanent fruit in another. Though marriage as we con- 
 ceive of it must vanish with the things of this world, it is not 
 perhaps to be inferred that there will be no special unions, the 
 outcome of a special kind or degree of reciprocal love, in the 
 next life. The desire of beauty in the human soul may become 
 more and more wondrously illumined, refined and spiritualized, 
 so as to awaken new capacities of taking pleasure in a mutual 
 
144 SEX IN THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 relation of love, capacities which, however imperfectly we may 
 apprehend their existence now, even when our taste for sexual 
 enjoyment is most exalted and detached from the carnal in- 
 stinct, may conceivably absorb into themselves and thus trans- 
 form the carnal appetite which under present conditions moves 
 with such a vast power the whole being of man. 
 
 St. Augustine ("De Civ. Dei," xxii, 17) thus records his 
 thought about the future relation of the sexes: — 
 
 "To me they seem to think most justly, who doubt not that 
 both sexes shall rise again * * * the members of the 
 woman shall not be adapted to their former use, but framed for 
 a new beauty, one by which the beholder is not allured to lust, 
 which shall not then be, but God's wisdom and mercy shall be 
 praised, which made that to be which was not, and delivered 
 from corruption that which was made." 
 
 This passage expresses a well-grounded hope of the ulti- 
 mate realization, amid appropriate conditions, of an exalted 
 spiritual ideal. 1 
 
 It is not with full confidence, perhaps, that we can appeal 
 at this point to the as yet nascent science of spiritism, the inves- 
 tigation of spiritual phenomena. Yet so far as observation war- 
 rants a conclusion, it seems probable that in the spiritual ex- 
 istence the phenomenon of sex obtains a certain continuity, a 
 law holds that reproduces sex under changed and higher condi- 
 tions. Spiritual appearances take place in the sexual form 
 which belonged to them in this life. If science allows the 
 assertion that in the next world "their loves of earth persist" 
 (Myers, "Human Personality," vol. ii, p. 287), it is to be in- 
 ferred that love of such peculiar depth as is manifested in the 
 pure and hallowed relations of the sexes, will find in the eternal 
 world some continuous and corresponding expression. 
 
 1 Cp. Edersheim, "Life and Times," ii, 402. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 Modesty. 
 
 Origin and Purpose of Modesty — Biblical Estimates of — Modesty 
 Among Women — Woman's Right of Marriage — Woman's Special Sexual 
 Difficulties. 
 
 Modesty is an extremely important part of sexual morality 
 in modern civilization. The forms of it with which we are 
 familiar are the product of many causes operating through long 
 ages. It has peculiar developments in the female sex. 
 
 It is not the purpose of the present chapter to attempt any 
 further estimate of these causes, already briefly discussed in our 
 first chapter. It is enough to say that something in the moral 
 constitution of man responds readily to their action. 
 
 Modesty, then, would seem to be in part a right, in part a 
 faulty development in humanity; or to put it more clearly, a 
 development out of which, however low and unpromising its 
 ethical beginnings may have been, good and utility have been 
 evolved. It is of vast use and importance as a preservative of 
 chastity. It helps in keeping the right ideals of sexual morality 
 before men's eyes. 
 
 Accordingly, as we should expect, modesty finds a place in 
 the ideals of character set forth in the Bible. The sexual 
 nature and all that pertains to it, is to be treated with reverence 
 in speech and in act; not spoken of coarsely, 1 unnecessarily, 2 
 or with an evil motive. The more glaring offences against 
 modesty are condemned as shamefulness (ato^poriys), and 
 shameful talk, (alcrxpoXoyui) . The special obligation of modesty 
 in women is recognized. Women are not to ape masculinity or 
 
 'Col. 3:8. 
 
 »Eph. 5:12, II Cor. 4:2. 
 
 10 (145) 
 
146 DEVELOPMENTS OF MODESTY. 
 
 strive for prominence in assemblies of men. 1 In two passages, 2 
 where married women seem to be specially in the writers' minds, 
 they are commanded to set off their charms with modesty and 
 soberness, in strong contrast to the profuse and immodest 
 adornment of former daughters of Jerusalem (Isa. 3:18). 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the thoughts of the writers 
 of antiquity about women for the most part center round her in 
 her capacity of wife. And modesty in a wife, in a woman who 
 no longer feels the void in her life which marriage alone fills, 
 who needs not to exert her powers of sexual attraction save in 
 the intimate relationship upon which she has entered, is always 
 highly valued by men. Thus Sirach 26 : 15, "Grace upon grace 
 is a shamefast woman (ywy al<rx vvTr IP^)" 
 
 But modesty has many subsidiary developments; and on 
 investigation, some of these will be found to be neither reason- 
 able, nor consonant with the ethical tenor of Christianity. The 
 fact that reserve and caution in regard to the performance of 
 nature's necessary functions is sometimes carried to excess in 
 Anglo-Saxon society, may be hardly worth more than a passing 
 allusion. Over-delicacy in the matter, in circumstances of 
 physical distress, is no part of a just ethical scheme. Women, 
 particularly, will sometimes put up with great and injurious 
 inconveniences, owing to some remote or imaginary danger of 
 publicity. A society which exacts such a degree of modesty is 
 pressing the need of it too far. 
 
 The question of greatest practical interest in connection 
 with modesty relates to woman's right of seeking marriage. 
 How far does the obligation of modesty require a concealment 
 of sexual emotion on the part of women? Is the truly, nay 
 the only, modest woman she who represses in herself all 
 spontaneity, allows herself no display of amorous feeling, no 
 conscious use of feminine charms, calculated to attract a man's 
 attention? Is she to remain passive, immobile in the matter; 
 not perhaps reluctant to receive masculine attention when 
 
 'I Cor. 11: 2-16, 14: 34ff. 
 »I Tim. 29. I Pet. 3: 8. 
 
MODESTY IN WOMEN. 147 
 
 offered her, but utterly devoid of any endeavor to seek for it of 
 her own will ? 
 
 At this point it becomes imperative to face the fact that, 
 as among men, so among women, there is great natural diver- 
 sity in the strength of amorous passion. It is therefore im- 
 possible to give a definition or estimate of modesty which shall 
 apply universally among women; for one woman's passions and 
 circumstances may differ so much from another's that in the one 
 case the same concealment of sexual emotion as is possible in 
 the other, is neither possible nor desirable. 
 
 It has been argued in this work that man has a right of 
 marriage; and that the power of sexual desire within him is 
 a factor of very great importance in his decision with regard to 
 claiming that right. If continence becomes intolerable and 
 injurious to health and work, marriage, even in circumstances 
 which seem to render the step imprudent, becomes in some 
 measure justifiable. But in regard to women, the question 
 arises whether, in the event of physical amorousness becoming 
 such as to entail a severe and intolerable strain upon a woman's 
 nervous system 1 — a condition which, though perhaps rare, is by 
 no means non-existent — the greater obligation to modesty in 
 woman still refuses to allow her to seek, if not by actual request, 
 yet by the no less effective means of attraction, the relief of 
 marriage. 
 
 If such be the case, convention imposes upon women at 
 least a seeming injustice; a yoke, at times in a high degree 
 cruel and torturing. Not but what it must be borne in mind 
 that if the obligation of modesty presses unfairly on one sex, 
 economic considerations, the anxiety about ways and means, 
 are the special burden of the other. Each sex, in a state of 
 civilization, has its own peculiar and sometimes grievous diffi- 
 culties in the way of the legitimate satisfying and developing of 
 the sexual nature. 
 
 "■Havelburg describes the physical and other indications of strain, 
 — it may be frequently semi-conscious strain— noticeable as the effect 
 of enforced celibacy in the female sex. (Senator and Kaminer, op. eit., 
 vol. i, pp. 193, 294) 
 
148 SEXUAL ATTRACTION. 
 
 But while women, even in cases where the task of restrain- 
 ing erotic passion is exceptionally painful, are not justified in 
 rashly disregarding the special obligation of their sex to 
 modesty; that obligation is not to be regarded as an iron yoke, 
 confining all with a uniform rigidity. We have seen, indeed, 
 that the endeavor to exercise sexual attraction is immodest and 
 immoral on the part of a woman, if it arise from vanity or from 
 the reckless desire to seek sexual gratification, no matter 
 through what channel. But not only is it obvious that woman 
 is gifted, in the economy of nature, with powers of sexual at- 
 traction designed for responsible use, but the Bible, where we 
 rightly seek for special revelations of the Creator's will on 
 ethical subjects, presents us with ideals of womanly conduct in 
 which the absence of the wish to attract the desire of the 
 other sex is certainly not an essential element. 
 
 Complete sexual passivity is no part of the anabolic habit. 1 
 Lourbet ("Le Probleme des Sexes," p. 16) points out that the 
 ovum is wrongly thought of as remaining immobile when ex- 
 pecting the approach of the sperm. On the contrary, it mani- 
 fests slight movements in the direction of the sperm. 
 
 There is little difficulty in establishing the proposition that 
 the obligation of modesty is not precisely the same, has not the 
 same ethical bearings, in the case of the unmarried, as in the 
 case of the married woman. 
 
 Westermarck ("Hist, of Hum. Marriage," Chapter IX) has 
 adduced a great mass of evidence to show that mankind in a 
 primitive state allows to unmarried women a certain freedom 
 in exercising sexual attraction by self-decoration and similar 
 means, which is not allowed in the same degree to married 
 women. 
 
 Similarly, in the view of the Biblical writers, modesty does 
 not bind women to a sexual passivity. The doctrine that the 
 
 x ~F6r6 ("L'Instinct Sexuel," E. T., pp. 47, 186) says that for the 
 female to manifest instincts of sexual pursuit is a sign of inversion. 
 This contention must be interpreted with considerable caution. By 
 no means every manifestation of sexual activity in the female ought 
 to be classed as "sexual pursuit," and branded as unfeminine. 
 
WOMAN'S EIGHT OF MARRIAGE. 149 
 
 married woman is not to infringe conjugal rights by making 
 herself sexually attractive to men other than her own husband, 
 is indeed, as we have seen, enunciated in the Bible; but it does 
 not seem to be implied that an unmarried woman is to make no 
 effort to acquire a husband. On the contrary, when circum- 
 stances emphasize the need of marriage in a woman's life, great 
 freedom seems to be allowed her, by Biblical morality, in order 
 to compass that end. St. Paul recognized that sexual emotion 
 might make single life impracticable to younger women. 1 He 
 would hardly have given them such emphatic advice to marry 
 had he considered it always immodest in a woman to endeavor 
 consciously to attract a man, with a view to marriage. 
 
 Unmarried women, in ancient Hebrew and Jewish society, 
 enjoyed a large amount of liberty, which is not ordinarily con- 
 sidered by Biblical writers a matter for reprobation. Some 
 girls, it is true, then as now abused liberty, and eagerly sought 
 after pleasure and admiration in many quarters. Thus Sirach 
 warns a father to keep strict watch on a headstrong (dSiaTpon-u) 
 daughter with a shameless eye. 2 But here he has in mind 
 the case of girls who, whenever they get a chance, will wantonly 
 indulge their sexual inclinations; not those who, whatever may 
 be the strength of their passions, have yet a pure will ; and who 
 would not seek for sexual gratification outside of the married 
 state. 
 
 Such passages do not weaken our general position that 
 neither natural nor Scriptural morality misapprehend the 
 amorous impulse in the female sex so far as to brand as im- 
 modest in a woman every conscious attempt to give expression 
 to the desire for marriage which she cannot refuse to enter- 
 tain in her inner being. The morality of a woman's use of her 
 charms must be tested more by her motive than by conventional 
 opinion. This latter, indeed, in spite of its frequent unreason- 
 ableness, is valuable as affording at least a temporary check to 
 action; and thereby giving opportunity for the proper con- 
 
 n Tim. 5:11. 
 
 'Sir. 26: 10, 42: 11. 
 
150 WOMAN'S RIGHT OF MARRIAGE 
 
 sideration of motive. People impelled by a strong impulse, 
 such as the erotic impulse, cannot always be sure of the justice 
 of their own motive. Many a woman has doubtless been re- 
 strained by convention from acting on an erotic impulse which, 
 however pure it appeared in her own eyes, would have led to 
 disaster. Even a conventional modesty is something of a pro- 
 tection to chastity. 
 
 But what is here maintained is that woman's sexual rights 
 — the question whether that right to sexual intercourse which 
 every creature, male or female, possessed of a sexual nature 
 must have, is in a particular case to be claimed or waived— 
 cannot be estimated, cannot be decided, in all cases, merely by 
 reference to conventional standards and ideas of modesty. In 
 woman's life, as in man's, exceptional difficulties must be met 
 in exceptional ways. 
 
 Isaiah (4 : 1) gives us an ideal picture of women in a time 
 of desperation, pathetically and eagerly seeking for husbands; 
 fearing the reproach of desolation more than the irregularity 
 of their request. Such a picture must have some reflection in 
 fact. More impressive still is the story of Ruth, who comes 
 before us as one of the purest and most beautiful feminine 
 characters iii the Bible; yet who made known her desire for a 
 husband by methods involving a superb disregard of modesty, as 
 we consider it nowadays. 1 
 
 After making full allowance for the difference in the moral 
 standards and ideas existing in Hebrew antiquity from those of 
 our own time, there is a permanent significance, a doctrine of 
 enduring value, about the sexual rights of women, inherent in 
 the passages referred to. They enforce our view that a true 
 conception of modesty does not bind woman to sexual passivity ; 
 but that amative advances to men, if only they are inspired and 
 controlled by a pure and legitimate motive — the desire for mar- 
 riage — fall within the sphere of women's just rights. The 
 ancient and natural view, that a married woman is more bound 
 to modesty, to the concealment of erotic passion, than an un- 
 
 'Ruth 3:7fl. 
 
FALSE PUBLIC OPINION. 151 
 
 married one, is better than the opposite notion largely accepted 
 in educated circles at the present time, that a matron in society 
 — e.g., in a ballroom — may be more free with the men than her 
 full-grown, but unmarried daughter. 
 
 In a paper on "The Modesty of Englishwomen," in the 
 "Nineteenth Century and After," No. 290, p. 596, Mrs. Ma- 
 hood makes the following reflections on the standard of modesty 
 required of English girls by modern custom in regard to their 
 inclinations to marriage : — 
 
 "A man may remark on his intention to marry at some 
 indefinite future time, when prudence or other considerations 
 may make it possible or advisable, without having as a rule to run 
 the gauntlet of a chorus of impertinent and stupid would-be 
 witty remarks. But should a girl be bold enough, or rather, 
 natural and simple enough, to say the same thing, what would 
 be the result? Why, every one knows that she would be 
 promptly sneered out of countenance. And why? Is it im- 
 modest for a woman to express a determination to enter into a 
 state which we are being continually reminded is a natural and 
 honorable state, while it is natural and proper for a man to do 
 so?" 
 
 Mrs. Mahood implies, justly as it seems, that there is a 
 great element of unfairness and harshness toward women in 
 such a state of public opinion; which is probably the outcome, 
 not merely, as she thinks, of the disproportion existing in Eng- 
 land between the numbers of marriageable men and of mar- 
 riageable women, but also of the growth in past generations, 
 as well as in the present, of false notions of what female 
 modesty ought to be, notions which, as is shown in the present 
 chapter, suffer by comparison with the primitive natural idea. 
 
 Of course the suggestion that woman's part in the initial 
 stages of a love affair is not one of entire passivity, varies 
 greatly in its application. Some may say that it is a needless 
 suggestion; and that many girls might make it the basis of a 
 disastrous eagerness for marriage. Against such a misapplica- 
 tion we have already guarded in this chapter; but it must be 
 observed that just as excess of sexual liberty has wrought havoc 
 
152 MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISING. 
 
 in the lives of some women, so the prudish refusal of even a 
 certain degree of such liberty has done grievous wrong to 
 others. Many a woman has doubtless suffered severely from 
 sexual isolation, who might have been happily and healthily 
 married, had it not been for difficulties placed in her way by 
 overstrained social exclusiveness, or by erroneous notions of 
 the obligation of modesty. 
 
 A rational system of sexual ethics will not contain any 
 definite rules as to the methods by which women in civilized 
 communities may legitimately discover the erotic longing with 
 a view to its just satisfaction in matrimony. Many women 
 find in a natural, though more or less conscious, use of feminine 
 charms and grace all that is required by the conditions of their 
 sexual life; but, as already hinted, an unusual degree of erotic 
 passion, involving an intolerable strain, may make a special 
 boldness in the display of emotion necessary even for a woman. 
 
 Perhaps the extremest methods by which women, in the 
 artificial life of modern civilization, notify their desire for mar- 
 riage, are exemplified in matrimonial agencies and advertise- 
 ment columns. The present conditions of such advertising are 
 such that no pressure of circumstances could justify the risks 
 which would be entailed by taking, this step. Eecently the 
 "Guardian" newspaper, commenting on a most painful case in 
 the English law courts, remarked that the publication of matri- 
 monial advertisements ought to be made a penal offense. 
 "They are in some cases a means of obtaining money fraudu- 
 lently from silly dupes; in other cases they are simply a trap 
 employed by the pander and the procuress." 
 
 Matrimonial advertising should at any rate be placed under 
 stringent regulations. Newspapers should be compelled to take 
 out a special license for the insertion of such advertisements, 
 of which a register might be kept; and no one should be allowed 
 to insert such an advertisement without being able to exhibit 
 a certificate of character from some responsible and trust- 
 worthy person in the locality. The object for which this certi- 
 ficate was desired need not necessarily be disclosed. Under no 
 
MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISING. 153 
 
 circumstances should men be allowed to insert such advertise- 
 ments. 
 
 It might be possible to regulate matrimonial advertising, 
 and to free the system from the worst dangers now inherent in 
 it; but it cannot be denied that such advertising, and every 
 other extreme method of extending, on the woman's side, her 
 quest of a partner, could only be justified morally by extreme 
 pressure. That such pressure may exist in isolated cases, it 
 seems impossible to deny. Doubtless, at any rate — could the 
 dry columns of print unfold the real life-story — it would be 
 seen that some women have had recourse to such expedients only 
 after and owing to an exhausting conflict with the sexual im- 
 pulse. 
 
 Vastly more important, however, than any attempt to de- 
 fine the manner and methods by which the sexual longing is 
 permitted to discover itself, in woman or in man, is the empha- 
 sis which must ever be placed upon the necessity of trusting that 
 Divine Providence which promises to patient faith, support and 
 guidance in every kind of conflict and perplexity; and the due 
 fulfillment of all human needs, sexual needs as well as any 
 other. 
 
 Where there is a numerical disproportion of the sexes, as in 
 some colonial settlements, attempts to adjust the proportion and 
 to give the normal facilities for marriage engage the attention 
 of governments. Wholesale importations of women have been 
 sometimes talked of; but such crude means obviously do not 
 promise well. It does not follow that a policy of numerical 
 readjustment is inadmissible in se. It might be possible to 
 encourage female immigration, under proper safeguards, by the 
 establishing of a special bureau, some of whose officials should 
 themselves be able and conscientious women. The immediate 
 object of such immigration should be female labor ; but it would 
 indirectly make marriage easier of access. Indeed, one is in- 
 clined to go a step further. It is in such circumstances as are 
 here outlined, if anywhere, that the matrimonial agency has a 
 legitimate place. If a colonist living in a wild part, with almost 
 
154 MATRIMONIAL AGENCIES. 
 
 no opportunities of meeting women — as is not infrequently the 
 case — desires a wife, it is difficult to see anything immoral or 
 immodest in his making private application to a government 
 agency of female immigration, managed by women of high 
 character. Thus would arise at least some possibility of the 
 fulfilment of his need. 
 
 It would be interesting to know what proportion of cases 
 have turned out well in experiments actually undertaken in 
 regard to the provision of spouses. But the history of matri- 
 monial agencies on its honorable side — if it has one — has yet to 
 be written. 1 
 
 1 Matrimonial advertising appears in a not unfavorable aspect in 
 a short article by Mary Winton in the "Grand Magazine" for July, 1905, 
 where some personal experiences are narrated, and a scheme, quite un- 
 objectionable from a moral point of view, for the establishment of 
 matrimonial bureaus, is briefly outlined. 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 DlTOBOE. 
 
 Statement of the Question — Christian Ideal of Marriage — Uncer- 
 tainty of Ecclesiastical Opinion on Divorce — Christ on Divorce — St. 
 Paul — Attitude of State — Duty of Church in the Matter. 
 
 In modern consideration of divorce, one of the most diffi- 
 cult, as it is one of the most momentous, of sex problems, there 
 stands out in strong relief, amid much confusion of mind, a 
 sincere desire on the part of thinking Christians to arrive at a 
 view of divorce which shall meet certain extreme needs arising 
 in circumstances of exceptional stress, without weakening the 
 highest moral obligations bound up with Christianity. 
 
 To discuss the historical developments of ecclesiastical 
 opinion on the subject of divorce is beyond the plan of the pres- 
 ent essay. It will be sufficient to put forward some general 
 considerations. 
 
 Whether the ideal of the indissolubility of marriage was 
 actually realized and divorce was unknown among primeval 
 men, does not appear provable. A few known peoples on the 
 lowest plane of culture do not allow divorce; and an inference 
 of some value may be drawn from the fact that some birds, and 
 possibly the anthropomorphous apes, appear to pair for life. 
 But the early history of divorce is exceedingly obscure. 1 
 
 The problem of divorce is not seldom discussed in works 
 of fiction, a method of treatment which, while it affords special 
 facilities for investing the subject with its proper human inter- 
 est, is too apt to result in the subordination of philosophic treat- 
 ment and analysis to the development of the plot of a novel, and 
 in the presentation and advocacy of partisan views. 
 
 1 Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 247ff. Westermarck, op. cit, pp. 517, 
 521ff. 
 
 X155) 
 
156 CHRISTIAN ESTIMATE OF LOVE. 
 
 It is frequently urged that the only bond which makes a 
 marriage contract valid, and the only guarantee of its stability, 
 is love; and by an imperfect estimate of love, it is argued that 
 when the sentiment of mutual love ceases to exist, a marriage 
 contract between two parties, though originally entered upon 
 under the shadow of the most solemn religious sanctions, need 
 no longer be observed. But Christian society sees that this 
 argument rests upon a fundamental misconception. Its own 
 estimate of love is infinitely higher than one which makes it 
 out to be no more than a sentiment. Love is an incentive to 
 duty which stimulates the will, even when sentiment has lost 
 much of its power over the emotions and affections. Thus 
 love would still urge one party to a marriage to be true to the 
 other by an effort of will, even though circumstances might 
 have arisen which would inevitably cause a diminution of sen- 
 timental affection. Ideally, this incentive to duty arising from 
 the action of love on the will-power is too strong to be nulli- 
 fied by any of the adverse circumstances of this life. Not 
 incompatibility of tastes or ill-temper, not imprisonment or in- 
 sanity or adultery itself, however much they may depress the 
 sentiments which spontaneously arise when conjugal love flour- 
 ishes amid normal conditions, can avail to destroy the convic- 
 tion that fidelity, maintained without regard to the self-sacri- 
 fice involved, will ultimately meet its reward. The grandeur 
 of some of the noblest lives which have ever graced humanity 
 has sprung from the realization of this ideal of conjugal love, 
 in circumstances of exceptional pain and difficulty. 
 
 The view is taken by some writers, e.g., Edersheim, "Life 
 and Times," and Newman Smyth, in "Christian Ethics," that 
 by the very fact of adultery the marriage-bond is broken. The 
 ethical tendency of this proposition is doubtful, and there are 
 difficulties of reasoning in its elucidation. It is, as has often 
 been pointed out, capable of a reductio ad abswdum from the 
 facts of human experience. A forgiven adultery is doubtless, 
 in some cases, one of the secrets of married life; nor does this 
 act of forgiveness render necessary the renewal by public con- 
 sent of the marriage compact, as it must logically do according 
 
THE MARRIAGE BOND. 157 
 
 to the theory of dissolution by adultery. 1 Adultery cannot, ac- 
 cording to the theory of conjugal love developed in the Bible, 
 be regarded as a necessarily unpardonable sin against the re- 
 maining partner. Such moral teaching as is conveyed in a 
 passage like the wonderful allegory in Ezek. 16, where Jehovah 
 suffers the conjugal relation to subsist between Himself and 
 Israel, at the end of her long career of reckless licentiousness, 
 is in itself sufficient to prove that conjugal love cannot be lim- 
 ited in its possibilities of long-suffering, as it is under the 
 above-mentioned hypothesis. The allegory would lose much 
 of the force which it now possesses, if the state of things 
 which it describes were not in some degree possible in actual 
 life. Moreover, as the Anglican marriage service states, there 
 are other departments of conjugal life besides the primarily 
 sexual. Why then should a sin in this latter department nec- 
 essarily and automatically dissolve marriage any more than orje 
 in another? It seems preferable to state the matter thus. The 
 occurrence of an adultery gives to the remaining partner the 
 option of thereafter consciously giving up his adhesion to the 
 marriage-bond which he formerly acknowledged. But accord- 
 ing to the Christian ideal of matrimony one is not to avail one- 
 self of this possibility of dissolving a marriage as long as the 
 adulterous partner may repent of and renounce the sin. 
 
 That part of the Christian Church which inculcates the 
 strictest doctrine in accordance with this ideal, is unquestion- 
 ably rendering a vast service to society. By making the ideal 
 of human marriage stand out in strong relief, it sternly empha- 
 sizes the call to self-sacrifice. It prevents the general concep- 
 tion of marriage from degenerating into one which would ener- 
 vate character and moral strength. It lifts conjugal love from 
 the region of animality into a sphere where it finds the highest 
 development. 
 
 'According to the ideal Catholic view of matrimonial consent, the 
 above contention may not hold; but as has been already noted, this 
 view is not the one held by modern states, and it tends to disappear in 
 practice in Christian society. 
 
158 THE IDEAL AND ITS REALIZATION. 
 
 All potential causes of divorce or nullification of marriage 
 are regarded from the ideal standpoint of the Christian mar- 
 riage vow as removable, or at least as capable of being rendered 
 ineffective by moral or other means ; and many even of the most 
 unpromising causes frequently prove to be actually curable and 
 removable. Consequently, divorce for any cause must ever be 
 below the Christian ideal of marriage. 
 
 None the less, the difference of opinion in the Church re- 
 specting the lawfulness of divorce in certain circumstances, and 
 the obscurity of the Bible teaching upon it, taken as a whole, 
 show that inevitable failures to reach the ideal are contem- 
 plated. Such at any rate seems to be the possible inference 
 from the difficult passage, St. Matt. 19 : ll. 1 
 
 St. Paul, again, speaking of divorce in I Cor. 7, causes the 
 ideal law of marriage to stand out in strong relief before the 
 minds of those who have been brought together in wedlock 
 under the shadow of the Christian Covenant. But it may fairly 
 be asked, is his language such as to allow us to infer that he 
 desiderates a rigidly uniform enforcement of this ideal? He 
 seems to be thinking of cases in which, after some grave diffi- 
 culty has arisen between Christian man and wife, a return to the 
 full sweetness of the conjugal relation is possible. In regard to 
 cases in which this return is not possible, e.g., from some phys- 
 ical cause, would he have uniformly given the same judgment? 
 Would a man whose attitude upon the indissolubility of mar- 
 riage was clearly and perfectly defined, have tolerated even such 
 an idea as that of a Christian husband whose pagan wife left 
 him, being allowed to regard the marriage contract as thereby 
 annulled ? 
 
 It is true, at the same time, that even if the above infer- 
 ence be allowed, failures to reach the marriage ideal could only 
 be regarded as venial, according to a just view of the New Testa- 
 ment teaching, owing to intolerable stress of circumstances. 
 
 The effect which such an inference might have in modify- 
 ing the strictness of legislation on divorce needs careful con- 
 
 1 See further, note on p. 203. 
 
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH. 159 
 
 sideration. The simplest, and probably the best attitude for 
 the Church on the question is the one actually taken up by the 
 High Church party in the Anglican Church, viz., to maintain 
 the ideal of marriage as indissoluble, as it is set forth in the 
 canon law and formularies of that Church. 1 Individual depart- 
 ures from the highest standard of marriage, though they may 
 conceivably be rendered inevitable by force of circumstances, 
 and though they may not be without some obscure sanction, as 
 is suggested above, in the general ethical scheme of Christianity, 
 could not be regarded indifferently by the Church. It may be 
 said with some confidence that it is the duty of the clergy to 
 refuse to remarry persons who have been partners in a former 
 marriage which, for any reason whatever, has been dissolved. 
 But a decided attitude as to the special duty of the Church 
 is compatible, among Anglicans, with some extension of view on 
 the broad question of the lawfulness of divorce. It is not clear 
 that the position of the Church in the matter is necessarily to 
 be taken up by the state. If the Church, as an exponent of the 
 highest morality known to mankind, must with its utmost 
 efforts maintain the ideal of marriage, the state must provide 
 for the inevitable failures of individuals here and there to 
 reach that ideal. If the Church is to guard the general rule, 
 the state must consider the exceptions. Conceivably there may 
 be cases in which when one married partner persistently and 
 irremediably fails to perform conjugal duties, the other, after 
 full experience and sincerest effort, finds the strain thus induced 
 upon mind, nerves, and health positively unendurable. From 
 some complicating causes, constitutional defects, physical or 
 moral weakness, or whatever they may be, his strength proves 
 itself unequal to the burden which the severity of the Christian 
 marriage commandment, in its ideal form, imposes. He fairly 
 proves that it is not given him to "receive the saying." "Would 
 it be inconsistent with the view of divorce put forward in the 
 New Testament, that view being taken in its utmost vague 
 breadth as found in St. Matt. 19, to allow that in extreme cases 
 
 1 See "Guardian," quoted in Luekock, "History of Marriage," p. 238. 
 
160 CIVIL REMARRIAGE. 
 
 where human love, after full trial, has proved unequal to an 
 exceptional strain, remarriage should take place, — after the 
 lapse of a considerable specified time 1 — not under the sanction 
 of the Church, but under that of the state? 
 
 No compulsion is to be placed on the clergy, on this theory, 
 in respect of either themselves celebrating such remarriages, or 
 lending their churches for that purpose. For the partners to 
 be obliged to resort to the civil registrar's court, in such a case, 
 and to be deprived of celebrating the marriage under the sanc- 
 tion of a venerable Christian ceremony, would in some measure 
 safeguard society — at any rate, the society of the members of 
 any Church which takes the highest view of the responsible 
 nature of the marriage contract — against looking with reckless 
 laxity upon individual failures to maintain the ideal. The un- 
 compromising attitude of the Roman Church toward divorce is 
 said to have had this effect in America, upon members of its 
 own communion. 2 
 
 "This point is of great importance, in view of the fact that the 
 attitude of the state on moral questions helps greatly in educating the 
 moral sense of the community. The obtaining of a divorce is condi- 
 tioned in our laws something in the manner indicated, time having to 
 elapse between the decree nisi and the decree absolute. A writer in the 
 "Guardian," reviewing a recent anonymous work on divorce, warns the 
 Christian Church against allowing the divorce law of England to be 
 made frankly secular. If by the phrase "frankly secular'' is implied an 
 attitude of avowed hostility to the Christian ideal of marriage, the 
 present writer would find this warning acceptable. But there is an 
 alternative position, the one taken up in this chapter, i.e., that the 
 state may frame its marriage laws so as to approximate to and as far 
 as possible assist the realization of the Christian ideal of marriage, yet 
 not so as to lend its support to the rigid and indiscriminate enforcing 
 of that ideal upon society. It is at least patent that a law confining 
 facilities for remarriage after divorce within very narrow limits, signally 
 fails in practice to accomplish its purpose of penalizing the nonfulfil- 
 ment of matrimonial obligations, and of preventing among the mass of 
 the people a species of divorce without the assistance of the Court 
 — to borrow Mr.' Booth's phrase; and an ensuing state of cohabita- 
 tion resembling and approximating to the married estate. (See 
 C. Booth, "Life and Labor," etc., Final Vol., p. 42.) 
 
 * See the York Report on Divorce, p. 37. The above observation is 
 
CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 161 
 
 The Church has, besides, the power of excommunication, 
 which might be exercised over any member who recklessly and 
 without sufficient reason fell short of the marriage ideal. All 
 that is here advanced is that, in quite extreme cases, the Church 
 might hesitate to brand as sinful, by this method, an action to 
 which it could not, from the ideal standpoint, give an unquali- 
 fied approval. It is one thing to refuse to assist a person to 
 fall short of a moral ideal ; another thing to refrain from judg- 
 ing his failure when it has only occurred after much struggle 
 and effort. In view of the passage in St. Matthew already dis- 
 cussed, the present writer ventures with all reverence, to doubt 
 whether Our Lord Himself, in spite of the distinctness and se- 
 verity with which He promulgated the ideal marriage law, was 
 prepared to see that law applied with ruthless uniformity. The 
 right of civil remarriage is what many Anglican clergy already 
 wish to see in the case of the innocent partner in a divorce for 
 adultery; and it is not clear, either from a religious or from a 
 utilitarian standpoint, that an extension of the right beyond 
 this one cause would be wholly without justification. It is in- 
 deed impossible to undertake here the detailed discussion of 
 the reasons which commend, and the difficulties — ethical, legal, 
 medical, and other — which surround particular directions of 
 such extension. It is enough if we are right in recognizing the 
 principle of extension ; and it should be urged finally that what- 
 ever applications of this principle the state may adopt, oppor- 
 tunities of divorce should always be heavily conditioned. 
 
 It is of course open to anyone to object to the view of di- 
 vorce here adopted, on the ground that in practice the majority 
 of persons affected would, without waiting to prove by full trial 
 in their own consciences the justice of the step, avail themselves 
 of the suggestion that declension from the ideal standard may 
 not in all cases be deserving of moral condemnation. But it 
 
 made for what it may be worth. On the other hand, Howard {op. eit., 
 iii, p. 212) concludes from the statistics at his disposal that "the growth 
 of divorce in recent years is a remarkable phenomenon in Catholic as 
 well as Protestant lands." 
 
162 PLACE OF MORAL SUASION. 
 
 may be urged in reply that if the principle here enunciated can- 
 not be shown to be inherently wrong, the onus of responsibility 
 in the application of it rests ultimately with individuals who 
 apply it to their own cases. Nothing in this theory of divorce 
 discourages the Christian Church from impressing upon married 
 persons the religious and moral urgency of mutually endeavor- 
 ing to fulfill their conjugal duties as ideally outlined in the mar- 
 riage vow, even amid the most adverse circumstances. Eather 
 the whole argument implies that the Church must with the 
 most vigorous efforts perform this function. It is impossible 
 to bring into too great prominence the moral beauty and glory 
 of the ideal of matrimony. 
 
 Are not the claims of a married consort, in some piteous 
 case of lifelong imprisonment or hopeless insanity, still full of 
 power? Does not the woe of an insane wife, no longer able to 
 sustain her part in the marriage union, appeal to all that is 
 tenderest and noblest in a husband's heart? Should not the 
 consort who is not directly smitten by calamity still cling with 
 every possible effort to the other whom calamity has overtaken ? 
 Such considerations may and ought to be dwelt upon with the 
 deepest earnestness and the utmost persistence and power in 
 the sphere of moral suasion. 1 And in the case of people whose 
 conduct gives reasonable evidence that they are refusing to 
 make any response to this teaching, and unscrupulously pervert- 
 ing the just theory of divorce to selfish and immoral ends, the 
 Church might initiate, by way of public protest, the process 
 alluded to above; or if the state of the case was not so clearly 
 defined as to allow of excommunication, the blame in the 
 matter, if blame there be, lies, at the door, not of the clergy or 
 the corporate Church, but of the persons directly concerned. 
 
 It is a further question, and one more difficult to answer, 
 whether the state can penalize evasions of the spirit of its mar- 
 riage laws. To impose legal penalties on adulterous relations, 
 except as regards the woman, has always been a doubtful and 
 difficult task. It is well known that the punishment of the 
 
 'In support of such considerations I may refer to the remarks of 
 Bulenburg (Senator and Kaminer, op. clt., vol. ii, pp. 915ff, 935). 
 
PENALIZATION OF ADULTERY. 163 
 
 adulteress has been often undertaken, and there is sufficient 
 record of acts of vengeance performed by the injured husband 
 or his relatives on the adulterer, such as are referred to on 
 another page. Of the same nature is the legal provision by 
 which the injured husband can claim damages against his wife's 
 paramour. But history has record of another class of penalties 
 for adultery, based on a different principle from that of the 
 above, namely, that adultery is punishable by the community as 
 an injurious breach of moral order. Howard illustrates this 
 principle from Eoman legislation, and from the older laws of 
 England and the United States. 1 It is arguable that adultery 
 might again be penalized by the state, for the good of the com- 
 munity. It would seem that the law, instead of leaving to the 
 injured partner, as a supplement to divorce proceedings, the 
 option of preferring a claim for damages against the invader of 
 his rights, might reserve to itself the power of visiting the 
 offense with some punishment consonant with modern ideas of 
 justice, as at least an indication of society's corporate disap- 
 proval. For not only is it the general function of the state to 
 prevent and correct sexual misdemeanors, but it belongs to it 
 also to punish the non-fulfilment of contracts duly entered 
 into. By this means the community would enter its protest 
 against adultery more effectively than by a vague and frequently 
 impracticable social condemnation. The law, too, would take 
 impartial account of the special circumstances of particular 
 cases. It is true that the question of penalizing adultery on 
 this wider principle is highly complicated; it is true that Acts 
 of Parliament are but indifferent moral instruments and lim- 
 ited in their operation; and that legislative experiments hith- 
 erto made for the suppression of adultery have had dubious 
 success ; but it does not seem established that no improvement 
 can be effected in the present policy of letting each drama of 
 conjugal misery in which adultery is a factor, and in which a 
 divorce case is one of the acts, work itself out thereafter in un- 
 noticed and almost haphazard fashion. But the full considera- 
 tion of this part of the problem belongs to legal experts. 
 
 1 Howard, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 32, 79, 169ff. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FoBBiDDEsr Deghees. 
 
 Origin of Sexual Repulsion — Attitude of Christianity towards 
 Incest — Forbidden Degrees, History of — Matriarchate and Patriarchate 
 — Ideal Unity in Marriage — Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister 
 Considered. 
 
 The repulsion felt toward marriage within certain degrees 
 both of consanguinity and of affinity has, according to Wester- 
 marck, an origin which may be briefly stated as follows : "Gen- 
 erally speaking, the feeling that two persons are intimately con- 
 nected in some way or other * * * may give rise to the 
 notion that marriage or intercourse between them is incestu- 
 ous." It is, of course, in the first instance, in households that 
 this intimate connection is found. "Westermarck in his great 
 work on marriage gives many and various examples of the 
 application of this principle. 
 
 As was to be expected, this principle found a place in the 
 scheme of Christian ethics; and in the history of Christianity 
 it has been largely extended, in the light of the ideal teaching of 
 Jesus Christ on marriage ; its most remarkable extension being 
 the bar to marriage arising from cognatio spiritualis. The 
 necessity has arisen from time to time in Christian history of 
 revising and curtailing the prohibitions derivable from this 
 principle. A large section of modern opinion, not satisfied with 
 the amendments already made to the list of prohibitions for- 
 merly recognized, demands further revision. 
 
 Former revisions of the forbidden degrees give a certain 
 precedent for further progress in the same direction; pre- 
 cedent, however, which is not to be incautiously followed, inas- 
 much as many Christian thinkers, speaking with a deep sense 
 of responsibility, have maintained that, so far at least as the 
 Church itself is concerned, its right of revision does not extend 
 to those prohibitions which have a definite Biblical sanction. 
 (164) 
 
REVISION OF PROHIBITIONS. 165 
 
 It is further largely maintained that to this class of prohibitions 
 must be added a few others contained by obvious implica- 
 tion, though not verbally included, in the Biblical list. 
 
 How far this latter contention is sound is a question which 
 modern Christian thinkers may legitimately take into con- 
 sideration. Is it out of harmony with a reverential estimate of 
 the Divine word, to require the excision from the ecclesiastical 
 prohibitory code, not indeed of any of those prohibitions which 
 the natural development of human moral instincts and revealed 
 Divine approval both support, but of certain of those which 
 receive a less definite sanction ? Are Christian believers justi- 
 fied in demanding that their consciences be relieved of yokes 
 which are of authoritative human, but which may not be of 
 Divine, imposition? 
 
 The further question whether Christian opinion, even if it 
 accepts a moral obligation for Christian society itself, is always 
 justified in forcibly requiring its observance from people who 
 are differently persuaded, must be discussed before the close of 
 this chapter. 
 
 Of the small class of prohibitions the retention or aboli- 
 tion of which form, as has been said, legitimate subjects of 
 Christian consideration, modern interest centers round the 
 question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. The prohi- 
 bition of marriage within this degree of affinity is neither sup- 
 ported nor discountenanced with any definiteness in the Bible. 
 On the one hand, the inference that marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister is wrong was not seemingly made at the date of the 
 "Code of Holiness" itself ; x for such a marriage, according to 
 the best interpretation of Lev. 18: 18, is implicitly permitted. 
 On the other hand, this fact alone does not prove that the 
 inference, when drawn at a later stage of religious and moral 
 development, may not be just; for conscience problems are not 
 
 1 The Levitical enumeration of forbidden degrees belongs to a 
 biblical document known to students as the "Code of Holiness," a series 
 of legal enactments whose inspiring idea is the danger of outraging by 
 unholy human conduct the Holiness of God. 
 
166 THE "CODE OF HOLINESS." 
 
 always settled for Christians by the letter of Holy Scripture. 
 The Christian Church has proceeded analogously in the case of 
 other prohibitions, forbidding, e.g., marriage between an 
 uncle and niece or between a nephew and the widow of his 
 maternal uncle. Such prohibitions do not rest directly on the 
 authority of the book of Leviticus. The "Code of Holiness" 
 itself does not contain them. But it is contended that the 
 principle of the ideal unity is discoverable in embryo in the 
 "Code;" and it is argued that the acceptance of this principle 
 compels by a logical process the further acceptance of the pro- 
 hibitions referred to. 
 
 It must be considered presently whether this logical process 
 is wholly sound. But first, in order to understand the develop- 
 ment of religious, including Christian, opinion on marriage pro- 
 hibitions, we must study this part of the "Code of Holiness" in 
 relation to its history. The marriage prohibitions of the "Code 
 of Holiness" and the principle upon which they are based can 
 only be rightly estimated when taken in historical relation to 
 the ideas in the atmosphere of which they were formed. Long 
 ago St. Thomas Aquinas noted — his words seem to give an an- 
 ticipatory support of Westermarck's position — that "the 
 Ancient Law, i.e., the 'Code of Holiness/ in forming its mar- 
 riage prohibitions has a special regard to cohabitation as re- 
 quiring to be safeguarded against lust, declaring forbidden those 
 persons to whom sexual approach was the more easy from the 
 fact of their being members of the same household." 1 
 
 The Christian Church, apparently finding this principle 
 inadequate, established another on which to base further prohi- 
 bitions. This was the multiplicatio amicitim. 2 "A secondary 
 object of marriage is the drawing of mankind together and the 
 multiplication of friendship; inasmuch as a man stands to his 
 wife's relations as he does to bis own. Consequently damage 
 would accrue to the multiplication of friendship, if anyone were 
 to take to wife a woman related to him; because out of this 
 
 1 Suppl. Pars., iii Sum. Theol., Qu. LTV, art. i, ad fin. 
 ' Id. eod. loo., art. 3. 
 
PATRIARCHATE AND MATRIARCHATE. 16? 
 
 act no new friendship would originate to anyone through the 
 instrumentality of the marriage." 
 
 This new principle is more subtle and artificial than the 
 former one; its workings are less easily grasped; and in order 
 to work out the problem before us, we must go behind the 
 mediaeval theory, and start from the historical principle under- 
 lying the prohibitions in the "Code of Holiness." 
 
 Originally, relationship, to be effective in causing sexual 
 intercourse to be tabooed, must involve habitual intimacy, close 
 membership in the same household from infancy. The family 
 was the unit of primitive society, and the family might be either 
 patriarchal or matriarchal in form. Out of the family, dwell- 
 ing together in one household, develops the wider conception of 
 the clan. 
 
 Whether, in the history of mankind at large, the patri- 
 archate or the matriarchate is the older institution, is still de- 
 bated; but in the section with which we are here particularly 
 concerned, the older Semites, so far as the history of their social 
 evolution is known, the matriarchate is the form of the family 
 which comes first into view. 1 Kinship was reckoned through 
 the mother; and there was no bar to marriage in the male line, 
 except probably that a man could not marry his own daughter. 2 
 But at the date of the codification of the Levitical laws, the 
 matriarchate had given way to a newer institution, that of the 
 patriarchate. Consequently, we trace the influence of both 
 these institutions in the "Code of Holiness." The flesh of a 
 man's flesh (sh eJ er~b e saro) was (a) his immediate blood relations 
 through male or through female descent; (b) the wives of his 
 nearest male kindred, sexual union with whom involved the 
 symbolical profanation of what a man ought to regard as sacro- 
 sanct, the sexual rights of his near male kindred. The woman 
 over whom those sexual rights had once been exercised, even 
 though, owing to her husband's death, they were now non- 
 
 1 The earliest form of marriage mentioned in the Bible is described 
 in terms which recall the matriarchate. W. Robertson Smith, "Kin- 
 ship,'' pp. 176, 177. 
 
 * W. Robertson Smith, "Kinship," p. 163. 
 
168 IDEAS UNDERLYING PROHIBITIONS. 
 
 existent, had been rendered sacred by their touch. 1 This idea, 
 which manifestly has its roots in the patriarchal system, justi- 
 fies to ancient, and in some degree to modern, ways of thinking, 
 such a prohibition as that referring to a deceased brother's wife, 
 union with whom would not be objectionable on physiological 
 grounds ; for it would involve no question of inbreeding. But 
 it is condemned by the ethical requirements of the patriarchal 
 family. And the "Code of Holiness" upholds these ethical 
 requirements, (c) A third class of prohibitions concerns cer- 
 tain women closely related by affinity, who were at one time 
 actually, and at a later time were regarded as potentially, inti- 
 mate members of the same matriarchal clan or even household, 
 as a man at his marriage; and thus, on Westermarck's princi- 
 ples, would be taboo to that man. 
 
 To uncover the nakedness of a mother, sister, mother's 
 daughter, wife's mother, and wife's daughter, did not in every 
 case involve disrespect toward the sexual rights of some near 
 male kinsman; nor do we estimate the offense sufficiently by 
 referring it vaguely to instinctive sexual repulsion originating 
 in the idea of domestic intimacy. Its illegality had a further 
 
 ir The thought will occur here that the acceptance of this view 
 involves a condemnation of any and every repetition of marriage on the 
 part of woman, as implying a symbolical profanation of her former hus- 
 band's sexual rights. That such a condemnation has existed, and has 
 exercised great influence in the history of human sexual relations, is 
 indeed amply proved by Westermarck (2d Ed., p. 125ff.). Many peoples 
 have accounted, and many do still account, the remarriage of a widow 
 to be an insult to the memory of her former husband, without regard 
 to the heaviness of the yoke thus imposed upon the conscience of the 
 woman. But neither Hebrew nor Christian thought endorses this notion 
 in its entirety; nor discountenances in any general or unsympathetic 
 way the remarriage of widows. It is only in the smaller field now be- 
 fore us — the projected remarriage of » widow with one of her deceased 
 husband's own near relations — that the best Hebrew ethical thought 
 makes use of the notion which has had so extensive an influence else- 
 where. And even in this field exceptional circumstances — in the case of 
 levirate marriage — might occasion the supersession of the notion that 
 the marrying of a brother's widow was a symbolic dishonoring of the 
 dead brother's nakedness. 
 
THE IDEAL UNITY. 169 
 
 defmiteness derived from the recognition of what was true and 
 holy in the matriarchate. This class of prohibitions illustrates 
 in some measure the personal rights of woman. For the matri- 
 archate, even if, as some have maintained, it did not in its 
 origin imply consideration for women, but rather the reverse, 
 must none the less have tended to emphasize the social impor- 
 tance of woman, and gradually to surround womanhood with 
 reverence and esteem. A sexual union of a man with his mother 
 would be not merely a symbolical outrage on his father's sexual 
 rights; it would be an outrage on her own womanhood, sancti- 
 fied in respect of that man by the relation of maternity. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the Levitical prohibitions are 
 drawn up on the basis of a coalition of early ideas derived from 
 both the matriarchate and the patriarchate. 1 It is further to 
 be noticed that at the date at which the "Code of Holiness" was 
 drawn up, the importance of the individual was increasing rela- 
 tively to that of the family. It is this fact which accounts 
 for the absence in the prohibition of marriage between a widow 
 and her late husband's brother, of allusion to the exceptional 
 case of levirate marriage. 2 And although, as we have seen, it is 
 the taboo of domiciliar cohabitation which gives the primary 
 impulse to these prohibitions, yet the formation of a wider con- 
 ception of effective relationship is already evident than one 
 which refers it to such cohabitation. 
 
 Thus the forbidden degrees in the "Code of Holiness" exert 
 an educative influence in the direction of the ideal unity of man 
 and wife. Effective relationship gradually becomes denned in 
 the direction indicated by the ideal unity. This doctrine is nc 
 late ecclesiastical fiction or pious imagination. It meets us in 
 the early legend of the formation of woman. "Ideals," says 
 Dillmann, commenting on Gen. 2 : 24, "are here set before us, 
 the realization of which is a concern for the further movement 
 
 l Here we observe the ethical superiority of the Levitical incest 
 prohibitions to those of Hammurabi (sections 154-158), which reflect a 
 patriarchal condition of society, and are based on regard for the sexual 
 rights of the male. 
 
 •Driver-White, on Lev. 18:16, in Haupt, SBOT. 
 
170 DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 of history." 1 The ideal unity is without hesitation approved 
 by Christ as the perfect expression of the Divine Will, and it is 
 sufficiently prominent in the New Testament teaching on mar- 
 riage. But not all the possible consequences derivable from 
 this doctrine are adopted by the "Code" itself, or commend 
 themselves to the enlightened moral sense of mankind. These 
 consequences, when reviewed in detail, must be interpreted and 
 estimated in relation to other human needs and obligations. 
 Neither does the emphasis laid by our Lord and the New Testa- 
 ment writers on the ideal unity guarantee the correctness of all 
 the inferences subsequently drawn in respect of marriage pro- 
 hibitions. The passage from Genesis in which this unity is 
 symbolized is quoted in the New Testament in discourses on 
 the durability of marriage and conjugal fidelity. It must be 
 used with caution in elucidating problems of affinity. In post- 
 biblical times Christian thought, working from the starting- 
 point of the ideal unity, discovered a large number of forbidden 
 degrees which later Christians, reverting to the wiser spirit of 
 the "Code of Holiness," repudiated. 
 
 Having considered the basal principles and the animating 
 spirit of the "Code of Holiness," it remains to look more closely 
 at the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. The 
 prohibition of such a marriage is certainly derivable in logic 
 from the doctrine of the ideal unity, and is so far potentially 
 contained in the "Code;" but there remains, as has already been 
 hinted, the further question, whether it is right in practice to 
 press logic to the extent of forming that prohibition, and 
 whether such a prohibition is necessary for the conservation of 
 holiness. In this doubt we find the origin of the comparative 
 leniency in disciplinary treatment extended by one or two of 
 the early Church councils to people who had contracted such 
 marriages. Bishop Gore in a recent discussion in Convocation 
 inferred from this leniency that marriage with a deceased wife's 
 
 l Cp. aho W. P. Paterson in Hastings's "Dictionary of the Bible," 
 S. V. "Marriage," vol. ii, p. 265. "According to the antique mode of 
 thought, to say that the first man had one wife only, was as much as 
 to say that monogamy was the ideal system." 
 
DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. 171 
 
 sister was not considered by early Christian society as contrari- 
 ant to the law of God, but only as deserving to be followed by 
 some form of discipline. This seems a loose way of describing 
 the position. Dr. Moberley more justly argued that the imposi- 
 tion of discipline, however lenient, implies the abstract ac- 
 ceptance of the principle revealed in God's "Word, the ideal 
 unity affected in marriage; and thus implicitly condemns the 
 marriage in question as contrary to that Word. But the notice- 
 able lack of emphasis in the decisions of the early councils re- 
 veals the existence of perplexity and hesitation about the appli- 
 cation in detail, in regard to the marriage of kindred, of the 
 principle of the ideal unity. 
 
 The "Code of Holiness" forbids a man to marry his wife's 
 nearest kin in the ascending and descending line; because to 
 form a sexual union with either her mother or her daughter 
 would be to violate directly the principle of the matriarchate, to 
 ignore completely the validity of descent through the female 
 line. A peculiar sanctity surrounded her of whose flesh and 
 from whose womb had come the woman whom a man chose to be 
 his wife; and any female issue of the wife's womb was in like 
 manner directly of the wife's flesh, and therefore taboo to her 
 stepfather. 
 
 But the wife's sister stands at a greater distance from the 
 husband. She is not so directly of the wife's flesh as the near- 
 est female kin in the ascending and descending line. The rela- 
 tionship in her ease travels round two sides of a triangle, in- 
 stead of over one line, as in the case of the mother or the 
 daughter. 
 
 Mother "v. 
 
 Man = Wife \^ Sister 
 
 Daughter 
 
 Moreover, the fact that at the date of the drawing up of 
 the "Code of Holiness," Hebrew society reckoned descent no 
 longer through the mother, but through the father, caused a 
 
172 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 man's wife's sister to remain part of a different household from 
 his own; for the man was not received into the woman's house- 
 hold, as under the matriarchate, but she into his. 1 Conse- 
 quently, after the decease of the wife, neither any breach of 
 physiological law, nor any potential infraction of a near male 
 relative's sexual rights, still existing in idea, nor any marked 
 outrage on instinct, is caused, so far as the man is concerned, 
 by marrying the sister. 
 
 So far it can hardly be said that the teaching of the "Code 
 of Holiness" favors the notion that marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister is an actual outrage on the ideal unity; granting, 
 as we may do, that principle to be discoverable in embryo in the 
 "Code." But there are, further, ethical considerations having 
 their root in the responsibility of the woman in regard to the 
 character of a sexual union. If it is indecent and immoral for 
 a man to ignore his late brother's sexual rights over a woman 
 by marrying the widow, is it not, by parity of reasoning, inde- 
 cent for a woman to marry a man in regard to whom her de- 
 parted sister had recently exercised such rights ? In answering 
 this question we must observe that there was no doubt a time in 
 Semitic society when no such consideration as this would have 
 presented itself to the Semite mind. In the parallel case — that 
 of levirate marriage — the man who married the childless widow 
 of a dead brother did not despise, but rather fulfilled hi3 
 brother's sexual rights; and probably enough, the woman con- 
 senting to become the wife of her sister's widower, was at one 
 time thought of as honoring, rather than as dishonoring, the 
 memory of the sister. 
 
 But as the family ceased to be the all-important social idea, 
 and the rights and responsibilities of the individual came into 
 fuller view, the union of a man with his brother's widow came 
 to be looked on as an unholy dishonor done to the memory of a 
 sacred tie. And woman as well as man, though not perhaps to 
 the same extent, is considered, even at the date of the "Code of 
 Holiness," to have both rights and responsibilities in forming 
 
 1 Driver- White, on Lev. 18:18, SBOT. 
 
ALLEGED SOCIAL INEXPEDIENCY. 173 
 
 a sexual union. For her, as well as for man, to see forbidden 
 nakedness is unchaste and merits condign punishment. 1 The 
 sexual rights and responsibilities of woman are recognized yet 
 more clearly in the Christian moral system; 2 though many 
 moralists, including apparently the Bishops of the Lambeth 
 Conference, will not allow her responsibilities at any rate to 
 rank with those of man. 
 
 Hence, although valid arguments are not all on the side of 
 the traditionalists in this matter, it is by no means without rea- 
 son that Christian thinkers have largely drawn the inference 
 that marriage with a deceased wife's sister, if not flagrantly 
 opposed to, cannot be held to be in complete accord with, the 
 spirit of the "Code of Holiness." 
 
 Moreover, the arguments of social inexpediency commonly 
 urged against the legalizing of marriage with a deceased wife's 
 sister — that a modest sister-in-law could not take care of her 
 brother-in-law's household after the death of his wife, or make 
 long visits to her sister while living; that some wives would 
 grow jealous of their sisters; that endearments between rela- 
 tions by marriage would become irregular 3 — are not decisive, 
 but neither are they valueless. Those who would maintain 
 the prohibition in England have recently endeavored to press 
 these arguments — perhaps rather more than they can bear. It 
 has not been shown, so far as the writer knows, that the refusal 
 to make the principle of the ideal unity in marriage cover the 
 prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife's sister is fraught 
 with general immoral consequences. The writer has been un- 
 able to get evidence in the Australasian Colonies bearing on 
 this point. The suggestions common in polemical literature 
 on this subject, that wives would frequently be jealous of sis- 
 ters, and that adulteries with the latter are more probable when 
 the fear of incest is removed, are of the nature of speculation. 
 The present writer further considers that there is a need of 
 
 "^Lev. 20:12, 14, 17, 20. For the sexual rights of a married woman, 
 cp. Ex. 21:10. 
 
 3 1 Cor. 7: 4. 
 
 * S. B. James, in "Guardian," June 5, 1901. 
 
174 COMMON SENSE VIEW. 
 
 additional proof before the frequent assertion that marriage 
 with a deceased wife's sister is in demand mainly in the upper 
 classes, and that the middle and lower classes are generally 
 opposed to its legalization, becomes acceptable. He feels doubt- 
 ful whether this conscientious opposition exists, whether at any 
 rate it is widespread among the lower classes. A case known 
 to him, that of a widowed farmer, a ehurchgoer and to all 
 appearance a well-conducted religious man, who proposed to 
 two of his late wife's sisters in succession, without seemingly 
 being conscious of any moral unfitness in such a proceeding, 
 may be representative of a more or less general lack of disap- 
 proval of such marriages in that class. 
 
 On the other side it must be said that in spite of what is 
 frequently urged in reference to possible suffering caused by 
 the absence of legal sanctions for marriage within this degree, 
 there does not seem to be such a call to sympathize with a man 
 enamored of, yet precluded from marrying, his late wife's 
 sister, as may exist in the case of one who is sexually separated 
 from his living wife, yet forbidden to remarry. A British 
 statesman in the House of Commons expressed a view of the 
 traditional position for which its supporters have as good a 
 right to claim the sanction of common sense as their opponents 
 have for their own arguments on the side of change: "Are 
 there not women enough in the world, that a man should want 
 to marry his deceased wife's sister ?" No question arises in this 
 dispute (so far at least as the man is concerned), as it might 
 easily do in regard to divorce, of an intolerable yoke imposed 
 on the sexual nature by ecclesiastical and civil law. It is not 
 as if the prohibition to marry the deceased wife's sister involved 
 a total deprivation of reasonable sexual gratification, and finally 
 destroyed the sex life. 
 
 All things considered, the conclusion seems justified that 
 from the point of view of the reverent and enlightened 
 Christian conscience, the relationship of the wife's sister to 
 the husband is of such a character as to render marriage with 
 her unbefitting, inconvenient in the strict sense of that word. 
 It is not so manifest an outrage on holiness, or so flagrant and 
 
ATTITUDE OF CHURCH. 175 
 
 reckless a breach of the principle of conjugal unity, as to be de- 
 serving of epithets implying a severer condemnation. The 
 principle of sacramental unity in marriage is of final signifi- 
 cance for Christians; 1 and that principle, though it does 
 not make the said relationship so effectively and decisively 
 prohibitive of marriage as several other relationships, yet gives 
 it a prohibitory character which cannot be altogether ignored. 
 As therefore in the matter of divorce, so here, we maintain that 
 it is the right and the duty of the Church to uphold that prin- 
 ciple before her own members, and to obtain for it as wide an 
 acceptance as possible. But the further question arises whether 
 the method adopted should not be rather moral and intellectual 
 suasion than legislation. It is true that the legislature of a 
 country the majority of whose inhabitants are professed 
 Christians ought certainly, and might be expected, to be in 
 sympathy with Christian ethical opinion on any point where 
 that opinion is practically unanimous and decided. For ex- 
 ample, neither Christian morality nor, generally speaking, 
 civilized legislation influenced by Christianity permits bigamy 
 or polygamy; because although, as some even among Christian 
 thinkers have held, 2 objections of some force may be found 
 against the wholesale moral condemnation of polygamy in the 
 history of mankind; and although there is record of tem- 
 porary compromise made by the Christian Church with regard 
 to plurality of wives (e.g., in evangelizing polygamous commu- 
 nities of savages), yet the practically unfavorable influence and 
 the inferior ethical aspects of polygamy are sufficiently clear 
 to cause it to be discountenanced, as being by contrast with 
 monogamy dishonoring to God and hurtful to the interests of 
 man. It might even be urged — taking a concrete instance — 
 that the New Zealand Legislature by legalizing in 1900 mar- 
 riage between a woman and her deceased husband's brother, dis- 
 played an unmeet want of sympathy with instructed Christian 
 opinion; for in the "Code of Holiness," which is certainly 
 
 1 Watkins, "Holy Matrimony/' p. 654. 
 
 * Westermarck, op. Oit., p. 434; Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 
 
 390. 
 
176 AND OF STATE. 
 
 viewed by Christians as a Divinely inspired document, such a 
 marriage is definitely forbidden; and the whole history of this 
 prohibition, and of its acceptance by the Christian Church shows 
 that its roots lie deeper than the merely contemporary social 
 usages and ethical conceptions. In communities where descent 
 is reckoned through the male line, and where consequently the 
 wife is thought of as taken into her husband's household, not 
 vice versa, the sexual union of a woman with her deceased hus- 
 band's brother must assuredly be more distasteful than the con- 
 verse case. But on the question of marriage with a deceased 
 wife's sister, it need hardly be a matter for surprise if the mod- 
 ern state does not see eye to eye with the Catholic Church ; even 
 though the view of the Church is, as it would seem, on the whole 
 the preferable view. On a point about which there is so much 
 difference of opinion even among Christians, and in regard to 
 which the inspired Word itself does not give perfectly clear 
 guidance, it is at least questionable whether the dictum of the 
 Church — however pure and right it may be ideally — should be 
 enforced by the methods of human legislation. Thus we are 
 brought finally to the position taken up by many of the Anglican 
 clergy, and enunciated by Canon MacColl in the "Guardian" 
 newspaper. Speaking of the "chaos of marriage laws" in the 
 British Empire "all sanctioned by the state," he pertinently 
 asks, "how can churchmen expect to be able to insulate one 
 particular Christian law and rivet it on the necks of multitudes 
 who own no allegiance to the Church, or even to Christianity F" 1 
 Quite a number of people admit that these marriages do 
 not take place on the high level of reverence and self-control 
 required by the Christian ideal of marriage, yet object to their 
 non-recognition by the state. A speaker in a recent meeting of 
 the English Church Union censured this position on the ground 
 that it implied an inadmissible ethical theory of "first and 
 second-class marriages;" in other words, that the celebration 
 of marriage on a visibly lower level than the Christian ideal 
 could not be tolerated. This objection does indeed hold good 
 
 1 "Guardian," June 12, 1901. 
 
CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 177 
 
 when considered in its proper relation, viz., to Christian ideals. 
 The Church recognizes certain impediments of marriage; and 
 unless they are separately disproved, they remain equally valid 
 in fact, even if not equiponderable in ethical importance. The 
 Church cannot itself act on a principle of ethical differentia- 
 tion of marriages. The Christian conscience cannot allow the 
 influence of a visibly imperfect doctrine — one that does not 
 fully satisfy the enlightened moral sense — in regard to it- 
 self. But the above objection loses in force when prematurely 
 introduced into the midst of the as yet inevitably lower ethical 
 ideals of the modern state. 
 
 What the Church has everywhere a right to require is that 
 there shall be no compulsion upon her clergy in the matter. 
 They should not be forced either to perform the marriage cere- 
 mony for such unions, or to lend the consecrated buildings of 
 which they are in charge for any such function. They should 
 hot be penalized if they temporarily require from members of 
 their congregations who, by the use of the civil ceremony, have 
 contracted such marriages, a disciplinary abstention from the 
 Holy Communion. 1 Finally, it belongs to the teaching 
 office of the Church to lay before society those reasons, based 
 on the holy doctrine of the ideal unity, and on considerations 
 of social expediency, which should assuredly cause any Christ- 
 ian man or woman whose mind is receptive of spiritual teaching 
 on marriage, to seek elsewhere than so close at hand the rational 
 gratification of the sexual longing and the just development of 
 the sex life. 
 
 1 It is noticeable that a defender of the legal prohibition in Eng- 
 land ignores this aspect of the matter. See "Marriage Law Defense 
 Union Tracts," No. xxxix, p. 29. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Sexttal in Art. 
 
 Condemnation of Erotic Art Considered — Classical Art — The Nude 
 — Zola's View — Art and Word-painting — Indecent Pictures — Legislation. 
 
 Feedeeick Robertson, in a passage which Major Seton 
 Churchill 1 quotes with approval, reflects forcibly upon the sen- 
 suality produced among the ancient Greeks by their own works 
 of art. It is undeniable that the sexual, in forms most alluring 
 to the carnal instinct, is extremely prominent in the Greek art 
 of certain periods ; and that erotic art progressed in Greece and 
 Rome along a line of moral degeneration. "It was especially 
 Scopas of Paros and Praxiteles of Athens, about one generation 
 after Myron and Polycletus (i.e., in the fourth century B. C), 
 who gave the reflex of their time in their productions. Their 
 works expressed the softer feelings and an excited state of mind, 
 such as would make a strong impression upon and captivate the 
 senses of the beholders. * * * The legendary circles to 
 which most of their ideal productions belong are those of 
 Dionysus and Aphrodite, a fact which also" shows the character 
 of the age. Cephissodorus, a son of Praxiteles * * * made 
 his art subservient to passions and sensual desires." 2 
 
 Later on, the same evil comes to view in Roman society. 
 Cicero and Pliny mention "libidines" — indecent pictures and 
 basreliefs — as used to adorn Roman villas and furniture; and 
 such pictures are found in the villas of Pompeii. The evidence 
 does not, indeed, fully support the assertion of Frederick Rob- 
 ertson, that in the judgment of the heathen themselves, erotic art, 
 and particularly the nude in such art, was responsible for the 
 sexual corruption and excess prevailing in their society. This 
 consciousness did not, at any rate, press heavily upon the best 
 
 '"Forbidden Fruit for Young Men" (6th Ed.), p. 190. 
 
 1 Smith, "Smaller Dictionary of Antiquities," s. v. "Statuaria Ars." 
 
 (178) 
 
THE NUDE IN ART. 179 
 
 minds among the Eomans. The great satirists do not make 
 nude art one of the objects of their animadversion. Pliny's 1 
 reference to the fact that the nude in art had a Greek source ; 
 ancient Eoman statues being draped — "togate"— is not made 
 in a tone of reprehension. Livy 2 and Sallust 3 record the im- 
 portation of Greek works of art into Eome ; regretfully enough, 
 but not in such terms as to imply that they had specially in 
 mind the harm done to sexual morality by such importations. 
 
 The historical instances in which the sexual, and particu- 
 larly the nude in art, seem to be necessarily accompanied by 
 abnormal sexuality in society, do not justify us in condemning, 
 without more ado and without qualification, the use of the 
 nude. Indeed, it must be remembered, in passing, that the 
 nude in any given production, is not necessarily the erotic. 
 Eodin's "Le Baiser" is a group both erotic and nude; the 
 "Eenunciation of St. Elizabeth" is a picture in which the 
 nude is used, but it is not erotic. Nor may we hastily conclude 
 — in the case of art which is certainly erotic, and which 
 employs the nude — that this latter element is inevitably 
 immoral. It is the artist's province to represent human 
 life, its good and its evil. He cannot, therefore, wholly 
 and on all occasions eschew the nude ; though doubtless a heavy 
 responsibility rests upon him for his method of using it. 
 Human life cannot always be represented draped, either in 
 literature or in art. The biblical story, itself the mirror of 
 life as life is, cannot find adequate expression on canvas or in 
 marble if the nude and the sexual be tabooed. 
 
 If it be granted that erotic art, even in its best and purest 
 forms, appeals to and in some manner arouses the sexual in- 
 stinct, it must not be too readily inferred that such appeal 
 magnifies harmfully or depraves the instinct. Its aim may be 
 to impress society with the beauty and purity of true erotic 
 pleasure, such pleasure as is a legitimate object of men's aspira- 
 tion. Zola points out ("Pecondite," p. 50) that the erotic art 
 
 1 Nat. Hist, xxxiv, 10. 
 ' Nat. Hist xxv, 40. 
 • Cat. II. 
 
180 ANALOGY OF WORD PAINTING. 
 
 of the Kenaissance reflected sexual health and vigor. Con- 
 versely, it must have contributed to the formation of right and 
 healthful ideals in the sexual relation. 1 
 
 The ethics of erotic art really differ in no way from those 
 of erotic literature ; for the nude may be as vividly represented 
 by word-painting as on canvas. A peculiarly rich and beautiful 
 specimen of such word-painting finds a place in the Canon. Let 
 the Song of Songs be compared with the Second Idyll of 
 Theocritus. In realistic sensuous word-representation of the 
 nude the inspired poem is the superior. What differentiates 
 it from the powerful Greek love-poem is the ethical motive 
 which elevates and directs it. The poem of Theocritus is purely 
 sensuous; the pulse of desire throbs fiercely in every line. It 
 is an erotic word-picture in all the beauty of nudity. So too is 
 the Song of Songs; but here the current of passion is directed 
 and controlled by the monogamic teaching of the poem. Some 
 passages in the Song might indeed give a wrong impulse to 
 a mind which was too ignorant, coarse or perverse to learn the 
 real lesson of the Song; but no one would venture on that 
 account to wish the Song less perfect, or less glowing as a 
 specimen of inspired erotic literature. 
 
 Similarly, a picture, or a group of statuary, if it contain 
 a right conception and a pure motive, is not necessarily immoral 
 because it is erotic, or because it contains the nude. That in 
 6ome minds it may evoke dangerous emotions is an accident to 
 which as we have seen, the Song of Songs — an analogous 
 creation, in another sphere of activity — is equally liable. 
 
 Hence, it seems that the artist's responsibility to society 
 touches his erotic conception, rather than the accidents of its 
 expression. If the group or the picture conveys an immoral 
 idea, or represents, in a manner of approval, an immoral subject, 
 
 1 Havelock Ellis shows that in times when maternity was regarded 
 with healthy sentiment, the prevailing ideal of ' womanly beauty em- 
 phasized that function. Frequently there has even come into vogue an 
 artificial exaggeration of the secondary sexual characteristics expressive 
 of maternity. (H. Ellis, "Studies," iv, pp. 164ff.) 
 
CONTROL OF EROTIC ART. 181 
 
 it stands condemned; it becomes a vehicle of false and perni- 
 cious teaching; and the beauty of its execution does not redeem 
 it. 
 
 In a society where nude art becomes excessively popular, 
 it is indeed probable that the ethical element in such art will 
 be frequently left out of account. The reasons which justify, 
 and at the same time direct and restrain, erotic art will cease 
 to have their due weight. Hence, practically, the excessive 
 popularity of the nude is a dangerous symptom, one of which 
 should be counteracted by educational and other influences. 
 Many productions may be on a low plane of morality, though 
 on a high plane of art. They may be beautiful, but purely 
 sensuous. Others, again — and these, perhaps, do the major 
 portion of the harm attributed to nude and erotic pictures — are 
 at once artistically mediocre and morally pernicious. The sale 
 or exposure of such pictures, indecent both in idea and in ex- 
 ecution, in shop windows, in mutoscopic exhibitions, and else- 
 where, certainly call for the application of restraint. The 
 kernel of difficulty in the matter is the definition of an immoral 
 picture. In erotic art and literature the line of demarcation 
 between the moral and the immoral becomes, to those who lack 
 insight into an artist's aims and motives, at times finely drawn. 
 What there is of evil in the motive and purpose of a picture 
 may be so skilfully posed as to bring the picture just out of the 
 range of any legal prohibition. And the difficulty — it may al- 
 most be said, the practical impossibility — of exercising over 
 erotic pictures, when on a high plane of art, a wise and just 
 censorship, renders it the more imperative that the censorship 
 of such pictures, even in a lower class of art, should never be 
 open to the charge of ill-advised and hasty prudery. A sugges- 
 tion of Major Seton Churchill that censorial powers should be 
 delegated by municipalities to some fit person, with a view of 
 checking the exposure of such pictures, might not infrequently 
 result in a harassing and fussy oversight. At any rate, it would 
 be better to have a board of three or four persons than a single- 
 censor; and exhibitors or salesmen affected by the censorship 
 should have a right of appeal. 
 
182 LEGISLATION. 
 
 On the whole, it is not well to exaggerate the importance 
 of the "indecency" of pictures as a cause of impurity. Such 
 pictures are rather a symptom than a cause of sexuality in a 
 society; a symptom, indeed, with a certain reactive power. At 
 all events, the allegation of such indecency should be made only 
 after careful and thoughtful observation. There was much 
 significance in the answer recently made by the Home Secretary 
 in the House of Commons to the question whether the govern- 
 ment intended to take steps to suppress indecent mutoscopic 
 exhibitions — that he had walked certain parts of London for 
 hours in the vain search for exhibitions that could properly be 
 thus described. 
 
 The New Zealand Act of 1892, which makes liable to 
 penalty the exposure of any picture or written matter which is 
 of an indecent, immoral, or obscene nature, or which the court 
 shall be satisfied is intended to have an indecent, immoral, or 
 obscene effect, and the English act of similar purport though 
 somewhat less careful expression, seem to afford proper machin- 
 ery for the purpose for which they are devised. Probably a dis- 
 cerning administration of such existing acts would provide the 
 necessary safeguard to public morality, so far as this particular 
 danger is concerned. Such an administration can only be se- 
 cured by the education of public opinion; and it has there- 
 fore been thought worth while in this essay to attempt to indi- 
 cate the grounds on which the condemnation or toleration of 
 an erotic picture must ultimately rest. 
 
CHAPTBE XV. 
 On the Nature and Ethics op Impure Language. 
 
 Language and Convention — History of Dirty Words — The Test of 
 Motive — Horace and Juvenal — St. Paul. 
 
 This is a part of our subject which has at length begun to 
 receive systematic and careful attention at the hands of Christ- 
 ian moralists. A society has been formed in England to redeem 
 conversation from blasphemy and impure sexuality. 1 
 
 Very often it is difficult to see the basis of our popular 
 notions of what constitutes impurity in language. Why should 
 one word be generally considered a coarse and bad word; and 
 another, meaning precisely the same thing, be considered a 
 harmless and legitimate word ? It is at bottom to a large extent 
 a matter of convention. Modern society has retained for its 
 polite use various words and phrases expressing certain things, 
 acts, or ideas; and has declared that other words and phrases, 
 expressing just the same things, are fit only for schoolboys and 
 very vulgar, uneducated people. The process, here described, 
 the evolution of convention in language, has been going on in 
 other languages on a much larger scale than in our own. Man- 
 kind in its primitive state already learns to set apart groups of 
 words expressing the phenomena of sex, for special use by par- 
 ticular classes in the community ; or by one sex to the exclusion 
 of the other. 2 In the Japanese vocabulary there is a whole set 
 of men's words, and another of women's words. The man's 
 
 l In his sympathetic account of the hard conditions which favor 
 the growth of immorality in the country districts of England, Richard 
 Jefferies notices the power for general demoralization possessed by the 
 random coarse word ("The Toilers of the Field," p. 134). 
 
 2 The natives of Polynesia and Queensland are said to have a decent 
 and an indecent vocabulary. (Havelock Ellis, "Studies," ii, 9.) See 
 further, for the influence of sexual convention on language, Crawley, 
 "The Mystic Rose," pp. 46ff. 
 
 .(183) 
 
184 HISTORY OF DIRTY WORDS. 
 
 word for food, for instance, is not the same as the woman's ; and 
 a woman is considered a very vulgar woman, if she nses the 
 man's word. This is one of the developments of convention. 
 And it has been curiously continued. In the language of civil- 
 ized nations, ancient as well as modern, there is a secret vocabu- 
 lary, a crowd of strange words which live underground like the 
 moles, or in the darkness like the bats, and which seem quite 
 startling and outlandish, if by any chance they find their way 
 into print. Such words are found in the Hebrew Bible. The 
 Q'ri, in two or three places, being shocked at certain vulgar words 
 used by the K'thib, substitutes politer words. No doubt these 
 vulgar words have often a very interesting history behind them. 
 They were not always slangy, and shocking, and disreputable. 
 Words have a life-history, like people; and if one possessed the 
 philological learning requisite to find it out, what a long and 
 strange and eventful history some of our vulgar words would be 
 seen to have. Our coarse words have often led lives like those of 
 our coarse, outcast women. They were respectable once. They 
 took their places among the other words in the language. And 
 gradually they have dropped into a fallen, degraded state. It 
 has come about more by the ill-usage of society than by vice 
 inherent in the words themselves. The words would not be 
 coarse now, if they had not for generations past been coarsely 
 used, dragged in the dirt, and flung about with all sorts of evil 
 motives, without any effort being made to reclaim them. Human 
 society does not look far into the ethical history of words. It 
 shows strange caprice and arbitrariness in its admission of them 
 into or rejection of them from familiar use. 
 
 What is known as "Good Society", while it refuses to admit 
 into its circle bad people of the lowest, coarsest type, welcomes 
 a good many who are really just as bad, but whose wickedness 
 is less open, less readily perceived. Here, again, it is just the 
 same with words. Social usage does not tolerate words and 
 expressions that are openly and impudently coarse; but it ad- 
 mits others which are absolutely no better either in character 
 or in history, simply because they are rather better dressed, so 
 to speak, — possessed of a little outward refinement. 
 
TEST OF. MOTIVE. 185 
 
 Our consideration, then, of what amounts to coarseness in 
 language, and what does not, is complicated by our conventional 
 ideas of propriety. Apart from them, it seems that the test as 
 to whether language is had and impure or not, is the moral test 
 of the motive and the spirit in which it is used. There are 
 many instances in literature of very coarse language being used, 
 and yet used in a way that could not possibly offend any right- 
 minded person's moral sense. Juvenal, for instance, is one of 
 the coarsest of writers; but his tone is manly, and his morality 
 upright and severe. He employed coarse language, not because 
 it gave him an evil pleasure to do so; but because in dealing 
 with the subjects and the manners of which he had to write, its 
 use was necessary and inevitable. 
 
 A writer like Horace, on the other hand, does not use 
 coarse language to the same extent ; but his moral tone is cer- 
 tainly lower than Juvenal's. And other contrasts of the same 
 kind could be found in literature. 
 
 St. Paul himself, where he condemns filthiness, foolish 
 talking, and jesting which are not convenient (Eph. 5 : 4), is pre- 
 ferring his indictment rather against the way in which words 
 are used, than against the words themselves. If he were con- 
 demning coarse expressions per se, without reference to the 
 motive underlying their use, his words might be turned against 
 himself; for now and then in his own epistles, his language 
 certainly does not err in the direction of over-refinement. (Gal. 
 5 : 12.) 
 
 In our belief in the moral nature of God we have a guar- 
 antee of the ultimate manifestation of a judgment upon speech 
 which will pierce all our conventionalities and social hypocrisies. 
 When people commit sins of speech of the kind alluded to here, 
 and think of them afterward with regret, they have not to think 
 merely of the particular word or expression used. The ques- 
 tions which surround its use are the more important. Was it 
 used of necessity, or carelessly flung into conversation? To- 
 ward whom was it used, or in whose hearing ? Was it intended 
 to produce a good effect, or a bad one ? Was its motive right or 
 wrong ? 
 
186 THE IDLE WORD. 
 
 It is not for every word men speak that they shall give 
 account in the Day of Judgment. It is for irav prjfia apyw, 1 
 every idle word; not for the existence in human speech of 
 words which, however uncouth in appearance, are the natural 
 outgrowth of human conditions; hut of the circumstances 
 which surround, and the motives which underly their use. 
 
 'St. Matt. 12: 36, "Werk- und" fruehtlos, unniitz namlich im sitt- 
 lichen Sinne." (Nosgen in loc, Strack and Zockler, Kurzg. Kommentar.) 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 Sexual Pekyehsions. 
 
 Modern Investigation of this Obscure Subject — Causes of Perver- 
 sions — Sexual Inversion — Proposed Toleration of Homosexuality Con- 
 sidered — Masochism — Sadism. 
 
 It would be easy to make the present chapter by far the 
 most painful and repulsive in the volume. In order to avoid 
 this useless result, the subject will not here be dealt with in 
 any detail. It can be fully studied in such works as those of 
 H. Ellis, Moll, Krafft-Ebing, Fere, and Tarnowsky. Yet it is 
 necessary to accord here a brief notice to the better known anom- 
 alies of the sexual instinct, for the reason that they are occasion- 
 ally known to exist in otherwise fairly healthy and normal sub- 
 jects. It by no means follows that a person is a moral leper and 
 a menace to society, because he has, e.g., a congenital algolagnic 
 or inverted tendency. He may be generally well disposed, well 
 principled, and religious. His abnormality may never find ex- 
 pression in overt act. It may be the battle of his life to control 
 and subjugate this tendency; and he may succeed so far as to 
 induce his sexual system to find sufficient gratification in nor- 
 mal and legitimate sexual relations. Therefore, the considera- 
 tion of this subject does not belong solely to the provinces of the 
 alienist and the penologist. 
 
 Of sexual abnormalities we may notice here inversion, and 
 the active and passive aspects of algolagnia. 1 The researches 
 of sexual scientists such as Havelock Ellis, Fere, Moll, and 
 others, have demonstrated that not all, but some cases of inver- 
 sion or homosexuality, i.e., the turning in of the sexual instinct 
 toward the subject's own sex, are due to the presence in the in- 
 
 l I am glad that Havelock Ellis, adopting Schrenk-Notzing's terms, 
 points out ("Studies," iii, p. 101) the impropriety of the current names 
 "sadism" and "masochism." 
 
 .(187). 
 
188 CONGENITAL SEXUAL INVERSION. 
 
 dividual of a congenitally inverted tendency. As in the lower 
 animals, 1 so in man, occasional instances of imperfect sex differ- 
 entiation are found, the result of some deficiency of nutrition 
 in the embryo, or of otherwise incomplete processes of gesta- 
 tion. 
 
 It is in neurotic families with a vitiated heredity that 
 congenital inversion and other abnormal tendencies may be ex- 
 pected to appear. It is not necessary that there should be 
 visible malformation of the genitals. A defective correlation 
 between the sexual system and its corresponding brain centers 
 may be the underlying condition of inversion. The inverted 
 tendency will probably be latent in childhood while the sex life 
 is undeveloped; though even thus early, indications of an ab- 
 normal state may sometimes be discoverable. Then some event, 
 in itself perhaps apparently trifling, some shock to the sexual 
 susceptibilities of the growing child — a thoughtless neglect on 
 the part of an older person of the pregnant canon, "Maxima 
 debetur pueris reverentia" — or in later life a wound of some 
 other kind inflicted upon the sexual nature, e.g., a love disap- 
 pointment, may give the impulse to the latent misdirection of 
 the sexual instinct, and inversion declares itself more fully in 
 the mind of the subject. His emotions, colored with more or 
 less of sexuality, flow out toward members of his own sex; he 
 becomes conscious of a physical attraction towards them which 
 normal individuals experience only in regard to the other sex. 
 The inverted tendency manifests itself in his sensual dreams. 
 In less pronounced cases of inversion, normal sexuality may be 
 
 1 E.g., among cattle. See Geddes and Thomson, "Evolution of Sex," 
 p. 41n; also the chapter on "Hermaphroditism." The existence of 
 congenital sexual inversion among animals is not indeed as yet demon- 
 strable (Fere, "L'Instinct Sexuel," E. T., Chapter DJ) . We are merely 
 observing that enough is known of the processes by which sex is 
 determined to warrant the opinion that in isolated cases, owing to the 
 action of some imperfectly perceived cause, the determination may be 
 abnormal and incomplete. External signs of congenital inversion, e.g., 
 unusual shape of the pelvis or the breasts, are sometimes observable 
 (Senator and Kaminer, op. cit., ii, 701, 1047) ; but these, according to 
 Moll, are rare, and to be viewed with caution (994). 
 
CONGENITAL SEXUAL INVERSION. 189 
 
 experienced side by side with this anomalous form of it; but 
 the true congenital invert feels a positive repulsion to normal 
 sexual relations. 
 
 It must be noted, however, that the carnal impulse may not 
 bulk largely in the invert's mind at all; the inverted tendency 
 may be of an almost entirely emotional character; or even if a 
 strong physical element is present, it may be kept wholly in 
 check by the general uprightness of the invert's character, or by 
 his high religious principles. A few of the cases described by 
 Havelock Ellis in his book on sexual inversion furnishes a sad 
 and impressive picture of the secret struggles of the noble- 
 minded invert to dominate his anomalous instinct and to pre- 
 vent it asserting itself in the actual course of his life. 
 
 To deal with the complicated problems connected with the 
 origin, course, and control of an inverted tendency would re- 
 quire at least a good-sized volume. It is sufficient here to refer 
 to one or two of the most obvious and important matters 
 originating in the consideration of the subject. 
 
 First, where neuropathic conditions are believed to exist in 
 a family, where the heredity is vitiated or over-refined, special 
 care ought to be taken to keep the sexual development of mem- 
 bers of that family free from dangerous influences. Additional 
 reasons exist in such cases for observing the general precautions 
 which should attend the growth of the sex life in the child, and 
 which have been dealt with elsewhere in this volume. Inver- 
 sion in the adult is sometimes preceded by an algolagnia 
 tendency in the child; consequently parents and guardians 
 should beware lest by their treatment and punishments of the 
 child they strengthen the algolagnic instinct. 
 
 One result of the study of sexual inversion has been the 
 suggestion, boldly put forward by some modern scientists, that 
 the attitude of the law as existing in European countries, should 
 undergo a change. It is argued that where the invert is not 
 responsible for his abnormality; where, owing to the congenital 
 misdirection of his instinct it is impossible for hrm to obtain the 
 normal development of the sex life, the legal ban should be 
 taken off his cohabitation with one of his own sex, provided that 
 
190 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HOMOSEXUALITY. 
 
 in such cohabitation public decency was respected, and that the 
 invert had not resorted to compulsion or the seduction of a 
 minor, as a preliminary step to such cohabitation. It is pointed 
 out with considerable force that the refusal to allow a true in- 
 vert to follow his inclination may be harmful in a general way 
 to his physical well being — we have already seen that the con- 
 stant suppression of the normal sexual instinct may react un- 
 favorably upon some nervous organisms, and we cannot but con- 
 clude that the same result may be reached in some cases of the 
 suppression of the abnormal instinct — and that in consequence 
 the power of the invert, who may be of intellectual capacity 
 above the average, to perform his life's work, may be seriously 
 impaired. In short, it is contended that in the light of in- 
 creased modern knowledge of the conditions of inversion, the 
 law should no longer undertake the wholesale abolition of homo- 
 sexual relationships, but their strict and judicious regulation. 
 
 In estimating these contentions, it will be well in the first 
 place to glance at the references to- homosexuality in Holy 
 Scripture. In the emphatically adverse judgments pro- 
 nounced by the Israelite nation and the Christian Church, those 
 two communities which have had on the whole a deeper insight 
 into religious and ethical conditions than other parts of man- 
 kind, homosexuality does indeed appear, not as a phenomenon 
 to be considered in se, but amid the worst surroundings of ex- 
 cess and license; and these factors must be taken into account 
 in forming an estimate of the intense moral indignation dis- 
 played in the Bible against the recorded manifestations of in- 
 version. Had the Biblical writers been able to regard homosex- 
 uality as modern science is forced to regard occasional instances 
 of it, solely as an anomalous sexual phenomenon originating in 
 congenital conditions and unattended by license or violence, 
 their tone must have undergone some modification ; but for all 
 that it is doubtful whether they would have approved, in any 
 circumstances, the legal or social toleration of homosexuality. 
 
 It is further true that the general history of homosexuality 
 in humanity does not present us with a uniform social condem- 
 nation of it. Primitive communities located amid a defective 
 
THE INVERT'S SPECIAL SACRIFICE. 191 
 
 food supply were driven to adopt various expedients — female in- 
 fanticide, sterilization of the genitals, and perhaps homosexuality 
 — by which the increase of population could he checked, while 
 the gratification of the sexual instinct was allowed. But it 
 does not seem that these expedients were common among prim- 
 itive peoples, or regarded with favor by them; 1 or to put the 
 matter in a different light, it must be said that the general toler- 
 ation of homosexuality or other birth-regulating expedient by 
 a community, as a means of escape from the necessity of in- 
 creased effort, is indicative of a deterioration in the moral pur- 
 pose of that community. No healthy, progressive people could 
 for long regard homosexuality, even in its most favorable as- 
 pects, as anything but an unsatisfying, and from the point of 
 view of social welfare, unsafe method of developing the sex 
 life. 
 
 In fine, although inversion may, in the case of some ab- 
 normal individuals, be the sexual law of their being, yet it is a 
 law, as it were, wrongfully imposed upon them, an alien law 
 that violates the ordered scheme of nature, the correlation of 
 the anabolic and katabolic principles manifested in the two 
 sexes, a law against which they, as units in the system of crea- 
 tion, are morally bound to rebel. 2 No student of sex would 
 contend that a person with an active or a passive algolagnic 
 instinct ought to accept those abnormalities and allow them to 
 develop. It is his part to combat and suppress such tendencies, 
 even at the cost of severe inward strife and suffering. That 
 some persons, inverts by nature but none the less possessed of 
 high principles and strong religious convictions, accept and 
 act upon this view of their abnormality, appears from certain 
 of the cases cited by Havelock Ellis. Their struggle with their 
 besetting homosexual inclinations may either result in a redi- 
 
 1 See Westermarck's discussion of infanticide, "Hum. Mar.," pp. 
 31 Iff. 
 
 2 Cp. the remark of Moll (S. and K., op. cit., ii, p. 990) : "The cir- 
 cumstance that nature must have had some definite purpose in view 
 when creating homosexuality does not exclude the notion of its morbid 
 character." 
 
192 SHOULD HOMOSEXUALITY BE TOLERATED. 
 
 rection of the sexual instinct into its normal channel, or it may 
 have a still nobler issue, the moral purification of their lives by 
 the effort of continued self-sacrifice. 
 
 Thus, finally, before concluding our consideration of the 
 problems connected with sexual inversion, we have to return 
 to a confessedly imperfect and from some points of view in- 
 equitable standpoint — the standpoint of practical common 
 sense. Even the brief glance at sexual inversion which is all 
 the scope of this work has allowed, has shown sufficiently that 
 as regards true inversion the moral question does not bulk so 
 largely in modern ethical thought as it did with former genera- 
 tions. True inversion involves questions of physical abnormal- 
 ity, of error in the fundamental instinct, as much as or more 
 than questions of conscious moral depravity. And if this were 
 the only side to the problem, it might be difficult to reject the 
 conclusions expressed by Ellis and other modern scientists re- 
 specting the legalization of the cohabitation of inverts. As 
 theoretical conclusions, when the consideration of the matter 
 extends no further than true congenital inversion, they cannot 
 be said to be baseless. 
 
 But — and this is the point of practical importance — it is 
 impossible, in discussing homosexuality, to confine ourselves to 
 the consideration of true inversion. The latter phenomenon 
 by no means covers the whole ground. Ellis's conclusions are 
 considerably open to attack on the side of practice. Even if 
 we accept the theory of psychosexual hermaphroditism, the 
 indifferent inclination in the same subject of the sexual in- 
 stinct to either sex, that does not eliminate the idea of moral 
 responsibility from the question. 1 Want of principle, the reck- 
 
 1 Moll calls attention to less established and persistent forms of 
 psychosexual hermaphroditism, maintaining that the differentiation of 
 the sexual desire is not infrequently postponed in normal individuals, 
 till some years after puberty has manifested itself. (Senator and Kami- 
 ner, op. tit., p. 1051) ; in such cases patience may have to be exercised 
 in regard to marriage; but right knowledge, good companionship, and, 
 above all, sound moral principle and sustained moral effort, will help 
 to guide the wavering desire into the normal direction. 
 
REASONS AGAINST TOLERATION. 193 
 
 less desire to make a horrid experiment, account for many cases 
 of homosexual connection. 1 Hence there can be little doubt 
 that if homosexuality were tolerated by the law, even in circum- 
 stances which might seem, partially at any rate, to justify it, 
 the practice would spread largely in the community. It would 
 be impossible to confine homosexuality to true inverts. The 
 whole tone of moral opinion on the subject would be lowered 
 to the standard obtaining in some Oriental countries. 
 
 Therefore, it is impossible to conclude in favor of the legal 
 toleration of homosexuality. The possible justice resulting to 
 a few would be outweighed by the evil affecting the many. Be- 
 sides, who can guarantee that even the true invert would be 
 careful to confine his desires to another invert; failing the ob- 
 servance of which condition, cohabitation would mean the 
 moral destruction of a normal individual, to gratify the erratic 
 instinct of the invert ? 
 
 At the same time, the phenomena of true inversion ought 
 to be taken account of in inflicting legal sentences on detected 
 homosexual crimes, with a view to the equitable modification of 
 such sentences, in cases where true inversion is proved to exist 
 as a factor in an offense of this kind. It is of even greater im- 
 portance to observe that the existence of this phenomenon 
 should at least prevent our passing rash and presumptuous 
 moral judgments in regard to these cases. 
 
 To passive algolagnia reference has already been made in 
 this essay. It would seem to be in highly organized subjects, 
 persons of sensitive nature, emotional keenness, and perhaps, in 
 addition, of unusual intellectual capacity, that this misdirection 
 of the sexual instinct generally appears. It has various forms : 
 the subjects of it associate the idea of sexual excitement not 
 only with the imagined infliction upon themselves of coarse and 
 obscene indignities, but also, by a more sentimental form of 
 the abnormality, with refined humiliations suffered at the hands 
 of agents for whom they entertain exalted feelings of respect 
 
 1 Cp. p. 39. 
 
194 PASSIVE ALGOLAGNIA. 
 
 and admiration. Where undoubtedly congenital, passive algo- 
 lagnia cannot perhaps be eliminated from the consciousness; 
 but it may be checked and curbed in its growth by the will, 
 whenever the will has been stimulated to desire a pure and 
 normal sex life, the algolagniac should by an effort of will 
 refuse himself indulgences in the imaginations which appeal 
 most strongly to his sexual emotions. He must force himself 
 to look squarely at the facts of the matter, recognizing the 
 dangers attending the unchecked development of algolagnic in- 
 stinct, its depraving influence not only upon the sexual nature, 
 but upon the general fiber of the moral being; and its possible 
 issue in sexual inversion. Algolagnic visions cannot be said to 
 be necessary to the algolagniac for the rousing of his sexual 
 system; for that may become active as a result of the brain 
 movements which form a sufficient stimulus for the normal 
 individual. The state of the case is rather that the algolagnic 
 tendency is a condition superinduced upon the ordinary sexual 
 activities ; a condition which, should the will habitually consent 
 to the pressure thus imposed, is readily adopted by the sexual 
 system as its favorite excitation, to the relative exclusion of 
 normal and healthy incitements. 
 
 It seems impertinent to speak of the control of the sexual 
 instinct, unless the moralist is prepared to show men with some- 
 thing of precision what they have to aim at controlling. For 
 the sexual instinct is a very Nereus. Bound in one form, it 
 appears in another. Let it be known what an algolagnic in- 
 stinct is; and he whose sexual nature is affected with this taint, 
 will know what battle he has to fight, and may discover what 
 are the most effective methods of fighting. 1 
 
 1 Cp. Ellis, "Studies," vol. iv, p. 228, where a personal narrative is 
 given, and the remarks of Moll on the possibilities of self-education and 
 discipline in relation to sexual perversion (Senator and Kaminer, op. cit., 
 vol. ii, p. 1028). It savors of presumption to praise the work of one so 
 eminent as the latter savant; but the present writer ventures to re- 
 commend this essay of Moll's as the most helpful and satisfactory study, 
 within a short compass, of perverse sexual sensations, that he has met 
 with, owing amongst other qualities to the respectful, yet perfectly 
 unbiased and judicial attitude adopted toward existing ethical ideas. 
 
ACTIVE ALGOLAGNIA. 195 
 
 From passive algolagnia, sexuality associated with and 
 aroused by the idea of injuries, etc., which the subject pictures 
 as inflicted upon himself, we pass to its opposite, active algolag- 
 nia, i.e., sexuality associated with the idea of effort and violence, 
 especially violence inflicted by the subject himself. The sight 
 of any great display of muscular effort, as a team of horses drag- 
 ging a heavy load uphill; the sight of bloodshed, as in a battle 
 scene; the thought of striking, biting, or maiming the object 
 toward which the sexual desire is directed — these are the 
 stimuli, weird and terrible as it may seem to the normal indi- 
 vidual, which set in motion this strange development of the 
 sexual instinct. Probably there must always be a latent predis- 
 position to active algolagnia in the subject of it; but it would 
 seem that certain exceptional circumstances, such as the sack 
 of a town in war time and the consequent exposure of helpless 
 women to unbridled license, may produce a manifestation of 
 active algolagnia in minds which hitherto had not consciously 
 experienced any algolagnic tendency. 1 Moreover, the fact that 
 in some cases it has not made its appearance as an active prin- 
 ciple till relatively late in life, shows that, as was seen in regard 
 to passive algolagnia, the actively algolagnic inclination may be 
 held in check and its development prevented by the higher 
 forces of the organism. 
 
 Masturbation would not be an efficient cause of active algo- 
 lagnia; but where the algolagnic predisposition already existed, 
 masturbation would no doubt prove a considerable factor in its 
 intensification. On the other hand, Moll considers that mas- 
 turbation is in some cases an indication of underlying sexual 
 perversity, rather than a cause of such perversity (op. cit., p. 
 992). 
 
 It must not be supposed that a person whose sexual instinct 
 is thus perverted is devoid of moral responsibility. His con- 
 
 1 Indeed, Havelock Ellis shows convincingly ("Studies," iii, pp. 
 102ff.) that the algolagnic tendencies are but intensified manifestations 
 of indispensable elements of sexual emotion. Moll remarks on the occur- 
 rence, sometimes extremely sudden, of periodic and episodic manifesta- 
 tions of a perverted tendency {op. cit., pp. 1025ff.). 
 
196 CONTROL OF THE ALGOLAGNIC INSTINCT. 
 
 science and will, if sufficiently enlightened, may struggle to re- 
 press and ultimately lessen the power of the anomalous sexual 
 activity. "Where this moral effort is not made, and the algo- 
 lagnia tendency is allowed by ignorance or want of principle to 
 grow unchecked, there is no saying to what kind of catastrophe 
 it may eventually lead the unhappy subject of it. The reaction 
 following on sexual gratification, which as we have already seen, 
 takes on a variety of forms, may induce in the algolagniac a con- 
 dition of erotic intoxication; so that the feeble and undevel- 
 oped moral sense is no longer capable of stemming the over- 
 powering tide of unclean and monstrous passion. Thus, 
 although the algolagniac is not mad in the true sense of the 
 word, he may become so, as the temporary result of the organ- 
 ism; and there may eventuate one of the fearful murders — 
 mutilation and butchery following on outrage — which have 
 their origin in this terrible impulse. 
 
 Hence the treatment of active algolagnia belongs in part to 
 the domain of penology. Either society must insist on the algo- 
 lagniac himself acquiring control over his abnormal inclination ; 
 or where that is impracticable, society must itself exercise that 
 control. When the algolagniac has proceeded to the length of 
 outrage and murder, it is indeed impossible, in the region of 
 moral judgments, to view his conduct with the same measure of 
 severity as would be requisite in the case of a similar action per- 
 formed by a person whose sexual instinct was not complicated 
 by any such tendency. But human laws cannot operate in the 
 region of final moral judgments. Society has to form and ad- 
 minister such laws as will in practice best fulfill the primary 
 purpose of its own protection. In such a matter as an algolag- 
 nia crime, where society's own security is imperiled, the redemp- 
 tion of the individual can only be considered as a secondary 
 question. At present the law proceeds in regard to algolagnia 
 murders on the assumption that the algolagniac is responsible 
 with a responsibility on a par with that of the ordinary individ- 
 ual ; and although only the first part of this assumption is true, 
 yet it would be unsafe to urge that the death penalty should be 
 abolished in connection with these cases. A long term of im- 
 
ALGOLAGNIC CRUELTY. 197 
 
 prisonment and supervision, accompanied by castration, might 
 meet some cases; but it is not certain that castration, or other 
 form of desexualization, although it would prevent the algolagniac 
 propagating his degenerate kind, would eliminate the abnormal 
 tendency from his own consciousness. The penology of the fu- 
 ture will probably deal more sympathetically, and at the same 
 time more effectively, with algolagnic crimes and criminal at- 
 tempts. 
 
 The analysis of the algolagnic impulse attempted by H. 
 Ellis ("Studies," iii, p. 126ff.), suggests that the presence even 
 of active algolagnia does not necessarily imply a general and 
 complete deterioration of character; and it is questioned 
 whether or in what degree conscious cruelty can be attributed 
 to the subject of this condition. Viewed from a religious stand- 
 point, in connection with the Christian belief in a moral judg- 
 ment, this analysis is of profound interest and of far-reaching 
 significance; but to estimate properly its ethical value would 
 require not merely a first hand observation of algolagnic phe- 
 nomena, but a comparative study of the forms and motives of 
 cruelty in other connections than the sexual. It must suffice 
 here to remark that the considerations adduced by Ellis must 
 not be hastily interpreted as finally clearing the algolagniac of 
 culpable cruelty. The tendency to cruelty is a morbid develop- 
 ment accruing to fundamental instincts ; and all cruelty derives 
 its impulse from what may be described as an emotional interest 
 of some kind in pain, the desire to stimulate and subsequently 
 to gratify some passion. Suetonius ascribes to Nero cruelties 
 perpetrated for his amusement. These were due to a morbid 
 development of the instinctive craving for amusement more or 
 less present in all minds. Nero's gaiety was most readily 
 aroused and gratified by the sight of pain in others ; just as the 
 active algolagnia's sexual instinct responds to the same stimu- 
 lus. 
 
 How far the algolagniac is capable of realizing the in- 
 flicted pain, of discerning his own morbidity, and so of directing 
 his will power to the suppression of it, are questions the answer 
 to which will affect the charge of conscious cruelty. Tarn- 
 
198 RESPONSIBILITY— CASTRATION. 
 
 owsky, recognizing the intermingling of love and savagery in 
 the phenomena of active algolagnia, yet appears to hold the 
 algolagniac more or less responsible for cruelty ("L'Instinet 
 Sexuel," etc., Fr. Tr., p. 248). Krafft-Ebing ("Psyehopathia 
 Sexualis," E. T., 7th Ed., p. 61) refers to efforts made by algo- 
 lagniacs to control their perversity, justifying the inference 
 that the algolagniac's subjective view of his actions, however 
 vitiated it may be — and there is probably always a congenital 
 defect with this form of perversion- — does not wholly absolve 
 him from moral guilt if the controlling effort is not made. 
 
 Such an analysis as the one referred to above may not there- 
 fore result in a representation of the algolagniac as devoid of 
 moral perception, and consequently of some degree of responsi- 
 bility for his cruel actions; but the line of thought opened up 
 by such investigations certainly promotes an increasing reserve 
 of human judgment on these most painful and perplexing of 
 moral phenomena- 
 Addendum : — 
 
 Castration or sterilization — the operation may be per- 
 formed in several ways — is found not to be of uniform value in 
 the extinction of sexual desire ; but it is occupying the attention 
 of legislators in various parts of the world, inasmuch as experi- 
 ments give reason to hope that it may, if employed as a punish- 
 ment in certain cases of sexual crime, satisfactorily dispose of at 
 least a percentage of them. 1 The ill health and other unfavor- 
 able circumstances which have crippled my work, particularly in 
 its later stages, preclude an adequate discussion of this problem 
 here. 
 
 l We infer from the remarks of Caufeynon, in a. work in which he 
 presents a number of facts about castration, without, however, greatly 
 advancing the solution of the problem under consideration, that for 
 physiological reasons, sedative results may be expected to follow castra- 
 tion or desexualization of the adult, only at a considerable distance 
 from the operation itself. ("L'Eunuchisme," p. 26.) The same writer 
 reminds us that castration has been used under legislative sanctions, 
 and still more as a method of private vengeance, in the punishment of 
 adultery. (Id., p. 93.) 
 
STERILIZATION OF DEGENERATES. 199 
 
 Sexual degeneracy or abnormality, while yet incipient and 
 unmarked by violent and outrageous acts in the subject's career, 
 may be combated by the moral suasion method and by hygienic 
 precautions, in the manner already outlined in this work. It 
 may yet be possible in many such cases to guide the sexual in- 
 stinct into its normal channel, to discipline and control it. 
 Moreover, the problems of heredity are still so far from solu- 
 tion that, as Moll points out, it is often difficult to determine 
 what kind or degree of sexual perversion in the individual will 
 inevitably occasion degeneracy in his offspring (op. cit., 1 ^. 1042). 
 But when a person has become a declared sexual degenerate of 
 the dangerous type, when it is no longer possible to educate him, 
 on the principle put forward by Fere and other modern thinkers, 
 to adopt for himself such a rule of chastity as will prevent the 
 propagation of his diseased tendency, then it seems legitimate 
 to have recourse to physical means. The infliction of an inde- 
 terminate sentence of detention would sometimes help in mak- 
 ing clear this necessity; but some cases of sexual crime, if suffi- 
 ciently proved, should be followed by sterilization without more 
 ado. I am disposed to think that the power of inflicting sterili- 
 zation might be used in cases of rape of girls under 12 and of 
 boys under 14, the principal in each case being of age.' It would 
 be rash to adopt such a course in the case of crimes against the 
 person of older girls and women, on account of the uncertainty 
 surrounding rape. 
 
 It is no inherent objection to the measure proposed that 
 it is nearly on a par with capital punishment, though it would 
 certainly require correspondingly careful administration. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Gospel and Sex Relations. 
 
 Asceticism and the Gospel — Tolstoy's Estimate — Christ's Attitude 
 and Teaching — St. Paul — The Christian Ideal of Marriage — The Atone- 
 ment and Sexual Sins. 
 
 "Christianity," says Bishop Westcott, "disregards noth- 
 ing in the rich development of human life." 1 Nevertheless, all 
 aspects of human life are not considered in the scheme of the 
 Gospel as of equal value. Briefly, it may be said that, as the 
 Gospel interprets life, all departments of it — the life of sense, 
 of intellect, of emotion, of labor, of knowledge, of pleasure, of 
 pain — must be lived in a subordinate relation to the life of the 
 spirit, the life consisting in the communion of the soul with 
 God. No doctrine of general asceticism can be built upon this 
 basis; but particular aspects of the temporal side of life, such 
 as those referred to, may have to be partially or entirely ignored 
 or sacrificed if the preservation and expansion of the higher 
 nature so require. 
 
 Harnack adduces three considerations showing that a rigor- 
 ous asceticism does not necessarily pertain to the following of 
 the Gospel ; that it is not, so to speak, an indispensable passport 
 to the Kingdom of Heaven. 2 There is, first, the practice of the 
 Pounder of Christianity Himself, as it may be gathered from the 
 Gospel history, and particularly as it is summed up in one of His 
 own sayings. 3 Harnack's own conclusion is as follows: "To- 
 ward the various fields in which asceticism had been tradition- 
 ally practiced, He must have taken up an attitude of indiffer- 
 ence." 
 
 Secondly, the practice of the majority of the first disciples, 
 
 1 "Gospel of the Resurrection," Chapter I, section 1. 
 '"What is Christianity?" p. 81ff. 
 •St. Matt. 11:19; St. Luke 7:34. 
 
 (200X 
 
ASCETICISM. 201 
 
 which must have been based on the precept and example of 
 their Master, and which was inspired by His Spirit. There 
 is little or nothing to suggest that the Christian Community 
 in the Apostolic Age consisted generally of people who were as- 
 cetics on principle. 
 
 Thirdly, that the introduction of ascetic practices referable 
 to legal maxims would be out of harmony with the leading 
 thoughts in Christ's ethical teaching. 
 
 At the same time, it must be emphasized that the Chris- 
 tian conception of love in relation to God, to humanity, and to 
 creation necessarily embodies an ideal self-denial, and every- 
 where implies a conflict with selfishness. In Harnack's words : 
 "Whenever some desire of the senses gains the upper hand of 
 you, so that you become coarse and vulgar, or in your selfishness 
 a new master arises in you, you must destroy it; not because 
 God has any pleasure in mutilation; but because you cannot 
 otherwise preserve your better part." 
 
 In the light of these considerations we must view the Gos- 
 pel's attitude to the sex life. 
 
 It were tedious to enumerate the obscure sects which in 
 early Christian history endeavored to extract from the Christian 
 Gospel a condemnation of all carnal sex relations. 1 But such 
 ideas are by no means extinct in our own day, and are therefore 
 of practical interest to us. Tolstoy in particular, whose teach- 
 ing on the relations of the sexes has been summarized in a book- 
 let published by the "Free Age Press," treats the sex life as in- 
 imical to the ethical ideal established in the New Testament. 
 He repudiates what is called "Christian marriage" as a means 
 of rendering sexual intercourse lawful and hallowed. Marriage 
 to a Christian, to any right-minded man, is a fall (pp. 17, 18) ; 
 and though it were indeed better that a man, if he needs must 
 fall, should fall with one woman, i.e., in matrimony (p. 31), yet 
 
 1 Von Dobschiitz ("Christian Life in the Primitive Church," from the 
 German), though he concludes that the ascetic spirit is not innate in 
 Christianity (pp. 376ff.), explains and to some extent justifies its influ- 
 ence as an external force upon the primitive Church (pp. 113, 114, and 
 passim) . 
 
202 TEACHING OF TOLSTOY. 
 
 he should still strive to remain in the unhappy condition of one 
 who condemneth himself in that thing which he alloweth, and 
 should say to himself: "I am falling, I hate the fall" (p. 32). 
 Complete sexual abstinence, according to this writer, is an es- 
 sential part of the Christian ideal of character. Since most 
 men find this ideal impossible of attainment, they may aim at 
 a lower ideal, involving a less perfect chastity; but even in 
 adopting this lower ideal, they are, as aforesaid, to condemn 
 themselves, and merely to use it as a stepping-stone to the 
 higher. 
 
 Tolstoy gives us the Christian ideal, including absolute 
 continence, as he has imagined it in his own mind; but the pas- 
 sage he adduces in support of his contentions, having been writ- 
 ten with a very different purpose, will not endure the strain 
 he places on them. They are to be found on page 18 of the 
 booklet. Leaving for the present the question of the indissolu- 
 bility of marriage upon which Tolstoy touches, and which is by 
 no means as free from obscurity in the Gospels as he would have 
 us think; the present writer cannot but object that the remark 
 "for man in general, and therefore both for the married and 
 unmarried ones, it is sinful to look upon woman as an object 
 of pleasure" — is quite an erroneous interpretation of St. Matt. 
 5 : 28, 29. This passage is dealing not with lawful, i.e., conjugal, 
 but with unlawful sexual desire. It is a comment on the com- 
 mandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," to the effect that 
 the conscious indulgence of all wandering desires, in regard to 
 women other than the one over whom a man has sexual rights, 
 is worthy of condemnation. 1 Tolstoy's exegesis of this passage 
 is on every ground inadmissible; and he misses the point of St. 
 Matt. 19 : 10-12 quite as fully. That passage, to which we shall 
 refer again later on, teaches no doctrine of celibacy as a counsel 
 of perfection. It does not imply that in the general rule the 
 Kingdom of Heaven can only be entered, or can best be en- 
 tered, by "becoming a eunuch." According as we interpret "the 
 saying" ( rbv \6yov ) of verse 11, of Christ's own utterance — 
 
 1 Cp. Nosgen's remarks in, loc. (Strack u. Zockler, p. 54). 
 
CHRIST'S TEACHING ON SEX LIFE. 203 
 
 an interpretation which the present writer prefers 1 — or of that 
 of the disciples, the passage under consideration will be either 
 (a) a recognition on the Lord's part that the sexual nature of 
 man could not in all cases support the strain which the doctrine 
 of the indissolubility of marriage, in its ideal perfection, might 
 sometimes place upon it; or (6) a statement of similar import 
 to that of St. Paul, 2 that each man hath his proper gift of God 
 — one servant of God may be called and enabled to remain celi- 
 bate, another may be called to the chaste enjoyment of sexual 
 intercourse in the married state. 
 
 Christ, it is true, seems to enunciate a doctrine of complete 
 suppression of the sexual emotions by implying that it may be- 
 come necessary to withdraw from a wife's society with a view 
 to greater efficiency and self-devotion in the cause of the 
 Gospel. 3 But there is no general discouragement of marriage 
 here. The law of God's service, involving in particular cases 
 
 1 The majority of commentators refer rbv \6yop in this passage 
 to the remark of the disciples. So Edersheim, "Life and Times," ii, 335n, 
 who, however, admits that without much difficulty top \6-)ov may be ap- 
 plied to Christ's own saying. Grammatically, toCtov top \iyov might 
 refer to a, remark which immediately precedes, as in St. Mark 9: 10; 
 St. Luke 1: 29, 4: 3G, etc., or to one which immediately succeeds, so 
 St. John 21: 23; Jd. 11: 37, LXX. But it seems more natural to sup- 
 pose toV \6yop to mean the authoritative saying of Christ (cf. St. John 
 0:60, 15:3), or the matter of primary importance under consideration. 
 Cp. Nopgen in loc. (Strack and Zockler, Kurzg. Kommentar), who con- 
 siders that Tin \oy6v=hadi-UMiar and is to be understood of "the matter 
 under discussion," i.e., men's capacity for remaining celibate. This ca- 
 pacity, however, has to be considered not merely in relation to ecclesi- 
 astical celibacy, which is the direction in which Nosgen turns his elucida- 
 tion of the passage; but in all cases where circumstances, on a prima 
 facie view, seem to demand such a self-abnegation, including those in 
 which the failure of previous married life is one of the conditions. More 
 especially may it be read in this way if with Westcott-Hort tovtop be 
 omitted on the authority of the best ancient MSS. According to the 
 ordinary view, our Lord is represented as misunderstanding or evading 
 the discussion of the point raised by the disciples. 
 
 2 1 Cor. 7:7. 
 
 •Luke 14:26, 18:29. 
 
204 CHRIST'S EXPERIENCE OF TEMPTATION. 
 
 the highest forms of self-sacrifice, is emphatically stated. Its 
 application is infinitely varied- 
 Jesus Christ was not married; but there is no sufficient 
 reason for thinking that he was wholly devoid of sexual 
 emotion. To complete his circle of representative human expe- 
 riences, he must have felt the action of such emotion on the 
 moral sense. Such is the view of one of the profoundest of the 
 New Testament writers. 1 
 
 Moreover, Christ asserted natural human rights. It is 
 clear, for example, that He asserted the natural human right 
 of self-defense. He commanded His disciples to arm in an 
 hour of danger. But when the crisis came, the uniqueness of 
 the work He had to do on earth demanded that He should waive 
 the right He had Himself asserted; and He refused to allow 
 His disciples to use, on His own behalf, the very weapons He 
 had commanded them to bring. (Lk. 22: 36, 493. Matt. 
 26: 52.) 
 
 *Heb. 2: 18; 4: 15. Cp. Kiibel's comment in loc. (Straek u. Zock- 
 ler) : "Die Gleichartigkeit Jesu mit den Menschen ist eine allseitige, also 
 auch Schwache, besonders Versuehbarkeit und Leidensfilhigkeit in sich 
 schliessend. Auch an die Siindhaftigkeit zu denken wird durch den Zu- 
 sammenhang zum mindesten nicht gefordert und durch 4: 15; 7: 26; 9:14 
 unbedingt verwehrt.'' It should be remembered, indeed, that according to 
 Catholic theology, any experience of sexual emotion which Christ may 
 have had, could not have aroused in Him even the most rudimentary form • 
 of self-will. Such a, contingency was obviated by His possession of the 
 Divine Nature, and by the constant operation of His Divine Will ; 
 which was the cause that the evil and- corruption inherent in the human 
 nature which He had graciously assumed, remained potential and un- 
 realized, and so not subject to judgment in the moral sphere. See the 
 discussion in Liddon, "Bampton Lectures," 17th Ed., pp. 522ff., Note C, 
 "On the Temptation of Christ;'' and for a judgment on the matter 
 which eminently commends itself to the present writer, the luminous 
 and reverent note of Bengel on Heb. 4: 15: "In intellectu, multo acrius 
 anima Salvatoris percepit imagines tentantes, quam nos infirmi: in vol- 
 untate, tarn celeriter incursum earum retudit, quam ignis aquce guttulam 
 sibi objectam. Expertus est igitur, qua virtute sit opus ad tentationes 
 vincendas." But preachers and theologians who deny in toto the exist- 
 ence of the sexual instinct in Christ present a. seriously impoverished 
 conception of the Incarnation. 
 
MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY. 205 
 
 Similarly, nothing in His words or practice implies a refusal 
 on His part to recognize marriage as one - of man's rights. He 
 does, indeed, establish, by precept and by example, the doctrine 
 already noticed — that this and all other rights ought to be 
 waived when they clearly conflict with a special call to higher 
 forms of self-sacrifice; such a call as existed pre-eminently in 
 His own case. It was because His own peculiar position and 
 work in the world did not permit of His marrying; not because 
 there is (as Tolstoy argues) anything inherently sinful in sexual 
 emotion or in the physical use of marriage; not because He 
 approved such contemporary views as those of the Essenes, who 
 repudiated marriage, that He Himself refrained from it.- A 
 teacher who, like Tolstoy, deprecates even lawful sexual pleas- 
 ure, and almost "forbids to marry/' would appear to be pos- 
 sessed of a Christianity strongly tinged with Manichamnism ; to 
 be the advocate of a false ascetism, not only not countenanced, 
 but already condemned in the New Testament. 1 
 
 But while our Lord did not give His sanction to misleading 
 and impracticable ascetic doctrines in regard to sexual func- 
 tions, He established and redefined the true and reasonable 
 ideals of chastity which were part of the heritage of His 
 countrymen. He did not recognize as lawful any form of 
 sexual pleasure outside the estate of marriage; and life in that 
 estate itself ought to correspond in sobriety and dignity to the 
 sacredness with which in His eyes, as in those of the pious 
 Israelites of His time, it was invested. 2 
 
 Moreover, Christ gave a social status to celibacy. In one 
 canonical saying (St. Matt. 19 : 12), which is perhaps supported 
 by a non-canonical saying (6 Kara. 7rp66f.<Tiv eivo^iixs 6/.<oA.oyi;o-as 
 fur] yrj at aya/xos Sta/xevero), Clem-Alex Strom, iii, 15: 97), He 
 invested celibacy with a peculiar, though not necessarily with a 
 pre-eminent honor; and this fact is the more impressive when 
 it is considered that His recognition of celibacy was made amid 
 a large expression of adverse sentiment in His own day. The 
 
 >I. Tim. 4: 3; Heb. 13: 4. 
 s Edersheim, L. & T., i, p. 353. 
 
206 CELIBACY IN NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ancient Semitic world disliked and depised celibacy; and ac- 
 cording to Dalman ('"Words of Jesus/' E. T., p. 123), the 
 tendency of Rabbinic teaching was similarly unfavorable to that 
 state of life. 1 
 
 In some of the later New Testament literature there is perhaps a 
 tendency to exalt the idea of celibacy — the result of the struggle of the 
 Church with pagan impurity — a tendency which assisted, though it did 
 not originate, the emphasis laid upon that form of self-sacrifice in 
 mediaeval times. Not only did individuals practice this form of self- 
 abnegation, but wishes were expressed, and perhaps realized in certain 
 localities, to make it an essential of the Christian ethical system. 2 Many 
 Biblical scholars — von Dobschiitz, working on critical principles and 
 without ecclesiastical prejudice, is perhaps the most noteworthy recent 
 addition to the list — have seen in such a passage as Eev. 14: 1-5, the 
 inspired sanction and justification of this ascetic tendency. 
 
 But a very strong case can be made out against the view that this 
 passage deals with literal celibacy. For where, as in the Apocalypse, the 
 literary methods are mainly those of imagery and symbol, a mystical 
 meaning will be naturally looked for; and with this interpretation such 
 luminous expositors as Milligan, and such learned commentators as 
 Zockler, whose note exhaustively reviews the different interpretations, 
 profess themselves content. 
 
 Indeed, even if von Dobschiitz is right in his contention, and literal 
 celibacy was, as » matter of fact, primarily in the seer's mind; and if 
 again he is right in seeing in the obscure passages, I Tim. 3: 2; Tit. 1: 6, 
 a discouragement of second marriage and a step in the direction of 
 clerical celibacy, 3 in both instances these ethical developments must be 
 viewed in their proper perspective, in relation to the general New Tes- 
 tament presentation of Christian freedom, and reliance upon spirtual 
 guidance in individual cases. In so far as these passages enforce by a, 
 special illustration the general law of self-sacrifice inspired by love, 
 they are ethically progressive; but if they are understood as reaffirming 
 
 1 Nevertheless, the conclusions expressed by Taylor ("Sayings of the 
 Jewish Fathers," 2d Ed., p. 137n.) suggest that in Rabbinic thought 
 there is observable a certain preparation for the social recognition of 
 celibacy, orignating in the suspicion with which sexual relations in 
 general were regarded. Cp. the remarks of Meyrick, quoted in Howard, 
 op. (At., vol. i, p. 328. 
 
 * Von Dobschiitz, "Primitive Life in the Christian Church" (from the 
 German), pp. 262, 3. 
 
 'Id., p. 285. 
 
GROWTH OF CHRISTIAN SEX ETHIC. 207 
 
 the inherent sinfulness of sexual relations, they become from that point 
 of view ethically reactionary and degenerate. Assuredly, a glorification 
 of celibacy on the basis of the last-mentioned sentiment not only requires 
 to be largely qualified by the spirit of a great body of contrasted Biblical 
 teaching, but is even in imperfect harmony with the general attitude of 
 the Apocalytist himself toward sex as a source of ethical imagery. 1 
 The line of exegesis followed by such commentators as are referred lo 
 above, seems to be the only one that brings out the permanent ethical 
 element underlying the apparent asceticism. 
 
 We find in the Synoptic Gospels, which give us at least a 
 reasonably close picture of the historic Jesus, and report of 
 His teaching as actually delivered, a sufficient condemnation 
 of sexual sin in the forms generally condemned not merely by 
 Christian, but by all educated human opinion ; even if this con- 
 demnation is not, in the Gospels themselves, as full and explicit 
 as many readers would expect. Moreover, to believers in Christ, 
 His teaching, whether on sexual ethics or on any other subject, 
 cannot be gathered from the Gospels alone; for critical diffi- 
 culties notwithstanding, His Spirit inspires the rest of the New 
 Testament, and becomes the motive power of His early disciples' 
 uncompromising hostility to sexual irregularities and impurities. 
 It is to be remembered that the Jewish society in which Christ 
 lived had ideas — as yet sufficiently definite, though in process 
 of decay — as to what constituted sexual sin; and there is no 
 reason to think — except where His attitude to sex relations im- 
 plies otherwise — that He repudiated or even modified those ideas. 
 
 On the other hand, throughout the environment of pagan 
 civilization in which Christian ideas of sexual morality had to 
 grow up, there appears everywhere moral depravity. 2 Every 
 form of luxury that the knowledge of that age could suggest — 
 in particular, the varied and powerful incitements of the bath 3 — 
 was employed to inflame carnal passion. And not merely the 
 practice, but what is of more fundamental importance, the 
 theory of morality, was corrupted. Paganism was finding it 
 
 x Zockler, in Strack u. Zockler, Kurzg. Komm., p. 280. 
 
 " Von Dobsehiitz, op. cit., p. 372. 
 
 • Cp. H. Ellis, "Studies," vol. iv, eh. iv. 
 
208 CHRIST AND SINNERS. 
 
 more and more difficult to recognize that moral sanctions had 
 any place at all in the sex life. 1 
 
 Had there not been available in these circumstances, as the 
 groundwork of the reformed morality, the ideas which Christ 
 selected from the Jewish ethical system and emphatically re- 
 affirmed, the primitive Christian moralists would have found it 
 far more difficult to discern any general directive principles. 
 But just here "we perceive the value of the Jewish factor in 
 the formation of the Christian ethic of the sexes. However 
 faulty was the actual state of Jewish society in respect of the 
 relations of the sexes — and there is contemporary evidence forth- 
 coming to its discredit — its theory of purity was at least sounder 
 and more distinct than was the case elsewhere. 
 
 Christ's sympathy with man's experiences accounts for — 
 what is perhaps observable — His peculiar tenderness toward 
 people who had incurred actual stains on their sexual nature. 
 His human knowledge of the power of the instinct and of the 
 immense difficulties with which its development is surrounded, 
 in the progress of the race, caused the Divine Love in Him, 
 not merely to stand and welcome, but to flow forth to meet, the 
 penitent prostitute or the returning prodigal wasted with de- 
 bauchery. The story of Christ and the woman taken in adul- 
 tery, which even if it be not historic, has a closer connection 
 with the primitive tradition than even Westcott-Hort allowed, 2 
 seems truthfully to reflect the sympathetic saving pity which the 
 Lord had for the penitent sinner against sexual morality. 3 The 
 same insight into the conditions of the sexual problem and His 
 consequent recognition of the frequent need of the concession of 
 marriage seems, as is pointed out in another chapter, not indeed 
 
 'Von Dobschutz, op. cit., p. 52. 
 
 1 E. Nestle, "Expos. Times," vol. xiii, p. 95. 
 
 "It must be noted that some writers, both ancient and modern, 
 have more or less wilfully misconstrued Christ's attitude toward sexual 
 sins. There is an essential difference between the lax regard of a sin, 
 and a sympathetic estimate of the conditions in which it occurred. For 
 a just estimate of Christ's attitude toward offenders against the law of 
 purity, see von Dobsehiitz, op. cit., Introduction, p. 39. 
 
ST. PAUL'S ATTITUDE. 209 
 
 to lower His ideal of the stability of marriage, but to influence 
 His teaching in regard to the practical realization of that ideal. 
 Prominence is not given, in Jesus Christ's own teaching, 
 to any special abhorrence of particular forms of sin. Christ's 
 insight into moral problems is of unrivaled depth: He attacks 
 the spirit which works behind all real sin. As compared with 
 Christ's teaching, that of St. Paul perhaps does manifest some- 
 thing, in the concrete, of abhorrence for forms of sin; and not 
 least for the forms of it connected with the sexual instinct. 1 His 
 soul was full of an intense horror of sexual impurities, a horror 
 continually strengthened by the frightful commonness of the 
 grossest sexual abnormalities in society around him. This 
 feeling develops to a slight extent in his mind the indiscrimi- 
 nating distrust of the sexual function itself, which we have 
 already noticed as being widespread in humanity; but which 
 does not belong to a perfect scheme of ethics. St. Paul is 
 almost driven to depreciate marriage. Unless we accept Pro- 
 fessor Bamsay's estimate of the circumstances of the composi- 
 tion of that part of St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians 
 which deals with marriage 2 - — a theory which requires a some- 
 what strained interpretation of the introductory thought — k<x\6v 
 avOpumin ywa.iK.os pr) airTeadat, — we must, it seems, conclude with 
 W. P. Paterson, in Hastings's "Dictionary of the Bible," s. v. 
 "Marriage," that the mind of St. Paul inclines to a more ascetic 
 presentation of the ethics of sex than that implied in our Lord's 
 own attitude. This inclination is, however, slight; and it was 
 viewed with caution by the apostle himself. His readiness to 
 welcome the return of the penitent sinner against sexual morality 
 is not inferior to Christ's own. No difference of vital impor- 
 tance can be said to exist between his views and Christ's, on the 
 sexual' relation. The same spirit inspires both teachers; the 
 same leading ideas dominate their reflections in this province of 
 morals. 
 
 'See especially Eom. l:26ff.; I Cor. 6:9-13ff. 
 'In the "Expositor," April and May, 1900. 
 
 14 
 
210 THE SEX QUESTION AT CORINTH. 
 
 Particularly instructive as illustrating the process by which 
 ideas of sexual morality were elucidated among the first Chris- 
 tians, is St. Paul's treatment of the sex question in the Church 
 at Corinth, where a false theory of Christian emancipation had 
 created a spirit of libertinism, which aimed at reducing the 
 married woman to the same level of social esteem as the hetaira 
 or hierodule. According to the analysis made by von Dobschiitz 
 of the situation obscurely presented in I Cor. 11: 2-16, the 
 social conflict between the married women and the free-living 
 and free-loving women came to a head, as is the wont of great 
 ethical and religious questions, over a small point of etiquette, 
 the wearing of veils in the assembled Christian congregation. 
 The veil was the symbol of conjugal fidelity in the matron, and 
 generally of modesty in women. The hetairae, the party stand- 
 ing for female emancipation, regarded unfavorably the assump- 
 tion of the veil by women. They probably, and with some show 
 of reason, claimed to be the female leaders in education and 
 progress; condemned the seemingly useless strictness of the 
 moral party, and twitted them with the veil as a badge of servi- 
 tude. 
 
 St. Paul's insight, in deciding this conventional question 
 between the two classes of women, is so remarkable that one 
 may fairly see in it an evidence of his special inspiration by the 
 Spirit of God. He saw, more clearly than even the veiled women 
 themselves, the importance underlying the point for which they 
 contended with an obstinacy which was at once pathetic and 
 morally great. He perceived the real drift of hetairism; he 
 saw the want of stability inherent in even its better manifesta- 
 tions in history. He understood its social failure; and though 
 his broad sympathies forced him to entertain the idea of an 
 emancipation of women, he uncompromisingly maintained that 
 right moral beginnings were essential to true progress. 
 
 As a counterpoise to the libertine movement, Encratite 
 tendencies were driving the more scrupulous converts in the 
 direction of Manichsean or Gnostic asceticism. But as St. Paul 
 withheld his assistance from a false realization of the idea of 
 liberty, so neither was he, in spite of his personal readiness to 
 
CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE. 211 
 
 admit the highest and hardest claims of self-sacrifice, led to give 
 an undue ethical prominence to celibacy. In short, no passage 
 in the history of morals is more interesting than the series of 
 efforts by which St. Paul, bringing his heritage of Jewish ideas 
 into touch with Greek life, and at the same time holding those 
 ideas in a liberal spirit, renovated and reaffirmed whatever of 
 truth and soundness remained in pagan ethics; and drew the 
 main outlines of a pure, healthy, and comprehensive ethic of the 
 sexes. 
 
 As the mortal body is "clothed upon" 1 with the spiritual 
 body, so the Christian conception of marriage as a religious 
 ceremony, as a sacramental ordinance, envelops, and by envelop- 
 ing transforms and hallows the natural conception of it as a 
 social contract. Too much stress should not be laid on the fact 
 that the idea of marriage as a sacrament or spiritual compact 
 does not appear fully formed till the Middle Ages. St. Paul's 
 obscure and mystical language in Eph. 5 : 22ff . does not indeed 
 afford a sure basis for the whole elaborate structure of legal 
 enactments which Christian canonists of a later date built upon 
 it : but marriage here and elsewhere in the New Testament is 
 seen to be elevated into an ethical region in touch with eternal 
 verities; and all later Christian teaching on marriage must be 
 submitted to the touchstone of this lofty conception. 
 
 Kightly estimating this idealism, we shall allow that 
 Christianity, by incorporating into its doctrine of marriage all 
 that was best and most stable in the natural conceptions of it ; 2 
 by intensifying all that there was in human society of reverent 
 regard for the estate of matrimony, performed a work of incal- 
 culable benefit to mankind, and gave a new starting-point to the 
 
 *II Cor. 5: 2, 4. 
 
 2 Crawley {op. (At., pp. 236ff.) well shows from the side of natural 
 religion how men in a, primitive state have formed the ideas which 
 establish human marriage on a, firm ethical basis. The conception of 
 marriage as a sacrament is found in the rudest stages of human evolu- 
 tion, expressing itself in a series of symbolic acts instituting a full 
 reciprocity, or even a theoretical fusion of individualities between man 
 and wife. 
 
212 CHRIST RECOVERS LOST IDEALS. 
 
 evolution of marriage legislation, and to all subsequent thought 
 and feeling about marriage; thus making it more than ever a 
 powerful factor in the highest progress. 
 
 Without doubt, Jesus Christ taught that the ideal of mar- 
 riage indissoluble should be the guiding principle of men's 
 thoughts upon sexual unions, the high point whither ethical 
 teaching on sex should lead. All around Him in human society 
 were infinitely lower and less worthy ideals. All were pro- 
 gressing along lines of degeneration, not of high evolution. It 
 must be remembered that a society's practical estimate of the 
 sanctity of marriage — the best criterion of its general view of 
 sexual morality — cannot be inferred merely from the state of 
 the law respecting the marriage contract and divorce; for there 
 have been communities, or times in the history of some particu- 
 lar community, in which marriage has been dissoluble for 
 several causes and by easy processes; but in which, practically, 
 advantage has been but seldom taken of the ability to dissolve 
 marriage; whereas, at other times, in less healthy social condi- 
 tions, people have largely availed themselves of the same oppor- 
 tunities of getting rid of partners. 1 They have learned to put 
 an easier construction on the law, because the ideal of marriage 
 has become lowered in their public opinion; while the sex rela- 
 tion is freely viewed as a field of pleasures, and ignored as a 
 source of obligations. 2 And perhaps it would be safe to say 
 that in our Lord's time this process of lowering ideals and 
 vitiating opinion in the region of sexual ethics had advanced 
 further than it had ever done before in human history, or than 
 it has done since. 
 
 1 "In the early days of Hebrew history," says Ewald, "it was only 
 in exceptional cases that husbands made an evil use of the right to 
 divorce a wife. Among the Greeks of the Homeric age, divorce seems 
 to have been almost unknown, though it afterwards became an every- 
 day event in Greece; and in Rome, in the earliest times, it was probably 
 very little used." (We.-,termarck, op. (At., p. 523.) 
 
 2 Booth notes ("Life and Labor," Final Vol., p. 46) that among the 
 London poor marriage is hardly regarded as a, responsibility. The 
 theoiy — not to speak of the practice — of matrimonial responsibility ia 
 imperfectly held even among the educated classes. 
 
MORALITY IN TIME OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 The ideas of marriage current among the Greeks and 
 Romans, who tolerated temporary cohabitation, and gave a large 
 liberty in the matter of divorce, did not tend to educate man- 
 kind up to the knowledge that an enduring love, into which 
 entered the elements of volition and duty, as well as those of 
 sexual attraction and emotion, is the final fruit of human mar- 
 riage — if, as a sound and acceptable philosophy of history infers, 
 an evolution in the direction of higher ideals be really going 
 on in the race. On an equally low or even a lower plane, are 
 the ideas of marriage reflected in the religious life of Asia 
 Minor. "This religion," says Professor Ramsay, speaking of 
 the ancient paganism of Phrygia, "did not recognize marriage 
 as part of the divine life. Marriage was a human device, an 
 outrage upon the divine freedom * * * there is not even 
 the most rudimentary conception that familiarity with any 
 other than a wife is wrong at all times." 1 Similarly, in the 
 social life of the Jews of Christ's time, the progress of opinion 
 about marriage had declined from former standards and was 
 rapidly degenerating. Divorce was probably common, in spile 
 of the restraints put upon it by the prophetic teaching and by 
 the best teaching of the rabbis. 2 
 
 Christ thus found the thoughts of men becoming every- 
 where corrupt in regard to marriage and to sexual relations 
 generally. There was immense danger that the ethical educa- 
 tion of the race, upon which the manifold reciprocity of sex 
 was intended to exert, and had exerted, so powerful an influence 
 for good, would collapse when this factor ceased to have a bene- 
 ficial operation. Therefore, Christ made one of His most pow- 
 erful appeals to men's consciences at this threatened point, the 
 region of sexual ethics. He accepted such contemporaneous 
 ideas of sexual morality as still retained a beneficial influence 
 on men's moral sense, and were helping the evolution of per- 
 fect conceptions of love and chastity; and where, as in regard to 
 marriage, the existing ideas and sentiments were corrupt, He 
 purified and restored them by His teaching. 
 
 1 "Expository Times," vol. x, p. 108. 
 * Edersheim, "L. & T.," vol. ii, p. 332. 
 
214 THE IDEAL AND ITS REALIZATION. 
 
 But marriage laws and doctrines conceived in the atmos- 
 phere of Christian thought, while they must never be disjoined 
 from the ideal of the New Testament, while they cannot have 
 any other starting-point than it, must be elaborated and ex- 
 pressed in accordance with a generalization which cannot be 
 better stated than in the words of Dr. W. P. Paterson in 
 "Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible," s. v. "Marriage:" "Cer- 
 tainly it must be granted that the Christian morality does 
 not consist of a cast-iron system of laws, but rather of germinal 
 principles which entail the labor and responsibility of thinking 
 out their inmost significance, and judging as to their proper 
 application." Neither Jesus Christ nor St. Paul were engaged 
 in framing statutes about marriage; they were enunciating 
 abstract ideal truths in the spirit of prophecy. 
 
 The history of marriage among Christian nations shows 
 that the task of practically applying the principles of the Gos- 
 pel has not always been considerately or happily performed. 
 Upon the modern, progressive Church lies the necessity of 
 subjecting the ideas about marriage which, under the combined 
 influences of ecclesiastical Christianity and Christianized law, 
 have become more or less crystallized in society, to a temperate 
 and truth-loving criticism. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, do we find the power of sin in humanity 
 taking to itself more horrible and revolting forms than in the 
 life of sex. So repellent, indeed, is the full study of the disso- 
 lution of the sexual instinct that but a very few minds have 
 ventured to undertake it; to investigate and classify the pain- 
 ful phenomena, to analyze and estimate the causes of such 
 dread results. In modern theology, though a study of sin as 
 complete and searching as possible really belongs to the de- 
 partment of theology, the discussion of sexual criminality is 
 generally tabooed. Yet in the Bible itself the sins of sex, and 
 sexual relations generally, are viewed as necessary subjects for 
 the consideration of inspired and righteous men. Nihil hu- 
 manum cdienum. Nor is the discussion of sins of sex excluded 
 
THE ATONEMENT AND SINS OF SEX 215 
 
 from the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of the 
 mediaeval theologians. 
 
 Therefore, in concluding the present chapter, we cannot 
 forget that the Atonement made by the Son of God for the 
 sins of men touches the whole circle of human sin at every 
 point; and nowhere does the mercy of God shine more brightly 
 than just here, where the mystery of the Atonement and those 
 sins which most affright the conscience of mankind are brought 
 into contact. 
 
 For centuries past, thinkers of great power and of devout 
 piirpose have meditated on the Atonement, casting rays of light 
 far into its unfathomable depths, now in this direction, now in 
 that; but it may well be believed that never while human 
 faculties are limited by material conditions, perhaps never fully, 
 even in the hereafter, will that mystery of love become patent 
 to a created mind. Yet some reflections on it may be made at 
 this point, showing impressively — if the writer can transfer to 
 other minds the impression made upon his own — the transcend- 
 ent moral greatness of Him whom God gave freely as a pro- 
 pitiatory gift for the sin of the world. 1 
 
 Let us inquire how any pure and sensitive soul, such as now 
 and then we have knowledge of, is affected by the "hearing" of 
 sin, by the oppressive and miserable burden of guilt; let us 
 throw ourselves, by the aid of our experience and by an effort 
 of the imagination, into the situation. There are three stages 
 to be considered : — 
 
 First, the soul is oppressed by an admitted weight of guilt, 
 by the consciousness of sins formerly committed and not yet 
 devoid of attraction. A great degree of spiritual agony is im- 
 plied in the effort of bearing guilt in such conditions. Eegret, 
 fear, shame, the memory of the past, the struggle with the 
 present, combine to create in a soul which, imperfection and 
 defilement notwithstanding, is still sensitive to the charm of 
 goodness, an intense mental and spiritual anguish, perhaps 
 
 J "The crucified Christ is the votive-gift ( Vkaar-fipiov ) of the Divine 
 Love for the salvation of men." (Deissmann, "Bib. Studies," E. T., p. 133.) 
 
216 THE BEARING OF SIN. 
 
 accompanied by physical distress. Yet the burden is borne be- 
 cause the soul recognizes that it is in a manner rightly im- 
 posed; allowing for heredity and external circumstances, there 
 has been all through an element of responsibility which at least 
 partially explains ajid justifies the imposition of the moral load. 
 
 But secondly, the soul may be called on to bear an unjust, 
 undeserved imputation of guilt. Let any minister of the 
 Gospel, for example, image to himself his mental state, if, as 
 he preached the Word to his congregation, he were to feel upon 
 his conscience, -first, the accumulated and concentrated weight 
 of his own sin ; and after he had freed himself, by a great effort 
 of faith in the Gospel promise of forgiveness, from the oppres- 
 sive sense of this burden, there were to be borne in upon his 
 mind the dreadful conviction that his congregation, even as he 
 preached to them, were coming to believe him guilty of crimes 
 of which he was really innocent, and which his spirit utterly 
 loathed. In the darkening gaze of his people he reads that he 
 is wrongfully condemned; relentlessly accused of the worst 
 violations of the sexual law, of offenses of inexpressible ghastli- 
 ness, such as the immoral world itself cannot endure to contem- 
 plate, even as set down and classified on the emotionless page 
 of science. And his soul cries out within him in a passionate 
 and agonized protestation of his innocence; indeed, it is the 
 consciousness of innocence which alone, in such awful circum- 
 stances, supports his being. 
 
 But even yet the extreme depths of spiritual agony are not 
 reached; for what if, by some hypersensitiveness of moral 
 sympathy, the very consciousness of innocence at length de-^ 
 serts such a soul, and a process of tremendous and overpowering 
 self -accusation sets in? The soul perceives within itself the 
 extent of the capacities for evil latent in human nature. Prom 
 an external observation of the foulest sexual criminality, it 
 passes to the recognition of such criminality incorporated in its 
 own experience. 
 
 Something like this, according to Godet's profound theory 
 of the Atonement, 1 was the spiritual process by which Jesus 
 
 "The Atonement in Modern Keligious Thought,'' p. 341. 
 
CHRIST MADE SIN FOE. US. 217 
 
 Christ condemned sin in human flesh. "By an unfathomable 
 prodigy of love, He entered into the horror of the sins of which 
 He was each day witness, as though He had Himself been the 
 responsible author of them." 
 
 Scarcely can Christian believers, even of the keenest and 
 most far-reaching spiritual vision, realize what tremendous 
 import there is in the mysterious identification of Christ (for 
 purposes of the Atonement) with sinful man. There is no 
 thought more staggering to the imagination than that of the 
 appalling, one had almost said illimitable, capacities for sin in 
 man, and the extent to which those capacities are actually ful- 
 filled. Among sexual sins especially there are some so mon- 
 strous and distorted that vast numbers of people have not even 
 heard of them, and would not think them possible if they were 
 told about them. There are sins which men shrink from, not 
 so much on account of the punishments which might follow 
 them, as from their own inherent horror. Let the reader but 
 think of any sin for which he entertains a peculiar dread, and 
 imagine the anguish of his feelings, if he knew that somehow 
 that sin was within him, its power depressing the soul, the re- 
 sponsibility for it burdening and torturing the conscience. The 
 bare imagination of a sin, ripening into a mental delusion, has 
 driven men sometimes into insanity and suicide. 
 
 When, therefore, it is understood that Jesus Christ, with a 
 conscience more sensitive than we can conceive of, because the 
 union .of His soul with the Divine Holiness was complete, felt 
 within Himself, by some operation of the Spirit' — not as if He 
 saw them and studied them from outside — but with an inward, 
 personal responsibility, the intense and direful horror of all the 
 sins of which human history has record, the abominable in- 
 genious cruelties, the base deceits, the loathsome impurities 
 formerly unnamable, for which scientists have only recently 
 invented names, the frightful murders and gross excesses — all 
 the real, awful sins of humanity; when this is pondered, the 
 mind utterly fails to grasp the full significance of the fact. 
 That Christ bore the sins of humanity — this general proposi- 
 tion is admitted by millions; but such sins as defile the sex life, 
 and with such a bearing 1 
 
218 EFFECT OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 As the method of the historic Atonement transcends our 
 human imagination and intelligence, so does its eternal opera- 
 tion. Canon Jelf in a powerful and sympathetic paper pub- 
 lished in the "Guardian" for October 9, 1901, speaks solemnly 
 of "the fearful effects in time of those widespread offenses 
 against chastity, as forecasting their still more fearful effects 
 in eternity." And if in time the connection between sexual 
 sin and ensuing misery is not always clearly discernible, since 
 with impurity other influences are frequently cooperating 
 factors in producing some dire spectacle of human ruin, none 
 the less clearly does a reasonable faith point us to a future con- 
 summation of perfect justice in relation to the moral side of the 
 sex life; none the less solemnly does a trained ethical percep- 
 tion warn us that if moral law rules the universe — and our 
 deepest intuitions support that belief — the element of responsi- 
 bility in sexual sin, as in all other, guarantees some future terri- 
 ble recompensing, probably in the nature of something self- 
 inflicted, 1 of conscious, persistent, deliberate sin. 
 
 This line of thought does indeed lead in a direction of 
 somber fear; but in contrast with the most gloomy aspects of 
 judgment, we have the eternal mystery of the Atonement, 
 fathomless in hope and power. Here, however, we are face to face 
 with immense problems of human destiny, lying in their full- 
 ness beyond the scope of a work like the present. 
 
 It remains to remind ourselves of the need for the present 
 application of Christ's saving power to sinners against sexual 
 morality; and to consider how that application is to be kept 
 true to its principles and made efficacious in its working. In 
 ethical processes the central factor, the all-important element 
 is the appeal to the will. It is this that gives impulsion to all 
 attempts at preaching and teaching which are truly inspired 
 with the spirit of Christianity. Christian thought cannot wel- 
 come a wholly non-ethical science as a remedial agency in the 
 sphere of sexual vice or in any other. Scientific therapeutics 
 based on an indifferent psychology of sex may not only ignore, 
 
 'E. H. Charles, "Eschatology," p. 405. 
 
PREACHING OF SALVATION. 219 
 
 but be directly hostile to ethics — and thus ultimately fail of 
 accomplishing their remedial purpose ; for ethical responsibility 
 is an essential element of sex psychology. It is such a consid- 
 eration, for example, that causes a Christian moralist to view 
 unfavorably the employment of hypnotic methods of curing the 
 grosser forms of sexual perversion, when such methods are ac- 
 companied by visits under medical sanction to brothels for the 
 purpose of attempting fornication. This cure is certainly non- 
 ethical, and admittedly of dubious efficacy. 1 It gives the sexual 
 instinct a partial impulse toward its normal objective; but does 
 it strengthen and elevate the moral purpose ? Does it rouse the 
 will itself, or endue it with Divine grace, to struggle with that 
 composite force of diseased heredity, of misevolution, of dan- 
 gerous environment, of perverted and exaggerated desires, which 
 theologians gather up into the one word temptation? 
 
 Preaching and teaching, moral suasion, and religious in- 
 fluence are still the most powerful weapons of the Christian 
 Church in its battle with sexual vice. Wisely and forcibly em- 
 ployed, they are the best means of dispelling pernicious ignor- 
 ance on questions of sexual morality, rousing the dormant sense 
 of responsibility, and invigorating the enfeebled will. Through- 
 out human society there is every occasion for the proper exer- 
 cise of hortatory and educational methods of diffusing the power 
 of the Atonement in regard to sexual sin. In confirmation 
 classes, in the family, in the school, in the pulpit, in the prison 
 - — for the removal of penal restraint in connection with some 
 forms of sexual vice is not yet proved to be a desideratum — by 
 purity organizations and the distribution of Christian literature 
 dealing with sex problems, the preaching of the Cross of Christ, 
 with its reasonableness and its advocacy of self-control and self- 
 
 1 Moll, on hygienic as well as ethical grounds, strongly discoun- 
 tenances prostitution as a, factor in the treatment of sexual perverts, or 
 as a means of sexual experiment when virility is in question; and like 
 FerG, counsels by preference the education of the pronounced pervert in 
 the direction of chastity, or at least to the experiment of a disciplined 
 platonic friendship with one of the other sex, as a preliminary to mar- 
 riage {op. tit., pp. 998, 1038). 
 
220 DUTY OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 renunciation, may be brought into touch with the sex life. But 
 as to those on whom devolves the performance of any part of 
 this duty, no indolence or false delicacy must hinder them from 
 becoming genuine students of their subject. If a non-ethical, 
 non-Christian science of sex is inadequate and dangerous, 
 scarcely less so is an unscientific, poorly informed hortatory 
 teaching seeking to arm itself with the aegis of Christianity. 
 
 The present writer remembers hearing a sermon on purity 
 delivered to a congregation of men in London by one of the 
 Cowley Fathers. The preacher in this case had evidently given 
 to his subject careful and extensive preparation; and the result 
 was an oration of quite extraordinary force, the impression of 
 which would not be effaced in a life-time. Too often, it is to 
 be feared, "men only" sermons, owing to a lack of the power and 
 knowledge that come from devout and scientific study, not only 
 fail of doing much good, but invite criticism as to the weakness 
 of the Church's methods in coping with sins of impurity. The 
 Word of God places pureness and knowledge in close conjunc- 
 tion. 1 Preachers of Christian purity must see that they be not 
 disjoined. 
 
 1 II Cor. 6:6. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE A ON THE GENESIS NAEKATIVE 
 OP THE PALL. 
 
 All modern Biblical students — taking Canon Driver as 
 the standard authority — admit that the material side of the 
 narrative was derived not from history, but from religious re- 
 presentations and traditions (see Driver, "Genesis," pp. 51ff.) ; 
 but we have to go further back than this, and to investigate the 
 ideas underlying the traditions themselves. Now the particular 
 interpretation which is discussed below is no new one. With 
 various modifications, it is that of a number of ancient writers 
 (see Tennant, "The Pall and Original Sin," pp. 153ff., 197) ; but 
 without modern anthropology it remained fanciful and obscure. 
 Tennant, referring to the researches of Barton and others, is 
 disposed to recognize the existence of this meaning in the Yah- 
 wistic story; but considers that it is present merely in a fossil- 
 ized condition, and that the Yahwistic writer "intended to clear 
 his narrative" of this association of thought (op. tit., p. 69). It 
 is true, indeed, that in the hands of the Yahwist the story 
 obtains a fuller content and wider scope ; but to call its primary 
 meaning fossilized is misleading. Bather that meaning remains 
 in the story as a germ, a point of origin of perennial human 
 interest; and the closer examination of this point of origin will 
 throw considerable light on Biblical religious conceptions. 
 
 With reference, then, to the suggested interpretation of 
 Genesis iii, alluded to in the text of this work, it must be ob- 
 served that the command to the first pair to be fruitful and 
 multiply occurs in the Hexateuchal document known as P. 
 The remaining document JE' which contains the story of the 
 Pall, has no such Divine sanction of sexual relations between 
 the man and the woman; rather, perhaps, postulates in them 
 an original absence of mutual desire, and, therefore, a complete 
 innocence. The expression "knowing good and evil," possibly 
 refers to sexual knowledge, with its pleasure and its responsibil- 
 
 (221) 
 
222 NATURE SYMBOLISM. 
 
 ity. 1 It refers at any rate to a kind of knowledge which is 
 normally absent in yonng children (Deut. 1: 39; Isa. 1: 15, 16), 
 and in old men (II Sam. 19 : 35). The description of the pluck- 
 ing of the fruit suits very well as an allegorical representation 
 of sexual intercourse; indeed, we often apply this symbolism 
 half unconsciously. Moreover, in the folk-lore of various races 
 a connection is established between the serpent and the sexual 
 functions of women. 2 Sometimes it is considered the symbol 
 of sexual desire ; and the Swahili women are said to apply this 
 title to the male organ of generation. Appropriately, then, 
 Eve is tempted by a serpent to pluck the forbidden fruit. 
 
 The triumphant cry of Eve on the birth of Cain : — "I have 
 gotten a man in spite of Yahweh," i.e., in spite of His condemn- 
 ation of her plucking the forbidden fruit of sexual intercourse, 
 has been thought to strengthen this interpretation; but such a 
 translation of Eve's cry requires an unusual and imperfectly 
 supported rendering of 'eth. 
 
 There is some probability that the root idea of the mystic 
 trees in the midst of the garden is to be found in nature sym- 
 bolism. The two trees in the Garden of Eden are perhaps a 
 double tree, as the Third Creation Tablet of Babylonia has been 
 thought to indicate; but this duality will have been a later 
 accretion to the original myth. The Tree of Life itself was 
 probably the primary concept; and the interesting question is 
 whether it is meant as a source of immortality and immunity 
 from decay, or as a symbol of fecundity. In Genesis 3 : 22, as 
 in the twelfth book on the "Epic of Gilgames" (Sayce in 
 "Expository Times," vol. vii, p. 305), it appears in the former 
 guise, like the Haoma Tree of the Iranians; but considering 
 the probable date of the composition of the version of the 
 Paradise narrative which appears in the Book of Genesis, we 
 must admit the possibility that later conceptions have become 
 
 1 Tennant refers to Ja9trow as understanding the expression in this 
 way {op. cit., p. 41). 
 
 2 See the important evidence collected by Havelock Ellis, "Studies 
 in the Psychology of Sex," vol. ii, pp. 306fE. 
 
THE TWO TREES. 223 
 
 interwoven with the primary idea. As several critics have noted, 
 it is unlikely that vv. 22-24 in Chapter III are original. The 
 Yahwist may have admitted these verses in completion of the 
 narrative, either not perceiving, or being indifferent to the fact 
 that they contained a notion out of harmony with the original 
 symbolism. It is not indeed certain that J himself was aware 
 of the real interpretation of the allegory which he incorporates 
 in his book. In substance it was composed at a date long ante- 
 rior to his own; and its meaning may have become obscure be- 
 fore his time. Comparison with kindred traditions — such com- 
 parison as none but modern conditions of knowledge have ad- 
 mitted of — alone renders possible the recovery of the conceptions 
 earliest embodied in the narrative. 
 
 The symbolism of the Tree of Life is more likely originally 
 to have been fecundity than immortality. It stands for fecun- 
 dity in the ancient Sumerian hymn quoted by Sayce ("Exposi- 
 tory Times," vol. vii, p. 2G7) 1 ; and in the Iranian mythology 
 there appears, along with the Haoma Tree, a tree called Vigpa- 
 taokhma (all-seed), from whose seed all plaut-gcrms come on 
 the earth. (See Dillmann, "Genesis," E. T., vol. i, p. 109.) 
 
 Thus the Tree of Life, considered in its relation to human- 
 ity, signifies sexual reproduction. It does not appear when 
 the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was added to the 
 prior symbol. 
 
 The net result of our inquiry is this: The two trees, or 
 the double tree, are a symbol of sexuality, expressing on the 
 one hand the aspect of reproduction, on the other that of pleas- 
 sure. Man and woman, in their ideal state of innocence, are 
 depicted as abstaining from the fruit of this double tree. 
 
 ■Although the translation of the Babylonian text in which occurs 
 mention of the Vine of Eridu, given by Professor Sayce and Mr. Pinches, 
 may not absolutely allow us to speak of that vine as an emblem of fer- 
 tility, yet fertility is the leading idea associated with it; and it is 
 brought into connection with the couch of the primeval mother. But 
 Mr. B. Campbell Thompson regards this text as an incantation, and the 
 Vine as a, medicinal plant bestowing life in cases of sickness ("Expository 
 Times," vol. xv, p. 49). 
 
224 ORIGIN OF EVIL. 
 
 Finally, as has been already noted, the first detrimental 
 effect of the eating of the fruit on the guilty pair, is felt in 
 the region of their sexual emotions. 
 
 The interpretation in question needs further support; but 
 should it eventually be established, an adjustment of ideas re- 
 specting the Biblical doctrine of the Fall becomes necessary. In 
 view of what has been said already in Chapter III, it is conceiv- 
 able enough that primitive man, as he speculated on the origin 
 of moral evil in the world, should have seemed to find it in the 
 sexual act, which had long acquired a certain connotation of 
 sinfulness. 1 As a historical account of the entrance of evil 
 into the world, the narrative in Genesis will not stand. It is 
 rather an imperfect speculation on the part of primitive man. 
 Yet as it appears in the Hebrew literature it is differentiated 
 from the kindred mythical and allegorical speculations of other 
 races; and herein consists its inspiration. Although it deals 
 with but one department of human activity, the sex life, — yet 
 on the basis of that its idealism presents a true and profound 
 estimate of the principles according to which evil operates in 
 humanity, i.e., as an external force forming no original part 
 of the Divine purpose in creating man, a force which the human 
 will may resist or to which it may yield. A symbolic description 
 of the yielding of the will to the pressure of sexual desire, here 
 idealized as an external tempter, became the readiest and best 
 method of illustrating to primitive man — for illustration, not 
 explanation, is the purpose of the Genesis narrative — the re- 
 lation, faintly apprehended, between his sinful self and God, 
 the strenuous conflict between the higher principle of action 
 which his spiritual capacity enabled him to recognize, and a 
 lower principle the power of which he continually felt. The 
 narrative, like other primitive speculations on the origin of evil, 
 fails as an explanation; but unlike them, succeeds as an illus- 
 tration. 
 
 1 Other races besides the Semites have had their primitive philoso- 
 phers who, by allegorical or mythological representations, have at- 
 tempted to account for the existence of evil in the world. See an inter- 
 esting example from the folk-lore of the Dfisuns of North Borneo, in the 
 "Spectator" for April 26, 1902. 
 
ORIGIN OF EVIL. 225 
 
 On the foregoing theory of interpretation, the Genesis 
 narrative of the Fall is full of spiritual illumination; but it 
 contains no supernatural revelation of the secular origin of evil. 
 The endeavor to force the story into a relation with chronology 
 will merely obscure it, and bring it into needless conflict with 
 all that is known of the early history of life on this planet. 
 That the Paradise narrative is not literal history may go without 
 saying to moderns; but it has not even a historical germ. It 
 does not point, as students like Delitzsch and Bishop Gore con- 
 tend, after the manner of a historical legend, to a decisive act 
 on the part of an original human pair. It belongs to quite an- 
 other sphere of literature than either history or legend — to 
 imaginative religious literature, primitive both in form and 
 spirit, simple as a child's story, yet full of a true and profound 
 philosophy. 
 
 Evil, not merely in physical forms, but in more or less 
 developed moral forms, would seem to have been in the world 
 in ages long anterior to the appearance of man. Selfishness, 
 rage, cruelty, lawless lust waited not for the coming of man to 
 manifest themselves. The lower animals have incipient ethical 
 perceptions; they have a certain capacity for responsibility; 
 some theologians have attributed to them a nascent knowledge 
 of God. But they are in no state of sinlessness. The lower 
 creation has little to learn from man in respect of gross vice, as 
 soon as the normal environment is broken; or in respect of 
 selfishness. 1 And it has not been shown that the case was other- 
 wise in prehuman ages; on the contrary, the available evidence 
 discredits such a notion. Then, as now, struggle and conflict, 
 with many of their evil accompaniments, formed great part of 
 the lives of animals. 
 
 Moral evil, then, in various stages, immature if you will, 
 yet none the less actual, preceded man on this planet. It had 
 made a prior impress on the material out of which, at the end 
 of a long evolutionary process, man was to be formed. We can- 
 not say chronologically where or when it came in ; or even deny 
 
 ' See Fere, "L'lnstinct Sexuel," E. T., Chapter Uf, 
 
226 MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 the possible necessity of conceiving of it as already acting upon 
 the substance of the protozoa. This view is not Manichsean. 
 In the doctrine of Manes the lowest forms of life (as he knew 
 them), are regarded as created by an evil intelligence, and 
 therefore of their nature evil; 1 whereas, from the point of 
 view here adopted, the protozoa and matter generally are cre- 
 ated by an intelligence of perfect goodness; but are very 
 early — how early we cannot surmise, seeing that for the ulti- 
 mate origin of evil we must look not to temporal, but to eternal 
 processes — acted upon by an alien evil principle. 
 
 It follows that man was not, as a matter of history and of 
 fact, responsible for the entrance of evil into this world. But 
 the extension of evil to humanity from earlier and lower matter 
 did not eventuate by an automatic process. The power of 
 moral choice, and the capacity of knowing God had matured in 
 the Hominidaj; and moral evil could not mingle with the web 
 of human development as an actuality, without the responsible 
 consent of man. It was not unconsciously that primitive man 
 accepted the operation of the evil principle. Research on the 
 lines followed by Mr. Andrew Lang in his "Making of Religion" 
 shows that primitive man's ethical nature and sense of personal 
 responsibility toward God must be historically, not merely 
 ideally conceived of — on this important point scientific inquiry 
 endorses the estimate of St. Paul — as an active power in the 
 human soul even in the earliest circumstances of the race. In 
 primitive men, as in modern men, occurred the struggle — not in 
 one paramount act of which a record, historical or legendary, 
 has been preserved in the traditions of the race, but in various 
 spheres of activity — between the higher law of the nature and 
 the base alien element which had insinuated itself into the mat- 
 ter with which man, in the solidarity of the universe, was con- 
 joined. 
 
 The biblical references to the entrance of evil into the 
 world seem to amount to an unconsciously idealized presenta- 
 tion of the actual process. Not only is man regarded as re- 
 
 l St Aug. "Conf.," Bk. xiii, section 45 (Bibliotheca Patrum). 
 
BIBLICAL VIEWS. 227 
 
 sponsible for the appearance of sin within himself, but more 
 than that, being the highest type of created thing, he is ac- 
 counted by the writer of II Esdras and by St. Paul, responsible 
 for the entrance of evil into the world at large. Human re- 
 sponsibility is thought of by St. Paul as renewing itself in each 
 individual, and as being real and weighty from that remote 
 point in time at which the creative process had evolved man, 
 the creature nearest to God in this world. 
 
 It is of comparatively little importance that St. Paul, in 
 forming his estimate of moral responsibility in humanity, treats 
 the narrative of the Fall in Genesis, not as what it really ap- 
 pears to be, an allegorical religious illustration of the working 
 of sin in man, but as a piece of history. He could not overpass 
 the scientific limitations of his age. It may be added that while 
 it is true that other biblical writers, like St. Paul, accept the 
 fact of human responsibility as the basis of a doctrine of sin ; it 
 is not clear that they conceive of the secular origin of evil in 
 the same way as he does, viz., as referable to a definite act in the 
 beginning of human history. They deal with the existing 
 phenomena of evil and with its issues; they do not speculate 
 about its first appearance. Perhaps many of them felt that 
 such an attempt would be fruitless. They realized that evil 
 was an actuality originating in the rebellion of created intelli- 
 gences against the infinite wisdom of their Creator; that the 
 workings of evil reached back into the remote past; and that 
 wherever and whenever these workings were manifested they 
 were met by the counter-operation of the Divine Spirit, within 
 whose unfathomable counsels was conceived a plan by which the 
 event should prove the superiority of good. 
 
 Modern Christian thought is not in accord with St. Paul in 
 his way of understanding the literary shell which enshrines 
 the spiritual estimate in the Book of Genesis, of man's position 
 in regard to evil; but so long as we accept as a working 
 hypothesis, as a message of practical import, his inspired doc- 
 trine of sin and redemption, our mental attitude as to the pres- 
 ence of evil in the world does not fundamentally differ from his. 
 For us, as for him, human sin results from the appearance of 
 
228 A MODERN VIEW OF ORIGIN OF EVIL. 
 
 evil, an element alien to God's purpose, in creation somewhere 
 in the past — however differently St. Paul and the modern 
 thinker may conceive of the crisis of its introduction; for us, as 
 for him, the action of the human will is limited by evil agencies 
 from which it does not free itself unaided; yet its responsible 
 operation does not wholly cease, and cannot be ignored. 1 
 
 Therefore, so long as the Bible gives us a practical religious 
 estimate of man's relation to evil, an estimate which will form a 
 proper basis for ethical religion, we have as much as we need, 
 whatever may be the literary vehicle in which it reaches us. 
 How long have struggle, conflict, competition, with their con- 
 noted evil developments, both physical and moral, actually ex- 
 isted in the world; how have they influenced the evolution of 
 moral sentiments and religious ideas — these questions are not 
 answered in the Bible, and they are a legitimate field for scien- 
 tific investigation. 
 
 Some such readjustment of the traditional teaching on the 
 Fall we would venture to think necessary; and the view here 
 roughly sketched, or some modification of it, assigning to evil 
 a positive existence in time, is perhaps preferable to such a 
 theory of sin as that of Mr. F. B. Tennant, whose theory is in- 
 adequate, just as his account of Divine activity is jejune and 
 unsatisfying. 2 That the natural instincts and impulses — "the 
 stuff out of which sin is made" — are nonmoral in themselves, 
 pnd therefore cannot, except by a metonymy, be described as 
 sinful, and that sinful bias can only be predicated of will, is a 
 line of reasoning which we cannot here follow with full agree- 
 ment. The origin of will is, as Mr. Tennant admits, shrouded 
 in obscurity; no moment in the developing life of the organism 
 can be fixed on with certainty as the point of emergence of 
 will. Therefore the origination of actual moral evil in the 
 
 1 The Rev. A. S. Laidlaw, in a suggestive paper in the "Ex- 
 pository Times," vol. xii, p. 258fi\, contends that "St. Paul's statements 
 of Christian doctrine are not really limited and conditioned by his illus- 
 trative references to Adam. These are rather dialectical expedients," 
 etc. 
 
 * "The Origin and Propagation of Sin" (Cambridge, 1902). 
 
TENNANTS THEORY CONSIDERED. 229 
 
 organism must be correspondingly obscure. The germ of will 
 is developing amid the natural impulses and instincts, long be- 
 fore its actual emergence into conscious life. The thought 
 irresistibly presses, have not these primary stages of volitional 
 development been subjected to evil influences? Has not the 
 introduction of some evil principle begun to thwart the purpose 
 of good in them long ago, before moral manhood began? Is 
 there not a ferment of evil already set up in the material of 
 sin? Flesh is a stage of the visible creation antecedent to 
 spirit; but flesh, though impulse-governed, is not necessarily 
 lawless. Evil — a wider term than sin — is at work upon this 
 material, the impulse-governed flesh, before the full emergence 
 of will. Therefore, that material is not wholly nonmoral. The 
 broad fact that what two modern naturalists 1 have recognized 
 as creation's final law, the law of love, fulfils itself only amid 
 such conditions of suffering and temporary failure as the world 
 witnesses, seems to indicate the existence and activity in crea- 
 tion of some positive principle of evil, introduced contrary to 
 the primary creative design, to thwart and baffle it. 
 
 Further, Mr. Tennant's theory does not show with suffi- 
 cient clearness that evil is contrary to God's creative intention. 
 The Being who creates the material, out of which, as a fact of 
 experience, sin inevitably arises amid the stress of life, becomes 
 by the degree of self-limitation ex hypothesi imposed, responsible 
 for actual sin, in spite of what Mr. Tennant urges on page 119. 
 We relieve this difficulty by holding to the existence of an evil 
 intelligence acting contrary to God in creation. 
 
 But of course such speculations do not clear up the diffi- 
 culties surrounding the Divine responsibility for the primal 
 origin of evil. They push that difficulty further back. They 
 may drive it out of the material creation. But the ultimate 
 difficulty remains. And with regard to man's inevitable rela- 
 tion to evil, his introduction into a universe already tainted with 
 evil, we can only say that it belongs to God's inscrutable coun- 
 sels that man should take part in the battle with evil in the 
 universe, a battle for which man is not historically responsible, 
 inasmuch as he did not begin it. 
 
 'Geddes and Thomson, "Evol. of Sex," p. 330 (Ed., 1901). 
 
230 EVIL OBJECTIVELY CONCEIVED. 
 
 That there are elements of truth in the view according to 
 which evil has a purely subjective origin, is not to be denied ; 
 and, in other states of being, faculties may be awakened and de- 
 veloped which will adjust such an estimate of it more clearly 
 and fittingly to the ethical conditions of God's relation to crea- 
 tion. But so far as our present powers of estimating the influ- 
 ence of evil upon evolutionary processes extend, it seems best to 
 hold some such objective conception of it as is here presented. 
 Without such a conception it is difficult to find a sufficient basis 
 for, and an adequate, stimulus of, the moral antagonism to evil 
 which a sound practical view of life necessitates. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE B ON MASTURBATION. 
 
 It is no part of the present writer's purpose to attempt any 
 elaborate addition to the large and growing literature of this 
 part of the subject of sex. The reader who desires to study 
 this subject scientifically may profitably consult the very full 
 and able presentation of facts and opinions, in the second 
 volume of Havelock Ellis's "Studies in the Psychology of Sex" 
 (ed., 1901). 
 
 However, a few observations seem necessary at this point, 
 in addition to the references to masturbation already made ; if 
 for no other purpose than to define more clearly than is possible, 
 solely with the help of such a treatise as that of Havelock Ellis, 
 the ethical view natural as well as Christian morality seem to 
 compel ns to take of this practice. 
 
 The present writer thinks it unnecessary to record in full 
 his own observations and inquiries proving that masturbation, as 
 Ellis — to mention one writer only — carefully notes, is common 
 enough among several species of animals, chiefly in the absence 
 of normal sexual gratification. It is possible that isolated cases 
 may become pathologically addicted to the habit, and practice 
 it, owing to the ease with which it is performed, even when 
 sexual intercourse is accessible. An observer in New Zealand 
 mentions to me the case of a pigeon appearing to masturbate 
 on the roof of a house. 
 
 I am informed by a gentleman who has had considerable 
 experience of ferrets that if the bitch when on heat cannot ob- 
 tain a dog, she pines and becomes ill. If a smooth pebble is 
 introduced into the hutch she will masturbate upon it, thus 
 preserving her normal health for one season. But if this arti- 
 ficial substitute is given to her a second season, she will not, as 
 formerly, be content with it. 
 
 It should be noted, on the other hand, that superficial ob- 
 servation may infer masturbation among animals from appear- 
 
 (231) 
 
232 MASTURBATION IN PRIMITIVE RACES. 
 
 ances which do not in reality support such an inference. Three 
 gentlemen of South Africa, who had kept a pet male monkey 
 for a considerable time, inform me that though it was much 
 given to handling the penis, they had never seen it practicing 
 actual masturbation. 
 
 In Havelock Ellis's essay it is suggested that masturbation 
 is known among primitive races, and consequently must not be 
 thought of as a special vice of civilization. I am in no position 
 either to confirm or to refute most of the evidence adduced in 
 support of this view. Havelock Ellis mentions that he has been 
 unable to find any evidence for the practice of masturbation 
 among the Australian blacks. My own inquiries have likewise 
 elicited from a high authority a strongly worded negative. 
 With regard to the Maori, a private letter gives me as the near- 
 est Maori equivalent of "to masturbate" the word "titoitoi ;" but 
 this word is declared a rare one; and the writer of the letter, 
 a distinguished Maori scholar, says that he knows of no allu- 
 sion to the practice in Maori literature. Indeed, the word 
 "titoitoi" does not exactly signify "to masturbate;" but rather 
 "to excite, titillate the penis." My informant appears to dis- 
 credit the idea that masturbation was practiced among the 
 primitive Maori. 
 
 From another source I learn that in Earatonga the word 
 for "masturbate" is also "titoi." The Maori and the Polynesians 
 of Cook Islands consider the act unmanly. They apply to it a 
 phrase meaning "to make women of themselves," and the prac- 
 tice appears to be generally confined to children. 
 
 A gentleman resident for some years among the Kaffirs of 
 South Natal replies to my questions, first, that he has found no 
 expression equivalent to masturbate in the language he knows ; 
 and secondly, that he does not think Kaffirs practice masturba- 
 tion. 
 
 It is of course needful to remember that inquiries on an 
 obscure point such as masturbation are peculiarly liable to 
 receive inexact or imperfectly informed replies, even when 
 presented in what seems the likeliest quarter for information. 
 Even men of capacity and ability may entirely fail to notice, in 
 
IN GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS. 233 
 
 spite of the fullest opportunities, what they themselves feel no 
 interest in studying. The author found this to be the case in 
 prosecuting his inquiries about the sexual habits of animals. 
 
 In his essay Havelock Ellis mentions certain references to 
 masturbation in the Greek and Latin classics ("Studies/' vol. 
 ii, pp. 117, 198-9). But while giving some in which it seems to 
 be regarded as ethically indifferent, he omits others in which it 
 is vigorously condemned. It is true that Aristophanes alludes 
 to masturbation among both men and women without any note 
 of serious denunciation — such was perhaps not to be expected in 
 a comic poet; yet the fact of his connecting the practice with 
 slaves ("Eq.," 24, 29), feeble old men ("Nub.," 734), and women 
 ("Lys.," 109; "Frag.," 309-10), implies that neither he nor his 
 audience regarded it as consistent with manliness. If 
 iEschines is to be understood as charging Demosthenes before a 
 grave assembly of Greek citizens with having practiced mastur- 
 bation—and his words probably mean as much ("Cont. Ctes.," 
 174) — the position that the ancient Greeks regarded masturba- 
 tion with "serene indifference" becomes less tenable. 
 
 Among the Eomans, Juvenal, as has been already noticed, 
 refers to masturbation among schoolboys in terms of strong 
 condemnation. Martial in a remarkable epigram (Bk. IX, 41) 
 denounces it as wicked and unnatural ; and elsewhere (Bk. XI, 
 104), like Aristophanes, notes its prevalence among slaves. 
 
 In view of these adverse reflections from profane writers 
 of antiquity, it must be maintained a fortiori that masturbation 
 comes within the scope of the biblical condemnations of im- 
 purity. Although not expressly referred to, it would be in- 
 cluded in the general term a-KaOapuCa.: it is possible that in 
 later Greek this word was specially connected with mastur- 
 bation. 
 
 The Catholic theologians condemned masturbation. Have- 
 lock Ellis refers to several passages, to which should be added 
 the discussion of St. Thomas Aquinas ("Sum. Theol. Sec. 
 Secund.," Qu. CLIV( Art. XII). Aquinas treats masturbation 
 as ethically worse than fornication; but as less heinous than 
 the other sexual vices against nature. 
 
234 ETHICS OF MASTURBATION. 
 
 Hence the proposition that masturbation is "the natural 
 result of unnatural circumstances" — in this not very logical 
 phrase a recent writer has summarized the conclusions of Have- 
 loek Ellis — must not be understood as containing any ethical jus- 
 tification of masturbation. It cannot properly be thought of as 
 morally neutral. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE C OF CIKCUMCTSION". 
 
 The practice of circumcising the foreskin is not peculiar 
 to the Hebrew race; nor is there sufficient reason for regard- 
 ing the Hebrew narrative of its Divine institution as historically 
 accounting for its ultimate origin. It has been thought by 
 some to have developed from the custom of mutilating an 
 enemy slain in battle by cutting off the membrum virile and 
 presenting it to the chief — a custom referred to in I Sam., 
 20:27. As a further development, male captives may have 
 been similarly, though not so dangerously, mutilated as a badge 
 of servitude to the victorious chief. From the set of ideas 
 thus formed might arise the custom of circumcising all the 
 males of a tribe and offering the foreskins as a badge of servi- 
 tude to the god of the tribe. This theory of the origin of the 
 practice would be supported by evidence making circumcision a 
 form of the blood convenant between a people and its god ; and 
 it must be observed that evidence pointing — but not very con- 
 clusively — in that direction is forthcoming in certain Australian 
 tribes. 1 Herodotus no doubt represents the attitude of several 
 peoples toward circumcision where he describes it as a disfigure- 
 ment in itself, but one which men would accept as being the 
 means of obtaining through increased purity a closer communion 
 
 with the Divine Being ( JrpoTijiicoj'res Kadapioi civai r) cimpen-ia-Tcpoi, 
 
 ii, 27). 
 
 On the other hand, it is highly probable that the ideas 
 outlined above have been grafted upon a still more primi- 
 tive stock of ideas in connection with circumcision ; and it is to 
 these latter that we must look, as Westermarck has done, for 
 the first appearance of this custom in our race. According to 
 the hypothesis of Westermarck, circumcision is but one of a 
 number of similar practices of mutilation, having sexual at- 
 traction as their object. In the early dawn of the life of the 
 
 1 Remondino, "History of Circumcision," p. 45. 
 
 (235) 
 
236 THEORY OF WESTERMARCK. 
 
 race, men and women discovered that to attract attention to the 
 pubic region by ornamentation, depilation or circumcision was 
 an effective addition to natural charms, and exceedingly helpful 
 in the competition for partners. 1 
 
 Westermarck's theory is supported by more than one 
 consideration. Herodotus somewhat doubtfully proposed 
 Ethiopia as the place of origin of circumcision; and there is a 
 passage in Jeremiah (9 : 25) which suggests that there was a 
 tradition pointing in this direction. Granting the probability 
 of the hypothesis of sexual attraction, it' will readily be ad- 
 mitted that the primitive peoples of Central Africa were likely 
 enough to have been the inventors of the practice with that 
 object in view. 
 
 The age at which circumcision was performed is an im- 
 portant indication of its purpose. The Hebrews from an early 
 date performed the rite on infants, as do their modern descend- 
 ants; but there are reasons for thinking that infancy was not 
 the age for its performance in still earlier times. Puberty was 
 the circumcising age among the ancient Egyptians, as it is 
 among the Australian natives, and among the peoples of the 
 
 1 Crawley (op. cit., p. 135) endeavors to explain the origin of circum- 
 cision and other mutilations by reference to early religious ideas and 
 taboos. It seems more probable, however, that this practice originated 
 before the evolution of a system of taboos, rather than as one of its 
 results. Other savage practices, such as elongation of the breasts, 
 painting, hairdressing, enlargement or confinement of organs, are surely 
 more naturally explained, with Westermarck, as having sexual orna- 
 mentation for their motive, than on the principle contended for by 
 Crawley; and it is by the analogy of these practices that primitive cir- 
 cumcision can be most readily accounted for. Nevertheless, that the 
 religious notion of sacrificing a part to safeguard the whole from evil 
 influence was applied later to the practice of circumcision, is not to 
 be denied. St. Paul, when he speaks of spiritual circumcision as an 
 &iriK$v<ns tov ffib/iaTos Tijs<ra.pic6$ (Col. 2:11), had a development of this idea 
 in his mind. Similarly, the religious idea of circumcision as being helpful 
 in the process of reincarnation, a notion which, according to Frazer's 
 suggestion (Independent Review, vol. iv, No. 14), may have obtained at 
 one time among the early Australian natives, is to be regarded rather 
 as an accretion to the rite than as the source of its institution. 
 
LATER ACCRETIONS TO THE RITE. 237 
 
 Lower Congo. 1 That the primitive Hebrews, like the Arabs, 
 performed the rite on young men as a prelude to marriage, is 
 clear from the root hathan. These facts strongly support the 
 Westermarckian hypothesis. In view of the variation in the 
 practice of circumcised peoples on this point, it is well to note 
 that puberty is more likely than infancy to have been the orig- 
 inal age for the performance of the rite. Motives of convenience 
 or religion might induce a people who formerly circumcised at 
 puberty to transfer the rite to infancy ; but once a tribe had ac- 
 quired the habit of circumcising in infancy, it is unlikely that 
 they would allow the difficulty of the performance to be en- 
 hanced by changing to an age nearer manhood. 
 
 In course of time, as Westermarck points out, a primitive 
 practice takes on fresh meanings, particularly of a religious 
 character, and new reasons for its performance. To some of 
 these developments, in connection with circumcision, reference 
 has been made above. It is probable that, among some peoples, 
 the chief reason for retaining circumcision after the rite had 
 lost its original significance, was the desire to test the capacity 
 of the males for bearing pain — the practice was cruelly de- 
 veloped among the Arabs of North Africa with this object. 
 Among others, as the Hebrews, it was associated with a religious 
 conception. 
 
 It accords well enough with analogy that the existing 
 practice of circumcision should become for the Hebrews a 
 Divine ordinance. As in New Testament times, practices of 
 long standing like religious ablutions or the laying on of hands 
 were used by Christ and His Apostles to fulfill new purposes, 
 on account of the readiness with which those practices lent 
 themselves to adaptation; so at an earlier period, Divine wis- 
 dom chose a well-known custom by which to convey a new spirit- 
 ual truth. Circumcision is admirably adapted to become an 
 ethical symbol. The figure of "circumcising the heart" used in 
 both Testaments, vividly expresses the difference between a 
 
 1 But not apparently among the peoples of the Upper Congo, who 
 circumcised twelve days after birth. (Johnston, "The River Congo," 
 pp. 276, 290.). 
 
238 HYGIENE OF CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 heart closed in, covered with old impurity and impervious to 
 spiritual influences, and a heart freed from selfishness and 
 prejudice, and receptive of the Spirit of God. Nothing better 
 could have been chosen as the Covenant token. 1 
 
 St. Paul's opposition to circumcision related solely to its 
 religious aspect, which has since lost its importance in the 
 Christian world ; and it need not therefore be given a place in 
 a discussion of the hygiene of circumcision. A large — we be- 
 lieve a preponderating— body of medical opinion recommends 
 the practice for hygienic reasons, in part noted already by 
 Herodotus. Some enthusiasts perhaps overrate its hygienic 
 value. Medical works must be consulted for a full discussion 
 of this part of the subject. It is enough here to recall the fact 
 that the primitive purpose of the prepuce — that of protecting 
 the glans penis — no longer exists in its original force, owing to 
 the adoption by mankind of clothes; the organ therefore be- 
 comes almost as useless as the climbing muscle, if not as danger- 
 ous as the vermiform appendix. It is obvious that the prepuce 
 readily becomes subject to congenital or acquired malformations, 
 the source of phimosis and attendant evils, early masturbation 
 being the worst. When the prepuce has been removed, the 
 glans penis is no doubt sensitive at first, but rapidly becomes 
 sufficiently hardened to prevent irritation and the consequent 
 directing of the subject's attention to these parts. The cleanli- 
 ness of the glans is easily preserved in a state of circumcision; 
 without moreover the dangerous necessity of subjecting young 
 children to frequent local washings of the genitals — a process, 
 as Dr. Guernsey notes, 2 likely to cause premature curiosity and 
 excitement. 
 
 'For the spiritual application of circumcision, see Driver's note 
 ("Genesis, Westminster Commentary," p. 191). 
 ' "Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects," p. 31. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE D— LETTEK TO A BOY BEGIN- 
 NING SCHOOL. 
 
 Chimeke, Paeame, France, April 14, 1905. 
 My Dear : 
 
 I wag very glad to hear you had passed so well into , and 
 
 hope you will have an excellent career at school and much success, and 
 so be fitted to take a good place and win men's respect in life when you 
 leave school. You have, I believe, sound health, so that there is a good 
 prospect of your' school life being happy, as well as full of use and profit. 
 My own school days were all spent at boarding-schools; and in my case 
 there were special difficulties, chiefly that of lameness, which made those 
 days less pleasant than they might otherwise have been. 
 
 However, my school life is still very fresh in my memory; and it 
 is the fact of having passed through school experiences, and having had 
 good opportunities — first as a boy, and after I grew up, as a master — 
 of seeing what school life is like, that makes me write you a few words, 
 in quite a friendly spirit, on some of the possible dangers and difficulties 
 of the life you are going to begin. 
 
 I needn't say much about fulfilling religious duties, such as prayer, 
 because I have no doubt you have heard, and will hear, more when at 
 college about the importance of them. No amount of good advice that 
 a boy might get from an older friend — such advice as I am going to try 
 and give you — will take the place of the guidance and help that he gets 
 direct from God. So I would just say, let the thought of God and of 
 Jesus Christ, and of God's never-ceasing care for you, be always your 
 strongest and deepest thought. I can't describe the value of this 
 thought; you must prove it for yourself as you go through school life 
 and after life. 
 
 But the few special words I want to write to you are about the 
 things you are likely to see and hear and come in touch with in the 
 private every day life of the school, the life the boys live among them- 
 selves, beyond the oversight of the masters. It is not only book learning 
 that you will get at school; you will also get a much greater knowledge 
 of life in general than you have hitherto been able to get at home. And 
 it is a, good thing, in many ways, to have knowledge; but, of course, it 
 carries with it increased responsibility; and there may even be danger 
 in it. That is what I am going to try and point out to you, so as to 
 put you on your guard. 
 
 (239) 
 
240 A BOY'S KNOWLEGE OF SEX. 
 
 Now, first, as to the language and conversation you are likely to 
 hear in a large school. Some of it may be actually bad, spoken with a, 
 bad motive, and a good deal more would not be suitable to be repeated 
 in ordinary society. I need not say much of swearing. We know that 
 rash and blasphemous swearing is wrong. It is forbidden in the Bible 
 and Prayer-book as being a dishonor to God; and, although you may 
 hear more or less of it at school, I hope you won't allow yourself to get 
 into the habit. It is an unmanly habit, because it weakens a man's self- 
 control as regards his tongue. 
 
 I would speak more especially of what is generally called indecent 
 language. You are pretty sure to hear a good deal of this. You will 
 hear words used that you haven't heard before. You will hear things 
 spoken of that you have known little or nothing of hitherto. I don't 
 say for a moment that it is wrong to know these things; in fact, » boy 
 must get to know them sooner or later. I don't even say that the words 
 the boys use in speaking of the things are necessarily wrong, just 
 because they sound coarse. It all depends on how the knowledge is used, 
 and how and with what motive the words are spoken. 
 
 But I must explain myself more clearly. One thing you are pretty 
 sure to hear boys talk about sooner or later is the fact of sex, i.e., the 
 division of creation into male and female; and its result, birth, the 
 birth of children and young things. Probably this has never been ex- 
 plained to you hitherto; and I needn't tell you very much about it now, 
 because there is no need for every boy to be taught about these things 
 as if he was going to be a doctor. Only I think it is important that as 
 a boy of your age starts his school life, he should have » little right 
 knowledge of these matters; otherwise he may get a good deal of false 
 information from other boys, when he hears them talk, and perhaps do 
 himself harm by filling his mind with excitement and unhealthy curiosity. 
 
 Well, the fact is this in bare outline: In some plants there are 
 male and female flowers; and these plants form seeds and new plants 
 springing from the seeds, by putting into the female flower some of the 
 pollen, a light powdery substance, from the male flower. The male and 
 female flowers don't actually come in contact; but the pollen is carried 
 from one to the other by bees or other insects or by the wind. Now, in 
 animals and in man there takes place a similar process of fertilization 
 (causing seed), between male and female; only in their case there is an 
 actual contact or touching between male and female, accompanied by 
 strong feelings and excitement. There is no need for me to describe 
 this process, in which both male and female take part, in more than the 
 barest outline; but the little I do say must be said plainly and clearly. 
 In the flowers there are certain parts, male and female parts — I needn't 
 trouble you with the names — whose work it is to produce and to receive 
 the fertilizing pollen which makes the seed of the new plant; and just 
 
A BOY'S SPECIAL DANGERS. 241 
 
 bo, in the bodies of men and animals there are certain members or organs 
 — what we call the private parts, because modesty makes us conceal 
 them — which are the means of this fertilizing contact between male and 
 female. 
 
 Now, according to God's law, this contact ought only to take place, 
 in the human race, when it has been hallowed and sanctioned by mar- 
 riage. 
 
 So you see this natural process which causes the birth of new 
 beings is very wonderful, and ought to be approached carefully and 
 reverently in thought, speech, and act. I don't say people ought not to 
 speak of it; for as life goes on, many reasons arise why they should 
 have to do occasionally; but they ought never to speak of it as if it 
 was a thing to be joked about, or with the purpose of wrongfully awak- 
 ening the excitement and strong feelings I referred to just now. Some 
 boys talk more than is necessary or right about these things, these feel- 
 ings, and processes of sex; or they talk about them in quite a wrong 
 and unfit way. 
 
 Well, that is the first bit of special advice. Be on your guard 
 against indecent and impure conversation about things relating to sex. 
 
 But there is more than conversation to be thought of. There is 
 a large class of sins which have to do with our sexual nature; that is, 
 our nature as male and female. These are called sins of impurity. There 
 are many kinds of these sins; but I need only speak quite shortly of 
 one or two in this letter. The most common sin of this kind among 
 boys is the one called "self-abuse" — boys themselves have one or two 
 other schoolboy words for it. That means using one's body wrongly; 
 and it consists in exciting those private parts which, as I told you, are 
 the organs of sex — exciting them by handling, pressure, or in some other 
 way. And when people get into that habit, it is very difficult to break 
 it off. Of course, it is morally wrong, as it weakens self-control, and 
 offends against the law by which God means us to govern our sex 
 nature. Then, too, if it is long continued, it may do serious harm to a 
 person's health; and as I said at the beginning of my letter, a boy like 
 you, and every boy, ought to have the hope, and as far as it lies in his 
 own power, the purpose, of so going through his school life that he may 
 be physically, mentally, and morally strong in after years. So I should 
 advise you to be careful not to arouse or excite intentionally the sex 
 feelings. We ought to aim at keeping them calm and controlled, rather 
 than at awakening and stimulating them. Those delicate sex organs are 
 better left alone as much as possible; just kept clean, and left to Nature 
 to strengthen and develop. 
 
 It is said that the prevention of a thing is better than the cure of 
 it; so I should say to a boy of your age just going to school for the 
 first time — be on your guard and don't form the habit at all. And if 
 
242 A BOY'S SPECIAL BANGERS. 
 
 any boy did find himself getting into that habit, I would strongly urge 
 him to fight manfully against it with God's help, and to struggle bravely 
 till he quite overcomes it. Before now I have had boys come to me and 
 tell me of their experience of this kind of difficulties and temptation; 
 and I have tried to show them how they may be avoided, or met and 
 overcome. 
 
 If I were writing to you when you were seven or eight years 
 older, and had left school and gone out into the world, I should prob- 
 ably have several things more to say about this subject. Now I will 
 give only one more warning. If it should ever happen — I don't think it 
 will, and I hope and pray it won't — that a bigger boy should want you 
 to do anything impure or indecent, mind you never, for any consideration 
 whatever, consent to anything of the kind. A small boy ought to resist 
 to the uttermost a big one who tried to persuade or force him into one 
 of these sins of impurity. In fact, although as a general rule, I should 
 discourage small boys from informing masters about other boys' doings, 
 I do say most emphatically that, in such a bad ease as I am supposing, 
 it would be absolutely right, indeed imperatively necessary, for the small 
 boy to go straight to the headmaster and tell him about it. 
 
 Now, I needn't talk to you more about these things; indeed I don't 
 want you to think about them more than is necessary; but I give you 
 this information and these warnings, so that you may keep them in 
 memory, in the back of your mind as it were ; and may know beforehand 
 how to meet the dangers which might otherwise take you by surprise 
 when you go to school. 
 
 I would just say in conclusion, that if in the future you find your- 
 self in difficulty or perplexity about any of these very private and deli- 
 cate matters — or if you want any further explanation, you -are at liberty 
 to ask me — or perhaps it would be better still to apply to your father — 
 and we should either of us, I have no doubt, be ready to give you any 
 right and reasonable information. 
 
 There are plenty of other matters in connection with school life, 
 but my letter is already long enough; so I will just close with my best 
 wish, indeed with more than a wish, a prayer, for your growth at school 
 and after school in strength of purpose and Christlike manliness of char- 
 acter. Believe me, 
 
 Your very sincere friend, 
 
 H. Noethcote. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE E ON THE NOCTTJKNAL 
 POLLUTION. 
 
 There are references enough in the byways of literature 
 to show that the nocturnal pollution has proved puzzling and 
 distressing to mankind, both as a physical phenomenon and in 
 its ethical bearings. There has been considerable discussion of 
 recent years as to whether it is normal or pathological ; and if 
 the latter, in what degree. We cannot here enter fully into 
 this dispute, which belongs mainly to medical literature. The 
 general prevalence of the pollution in the human race indicates 
 at any rate that it is, except in excess, but a slight deviation 
 from normal sexual health. As to what constitutes excess, 
 there is probably no general rule. A few observers, notably 
 Mr. Perry-Coste, have undertaken to keep records with a view 
 to investigating this point. These investigations, backed by 
 opinions based on large observation, established at least the fact 
 that for most constitutions, one pollution in ten days is not ex- 
 cessive. Some, indeed, have them much more seldom; while 
 others may have them oftener without experiencing any conse- 
 quent debility. The frequency of nocturnal emissions will be 
 affected by that rhythm in the human body, the alternate work- 
 ing of the anabolic and catabolic principles, which, as we have 
 already seen, has to be taken account of in investigating the 
 phenomena of sex. Some authorities maintain that excess 
 must never be predicated of the emission unless it is followed 
 by weakness and depression. 1 
 
 Frequently, therefore, there is really no need for the dis- 
 tressful perplexity experienced by nervous subjects of emissions. 
 Whatever harm seems to accrue to the system from these oc- 
 currences often arises rather from the mental disquietude which 
 they occasion than from any pathological influence of the phe- 
 nomenon itself. It is true that when occurring with undoubted 
 
 1 This opinion — that of Cursehmann — seems still the one commonly 
 accepted by medical scientists. (Gp. Posner, in S. and K., op. cit., ii, 
 p. 726.) 
 
 (243) 
 
244 THE NOCTURNAL POLLUTION. 
 
 overfrequency, pollutions may be a symptom of a generally 
 weakened condition of the sexual system; but even so, there is 
 no just occasion for despondency, inasmuch as the prognosis of 
 most cases of sexual weakness is favorable; and this condition 
 may be ameliorated or cured by proper treatment — a fact to 
 which our attention has already been called. Sometimes a 
 simple cold water treatment, attention to dieting, and regula- 
 tion of the hours allotted to rest, will reduce the frequency of 
 emissions without recourse being had to severer or more diffi- 
 cult treatment. 1 
 
 Much perplexity has surrounded the moral aspect of the 
 nocturnal pollution. The suspicion of wrong attaching to 
 sexual relations in general, in the sentiment of mankind, was 
 sure to fall upon this mysterious manifestation of sexual ac- 
 tivity. Hebrew law embodied ceremonial directions concerning 
 pollutions. Mediaeval thought regarded the occurrence of them 
 as tainted with sin if in any way provoked or encouraged by the 
 imaginations of waking hours. The semi-conscious volition 
 which often attends the sexual dream, the reluctance of the will 
 even during sleep to consent to the motions of the sexual sys- 
 tem, strengthens this idea of moral impurity in relation to the 
 nocturnal pollution. The anguish of souls sensitive to the 
 touch of impurity even in sleep finds a voice in the ancient 
 hymn : — 
 
 "Hostemque nostrum comprime 
 Ne polluantnr corpora/' 2 
 
 This ethical fear is reflected in the directions to intending 
 celebrants in the Eoman Missal. 
 
 1 1 venture the suggestion that a judicious use of the Sandow exer- 
 cises, especially those which strengthen the back, loins, and stomach 
 muscles, would be of benefit to patients suffering from sexual weakness 
 and over-frequent seminal emissions. 
 a Tr. in A. & M. Hymnbook":— 
 
 "Our ghostly enemy restrain, 
 Lest aught of sin our bodies stain." 
 
 "Keep us * * * 
 Pure in our foes despite." 
 
THE NOCTURNAL POLLUTION. 245 
 
 Nor can this aspect of the matter he wholly set aside as 
 false and groundless. So intricate is the connection, in the 
 sexual as well as in other spheres, between the activities of mind 
 and of body, that sexual excitement entertained and allowed 
 without any attempt at inhibition in a waking state, induces, by 
 a physiological law, a greater spontaneity of ejaculation during 
 sleep. Yet even when the moral energies of the will have con- 
 tinually been exerted to purify the waking thoughts, physical 
 causes will of themselves frequently be strong enough to bring 
 about a nocturnal pollution, accompanied by the aforesaid semi- 
 conscious volitional activity. With many people indeed the 
 will-power becomes sufficiently awake to allow of their inhibit- 
 ing the pollution when on the point of occurring. Some moral- 
 ists have gone so far as to recommend the cultivation of a habit 
 of semi-conscious inhibition, as if it were a matter of ethics. 1 
 But it ought to be considered whether such a procedure would 
 not intensify nervous conditions, and in some cases do more 
 harm than the emission itself. While the nocturnal pollution 
 certainly ought not to be courted and prepared for by the con- 
 scious attitude of the mind during wakefulness, it is a mistake 
 to regard it with a large amount of fear and anxiety, in either 
 its physical or its moral aspect. 
 
 THE TWO FIRES. 
 
 Prov vi: 27 — "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and Ms clothes 
 not be burned?" 
 
 Fierce as the fiery brand to bosom pressed 
 Of frenzied prophet, heedless of his vest 
 Scorched and consumed, oftimes the slumb'ring glow 
 Of human passion, when the breath doth blow 
 Of sin mysterious, flames with forceful ire, 
 Fervid and fatal as Elissa's fire.' 
 
 1 See Stall, "What a Young Man Ought to Know," pp. 90fi*. 
 2 "Caeco carpitur igni," Verg. Aen. iv, 2; 
 "Quae tantum accenderit ignem 
 
 Causa latet." Id., v. 4. Earlier legend too spoke of the death of 
 this queen by fiery immolation. W. R~ Smith, ReL Sem., p. 374. 
 
246 THE TWO FIRES. 
 
 Crave then the touch of Heaven's altar flame 
 Purging that other, 1 through the gracious Name 
 That saves a world corrupt through lawless lust; 
 (Strong are the tempted who in Jesus trust!) 
 As sunlight conquers storm, so changes Grace 
 Foul flames of lust to light of holiness. 
 
 Yet hold! mistake not; there is pain with fire: 
 That bosom scarr'd, those flame-wounds of desire 
 Proclaim that word; here glimmers no soft sheen 
 Gentle as rose-flush o'er the restful green; 
 But pain-drawn lips, marred brows, and fever'd eyes 
 Reflect the blood-red glow of sacrifice. 
 
 l Isa. 6: 6. 7. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abstinence, sexual, in marriage, 81, 
 
 87f., 129f., 202. 
 Accommodation, houses of, 103n. 
 Acton 30. 
 Adam, 228n. 
 
 Adultery, 127, 131, 132, 156f., 202. 
 punishment of, 162f., 198n. 
 woman taken in, 208. 
 Advertisements, matrimonial, 152ff. 
 ^sehines, 233. 
 Affinity, 164ff. 
 dydin}, 13. 
 
 Age of consent, 115f. 
 Age of marriage (see Nubility). 
 Agencies, matrimonial, 154. 
 Ahabhah, 13, 140. 
 &Kadap<rla t 233. 
 Albanians, 65n. 
 Alcestis, 140. 
 Alcohol, 24. 
 
 Algolagnia, 30, 187, 193ff. 
 Allen, 44, 58. 
 Allen, Mary Wood, 28. 
 Altruism, 10. 
 Amatory conflicts, 8. 
 Anabolism, 124, 148, 191, 243. 
 Andrewes, Bishop, 130. 
 Angels' trespass, 14. 
 Anglican marriage service, 66, 130, 
 
 157. 
 Animals, birth-rate among, 79. 
 
 modesty among, 8. 
 
 monogamy among, 9. 
 
 sex differentiation among, 188. 
 
 sexual sin among, 20, 225. 
 Antenuptial intercourse, 96f. 
 Anthropology, 10, 11, 52, 92n., 122. 
 
 physical, 54n. 
 Apocalypse, 14, 206. 
 
 Aquinas, 65, 68n., 89, 97, 166, 215, 
 
 233. 
 Arabs (see Semites). 
 Aristophanes, 15, 233. 
 Army regulations, 70, 104ff. 
 Art, erotic, 178ff. 
 Asceticism, 3, 11, 135f., 200ff. 
 
 of St. Paul, 209. 
 Ashcroft, 87. 
 
 Asia Minor, morality in, 13, 213. 
 Atonement, 215ff. 
 
 Attraction (see Sexual Attraction). 
 Augustine, 49, 120, 144, 226. 
 Australasia, sexuality in, 11L 
 
 marriage laws in, 173, 175. 
 
 prevention in, 75, 86f. 
 Australian aborigines, 232, 235, 
 236. 
 
 Barry, Bishop, 75n. 
 
 Barton, 221. 
 
 Bath, the, 207. 
 
 Beale, 27, 53. 
 
 Bearing of sin, 215ff. 
 
 Beauty, 12, 62, 139, 142, 180. 
 
 Bengel, 21n., 130, 131n., 204n. 
 
 Berlin "C. D." policy, 106f. 
 
 Betrothal, 96. 
 
 Bigamy, 175. 
 
 Birth control (see Neo-Malthusian- 
 
 ism). 
 Birth-rate, 75. 
 Bishops, Anglican, 16, 51. 
 Blackwell, Elizabeth, 64. 
 Blumreieh, 80n., 129n. 
 Blush, 7. 
 
 Body, sacredness of, 94. 
 Booth, 96n., 104f., 114n., 160n., 213n. 
 Bourget, 75n. 
 
 (247) 
 
248 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boyhood, 21f., 239ff. 
 Brothels, 61, 102, 104, 219. 
 Bullen, 69. 
 
 Cain, birth of, 222. 
 Cantonments, 104f. 
 Cardiac affections, 84. 
 Caresses, 134. 
 
 between relations, 173. 
 Castration (see Sterilization). 
 Catabolism, 11, 57, 124f., 191, 243. 
 Caufeynon, 198. 
 Celibacy, 60, 202f., 205ff. 
 
 clerical, 203n., 206. 
 
 effects of, 58f., 147. 
 
 Jewish view of, 206. 
 
 obligation of, in professions, 69. 
 
 temporary, 108. 
 Certificates, medical 107f. 
 
 of character, 152. 
 Charles, R. H., 218n. 
 Chastity, 3, 12. 
 
 ideals of, 205f. 
 
 hardness of, 48ff., 159, 174, 190f., 
 203. 
 Childhood, hygiene of, 23, 32. 
 
 impurities of, 21ff. 
 Chivalry, age of, 139. 
 Christ (see Jesus Christ). 
 Christchurch Press, 86f. 
 Christianity, attitude of, toward 
 sex questions, 3ff., 16, 51, 
 200. 
 
 and asceticism (see Asceticism). 
 
 healing message of, 45. 
 Church, attitude of, on special 
 questions, 157ff., 174ff., 214. 
 Church Councils, 171. 
 "Church Times," lln. 
 Churchill, Major, 178, 181. 
 Cicero, 178. 
 Circumcision, 23, 235ff. 
 
 origin of, 235f. 
 
 age for performing, 236f. 
 
 Circumcision, religious symbolism 
 of, 236n., 237f. 
 
 hygiene of, 23, 238. 
 Cleanliness, 23. 
 Clement of Alexandria 205. 
 Clergy (see Moralists). 
 
 Elizabethan, concubinage among, 
 95. 
 Clinias, 57. 
 
 Code of holiness, 165ff. 
 Co-education, 35ff. 
 Coghlan, 64. 
 
 Cognatio spiritualis, 164. 
 Coition, infertile, 80. 
 Coitus (see Sexual Act, Conjugal 
 
 Intercourse). 
 Collective teaching, 28. 
 Colossians, Epistle to, 145, 236n. 
 Comber, Dean, 66n. 
 Committee of Fifteen, 107. 
 Concubinage, 92, 94ff., 210. 
 Condom, 83. 
 Congo, peoples of, 237. 
 Congress of Mothers, American, 
 
 75n. 
 Conjugal intercourse, frequency of, 
 
 126. 
 Consanguinity, 164. 
 Constancy, 132, 156. 
 Contemporary review, 9. 
 Continence, law of, 59. 
 
 effects of, 52ff. 
 
 periodic, 81, 87f. 
 
 in women, 147. 
 Contrectation, 55, 135. 
 Convention, 149, 183f. 
 Conversation, purification of, 183, 
 
 240. 
 Cook Islands, 232. 
 Corinth, church in, 95, 210. 
 Corinthians, Epistle to, 21, 51, 65, 
 71, 94, 122, 130, 145, 146, 158, 
 203, 209ff., 220. 
 Courting, 11, 129. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 249 
 
 Crawley, 7, 10f., 34, 53, 92n., 96n., 
 
 129n., 183n., 236n. 
 Creation tablet, Babylonian, 222. 
 Cruelty, 197f. 
 Curschmann, 243. 
 
 Dalman, 60, 206. 
 Day schools, 39. 
 
 Deceased husband's brother, mar- 
 riage with, 175f. 
 wife's sister, marriage with, 
 1651, 170ff. 
 Degeneracy, sexual, 199. 
 Deissmann, 215n. 
 Delitzsch, 225. 
 Demosthenes, 233. 
 Desexualization (see Sterilization). 
 Detention, legal, 31, 105, 116, 199, 
 
 219. 
 Detumescence, 55, 80, 135. 
 Deuteronomy, 14, 60, 93, 222. 
 Development, sexual, 22, 189. 
 Differentiation, sexual, 80, 188. 
 Dillmann, 15, 169, 223. 
 Discipline, church, 161, 170, 177. 
 Divine love (see Love of God), 
 providence, 71, 85, 88, 96, 144, 153, 
 
 239. 
 will, 10, 170, 204n. 
 Divorce, Christ's attitude toward, 
 158f., 161. 
 church's attitude toward, 155, 
 
 158, 160. 
 frequency of, 213, 214. 
 in primitive times, 155. 
 Jewish teaching on, 213. 
 legislation on, 158ff. 
 St. Paul's attitude toward, 158. 
 modern consideration of, 155ff., 
 
 174. 
 State's attitude toward, 159ff. 
 Dobschiitz, von, 201n., 206, 207, 
 
 208, 210. 
 Doctors, 26, 43, 52, 110. 
 Dormancy of sexual organs, 54, 56. 
 
 Dress, 146. 
 
 Driver, 14, 60, 73n., 221, 238n. 
 
 Driver- White, 169n., 172n. 
 
 Duckworth, 54n. 
 
 Duran, Carolus, 88. 
 
 Dusuns, 224n. 
 
 Earle, Mrs., 26n. 
 
 Eating, 8. 
 
 Economics, 74, 85. 
 
 Ecstasy, sexual, 139ff., 142n. 
 
 Eden, Garden of, 222. 
 
 Edersheim, 144n., 156, 203n., 205n., 
 
 214n. 
 Education, sexual, 22, 25ff., 113, 
 
 192n., 194, 199, 219n., 240f. 
 of women, 1271 
 Egyptians, 236. 
 "Eilabelle," 88. 
 Elberskirchen, 82 n. 
 "Elizabeth, Renunciation of," 179. 
 Ellis, Havelock, 1, 7ff., 12, 22, 27n., 
 
 30, 35, 38, 80, 124, 127, 128, 
 
 135, 142, 180n., 187, 189, 192, 
 
 194, 195n., 197, 207, 222n., 
 
 231ff. 
 Emigration of women, 153f. 
 Encratites, 210. 
 "En Families," 88. 
 Engagement, ethics of, 69, 96. 
 Englishwomen, chastity of, 115. 
 
 modesty of, 150f. 
 English Church Union, 176. 
 Entertainments, 17. 
 Ephesians, Epistle to, 13, 145, 185, 
 
 211. 
 Episodic perversion, 195n. 
 Eridu, vine of, 223n. 
 "Epus, 13. 
 Erotic art, ethics of, 2, 178ff. 
 
 intoxication, 196. 
 Eschatology, 218. 
 Esdras, Book of, 42f., 227. 
 Essenes, 205. 
 Ethical thought, modern, 1131 
 
250 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ethics of sex (see Sexual Ethics) . 
 
 Ethiopia, 236. 
 
 Eugenics, 84f. 
 
 Eulenburg, 59, 136n., 162n. 
 
 Euripides, 140. 
 
 Evil, mundane origin of, 10f., 224ff. 
 
 Ewald„ C. A., 84. 
 
 Ewald, H. von, 213n. 
 
 Excommunication, 161. 
 
 Exhibition of erotic art, 181. 
 
 Exodus, Book of, 14, 173. 
 
 Expositor, 209n. 
 
 Expository Times, 208n., 214n., 222, 
 
 228n. 
 Epulsion from school, 30. 
 Ezekiel, Book of, 13, 132, 157. 
 
 Fall of man, 11, 14, 221ff. 
 Family life, 34, 164. 
 
 beauty of, 88. 
 Family, limitation of, 83. 
 Family physician, 26. 
 Feconditfe (see Zola). 
 Feet, figurative use of, in Hebrew, 
 
 137. 
 Fere, 23, 27, 30, 54, 148n., 187, 188n., 
 
 199, 219n., 225n. 
 Ferret, 231. 
 Fertility, 64, 223. 
 Fertilization (see Procreation). 
 Fires, the two, 245f. 
 Flint, 57. 
 Forbidden degrees (see Marriage 
 
 Prohibitions). 
 Forbidden fruit (see Fall). 
 Forel, 142. 
 Forgiveness of sins, 43, 45ff., 136ff., 
 
 208, 215ff. 
 Fornication, 60ff., 88ff., lllff., 210, 
 
 233. e 
 Biblical views of, 91ff. 
 demoralization effects of, 61f. 
 prescribing of, 52, 219. 
 Frazer, 10, 236n. 
 Freedom, Christian, 86, 206. 
 
 Frigidity, sexual, 126f. 
 Furbringer, 58, 82n., 83f., 123, 126, 
 
 129n. 
 Future life, 143f., 218. 
 
 Galatians, Epistle to, 86, 185. 
 Geddes and Thomson, 79, 188n., 
 
 229n. 
 Genesis, Book of, 14, 46, 73, 93, 
 
 169f., 221ff., 238n. 
 Gentleness, marital, 129. 
 Gilgames, epic of, 222. 
 IVfiira, 1301 
 Gnosticism, 210. 
 Godet, 216. 
 Godfrey, 20, 57, 67. 
 Gonorrhoea, 108. 
 "Good and Evil," 221f. 
 Gore, Bishop, 11, 170, 225. 
 Grace of God, 21, 70f., 130f. 
 Grand Magazine, 154. 
 Gruber, 58, 64n. 
 Guardian, 22n., 28, 29, 152, 159n., 
 
 173n., 176, 218. 
 Guernsey, 53, 127, 238. 
 
 Hallam, 95. 
 
 Hammurabi, 109n. 
 
 Haoma tree, 222. 
 
 Hardy, 13 In. 
 
 Harlot (see Prostitution). 
 
 Harnack, 137, 200f. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 65n. 
 
 Hathan, 237. 
 
 Havelburg, 65n., 147n. 
 
 Healing processes, 43, 45. 
 
 Heape, 124. 
 
 Heart, circumcision of, 237f. 
 
 Hebrews (see Semites). 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to, 65, 121, 204, 
 
 205. 
 Heredity, vitiated, 15, 21f., 31, 78, 
 
 188f., 193ff., 219. 
 Hermaphroditism, 188n. 
 Herodotus, 235f., 238. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 251 
 
 Hetairism (see Concubinage). 
 
 Heterosexuality, 38f. 
 
 High Church, 159. 
 
 Hime, 27, 30, 31. 
 
 Home Secretary, 182. 
 
 Homer, 140. 
 
 Homeric Age, divorce in, 213n. 
 
 Hominidae, 226. 
 
 Homosexuality, Biblical views of, 
 
 190. 
 in schools, 30f., 38f., 1921, 242. 
 suggested toleration of, 189ff. 
 Hooker, 138. 
 Horace, 185. 
 Hosea, 13, 132, 140. 
 House of Commons, 174, 182. 
 Howard, 9, 68, 72, 96, 155n., 163, 
 
 206n. 
 "Humble a woman," 94n. 
 Hygiene, 23, 32, 238, 244. 
 Hymns, 244. 
 Hypnotism, 23, 219. 
 
 Idle word, the, 183n., 186. 
 Ignorance, danger of, 26f. 
 Illegitimacy, disabilities of, 116ff. 
 
 Russian legislation on, 118. 
 Illegitimates, heredity of, 117n. 
 Immorality (see Sexual Sin, Sexual 
 
 Perversions) . 
 Immortality and sex, 143f. 
 Impotence, sexual, 54, 107, 126. 
 Impure thoughts, 49f., 202. 
 Impurity, definition of, 89ff. 
 
 idea of, in sex, 7ff., 14. 
 Inbreeding, 35, 168. 
 Incest, 34, 164, 169. 
 Incontinence, causes of, 15f., 112. 
 
 struggles with, 48ff. 
 Independent Review, 236n. 
 Indian Army, prostitution in, 104f. 
 Indulgentia, doctrine of, 65ff., 71f., 
 
 73, 85. 
 Infanticide, 191. 
 Infirmity, sins of. 136ff. 
 
 Intercourse, sexual (see Sexual In- 
 tercourse). 
 antenuptial, 96ff. 
 interrupted, 84. 
 social, 35, 40, 41. 
 Inversion, sexual, 56, 148n., 187ff. 
 
 (see Homosexuality). 
 Invert, not necessarily a Sodomite, 
 
 189. 
 Isaiah, 13, 146, 222, 246, 137. 
 Isolation, sexual, 151. 
 
 Jacob, 46f. 
 James, S. B., 173n. 
 Japanese, 183. 
 Jastrow, 222n. 
 Je document, 221ff. 
 Jeffries, 183n. 
 Jelf, 218. 
 
 Jeremiah, 132, 140, 236. 
 Jesus Christ, attitude toward as- 
 ceticism, 200f. 
 
 attitude toward sinners, 208. 
 
 human experiences of, 204. 
 
 influence over women, 141f. 
 
 sovereignty of, 51. 
 
 teaching on sexual morality, 
 136ff., 158ff., 164, 170, 203ff. 
 
 temptation of, 60, 204. 
 Jewish ethical thought, 13f., 206ff. 
 
 (see also Semites). 
 John, St., 136, 141, 203. 
 John, Epistle of, 137. 
 Juvenal, 15, 73, 185, 233. 
 Juvenile depravity, 15, 17, 58, 116. 
 
 Kaffirs, 232. 
 
 Kaminer, 83. 
 
 Karezza, 134. 
 
 Katabolism (see Catabolism). 
 
 Kingdom of Heaven, 60n., 200, 202. 
 
 K'thib, 184. 
 
 Knowledge, conjugal, 130f. 
 
 Kossmann, 83f., 123, 125. 
 
 Krafft-Ebing, 1, 2, 30, 187, 198. 
 
 KiibeL 204b. 
 
252 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Laidlaw, 228n. 
 
 Lambeth Conference, 16, 51, 173. 
 
 Lamentations, Book of, 13. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 226. 
 
 Language (see Words). 
 
 Leconte, 133n. 
 
 Legislation on erotic art, 181f. 
 
 on sexual morality, 19, 33, 100, 
 103, 163, 175ff. 
 Legitimation, 117. 
 Letourneau, 7, 8, 141n. 
 Levirate marriage, 169, 172. 
 Leyden, von, 84. 
 
 Liberty, Christian (see Freedom). 
 "Libidines," 178. 
 Liddon, 204n. 
 Literature on sex, 2, 28, 142, 155, 
 
 219. 
 Livy, 179. 
 
 Lock Hospitals, 104ft*. 
 Lombard, 65, 68, 120. 
 Lourbet, 133, 148. 
 Love, conjugal, 132f., 156f. 
 
 law of, 229. 
 
 obligation of, 156, 213. 
 
 of God, 12, 48, 132, 140, 208, 215ff. 
 
 of women, 140f. 
 Love-ecstasy, a. moral stimulus, 
 141, 143. 
 
 history of, 139ff. 
 Luckock, 159n. 
 Luke, St., Gospel according to, 141. 
 
 200, 203, 204. 
 Luthardt, 141n. 
 Lyttelton, 25. 
 
 MacColl, 176. 
 
 Mahood, Mrs., 150f. 
 
 Male organ, 129n., 222, 232, 235, 
 
 238. 
 Male principle, 6, 12. 
 Manichseanism, 13, 136, 205, 210, 
 
 226. 
 Maori, 232. 
 Mark, Gospel according to, 141, 203. 
 
 Marriage, a religious symbol, 12f . 
 
 arbitrary restraints of, 74f. 
 
 contrasted with concubinage, 90, 
 92n\, 210. 
 
 early, 65, 67, 151. 
 
 essentials of, 671, 92, 95, 96, 157n. 
 
 happiness in, 131. 
 
 hygienic benefits of, 53n. 
 
 ideal of, 92, 156f„ 160n., 164, 169f., 
 170, 175, 202, 211f. 
 
 mota'a, 93. 
 
 motives of, 7 If. 
 
 necessity of, 51, 64ff., 208. 
 
 obligations of, 156. 
 
 prohibitions, 164ff. 
 
 revelation of, lOn. 
 
 right of, 60, 211. 
 
 sacramental theory of, 68, 211. 
 
 service (see Anglican Marriage 
 Service). 
 
 physical use of, 120ff., 201f. 
 
 spiritual, 143. 
 Marriageableness (see Nubility). 
 Marriage-bond, 156f. 
 Martial, 233. 
 Masturbation, 231ff. 
 
 condemned by Catholic moralists, 
 233. 
 
 effects of, 58, 195. 
 
 ethical estimate of, 57, 80, 231ff. 
 
 in animals, 20, 231. 
 
 in children, 15, 22. 
 
 in Greek and Latin classics, 233. 
 
 in schools, 27, 29, 31, 241f. 
 
 in primitive races, 232. 
 
 mental, 50. 
 
 not mentioned in Bible, 21. 
 Materialism, 66. 
 Maternity homes, 119. 
 Matriarehate, 92, 167ff. 
 Matrimony (see Marriage). 
 Matthew, Gospel according to, 60, 
 141, 158, 161, 186, 200, 202, 
 204, 20. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 253 
 
 Medical ethics (see Secrecy). 
 
 men (see Doctors). 
 
 examination, 98f. 
 Medicine, 43f. 
 Meetings, purity, 17. 
 Menstruation, intercourse during, 
 
 124f. 
 Mercies of God, 43, 45ff. 
 Meretrix, 95. 
 Meyrick, 206n. 
 Milligan, 206. 
 Missal, Roman, 244. 
 Moberley, 171. 
 Moderatio, 13 In. 
 
 Modesty about natural functions, 
 146. 
 
 Biblical estimate of, 14, 145ff. 
 
 ethical purpose of, 7, 145. 
 
 of Englishwomen, 150f. 
 
 origins of, 7ff, 145. 
 Moll, 55, 135, 187, 188n., 192n., 
 194n., 195n., 199, 199n., 219n. 
 Moloch, 6, 18, 22, 42, 67. 
 Monkeys, sexuality in, 122, 232. 
 Monogamy, 9, 10, 13, 92, 125. 
 Moral growth, 21f. 
 
 suasion, 32, 99, 102, 162, 175, 177, 
 219. 
 
 judgments, imperfection of hu- 
 man, 5, 1971 
 Moralists, 2, 20, 66, 67, 92, 220. 
 Morality in New Testament Times, 
 
 207ff., 212. 
 Morbidity, 32, 42, 245. 
 Mothers and sons, 25. 
 Multiplicatio amicitiae, 166f. 
 Murder, algolagnic, 63, 196f. 
 Myers, F., 23n., 45, 141, 144. 
 
 Nakedness, 14, 34, 36, 168. 
 Nature, interference with, 78. 
 Nature-worship, 12f. 
 Neisser, 108f. 
 
 Neo-Malthusianism (see Preven- 
 tion). 
 
 Nero, 197. 
 
 Nestle, 208n. 
 
 Neurasthenia, 58f. 
 
 Neuropathic conditions, 57, 188f. 
 
 New York Report, 99. 
 
 New Zealand, 17, 24n., Ill, 117. 
 
 commission appointed in, 86f. 
 
 government, 37. 
 
 legislation, 175, 182. 
 
 schools, 37. 
 Newman, Cardinal, 49. 
 Nicholson, Bishop, 121n. 
 Nocturnal pollution, 44, 54. 
 
 in literature, 243. 
 
 frequency of, 243. 
 
 moral aspect of, 244f. 
 
 volitional repression of, 244f. 
 Nosgen, 86n., 2UJn. 
 Nubility, 64. 
 Nude, in art, 179ff. 
 Nurses, 23. 
 Nymphomania, 83. 
 
 Onan's trespass, 73. 
 
 Onanism (see Masturbation). 
 
 Orgasm, sexual, 54, 57. 
 
 Ornamentation, 236n. 
 
 Ovum, not sexually passive, 148. 
 
 "P" document, 221f. 
 Pain, a sexual stimulus, 30 (see 
 also Algolagnia). 
 
 power of bearing, 237. 
 Paley, 123. 
 Panegyris, 140. 
 Paradise, 42f. 
 
 narrative (see Fall). 
 Parents, duties of, 25, 110. 
 Parental control, 75n., 112. 
 Paterson, W. P., 170n., 209, 214. 
 Patriarchate, 167ff. 
 Paul, St., 51, 86, 130, 149, 158, 185, 
 
 203, 209ff., 226, 227. 
 Penis (see Male Organ). 
 Penology, 31, 187, 197. 
 
254 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Periodicity, sex, 8, 124, 243. 
 Perry Costs, 124, 243. 
 Perversion, sexual (see Sexual Per- 
 version). 
 Peter, St., Epistle of, 131, 146. 
 Phimosis, 238. 
 Phrygia, morality in, 213. 
 Physical degeneration, 76. 
 Pictures, indecent, 181f. 
 Pigeon, masturbation in, 231. 
 Pinacium, 140. 
 Pinches, 223n. 
 Plato, 11, 12, 140f. 
 Platonic friendships, 36. 
 Plautus, 140. 
 irXeopeiJia, 121. 
 Pliny, 178f. 
 
 Pollution (see Nocturnal Pollu- 
 tion). 
 Polygamy, 175. 
 Polynesians, 183n., 232. 
 Population, checks on, 73, 79. 
 Posner, 107, 243n. 
 Potentia coeundi, 80. 
 
 generandi, 80. 
 Preaching, 219f. 
 Pregnancy, intercourse during, 
 
 122f. 
 Prepuce, 235, 238. 
 President of U. S. A., 75n. 
 Prevention, 67, 69, 73ff., 191. 
 
 analogies of, 78f. 
 
 legislation on, 87. 
 
 methods of, 8 Iff. 
 
 moral aspect of, 74f., 78ff. 
 Priest's Prayerbook, 30. 
 Primitive morality, 92n., 96n. 
 Proverbs, Book of, 122, 245. 
 Procreation, 55f., 64f., 81, 240. 
 
 control of (see Prevention). 
 Prohibition of prostitution, 104n. 
 Promiscuity, 90f. 
 Prophets of Israel, 12f. 
 Prostate, 50. 
 Prostatic fluid, 45. 
 
 Prostitute, a citizen, 99. 
 Prostitutes, sense of sin among, 
 
 105n. 
 Prostitution, aggressive, 99ff. 
 
 legislative control of, 98ff. 
 
 dangers of, 60f., 67, 98. 
 
 alleged necessity of, 52ff. 
 
 religious, 9, 93. 
 Protozoa, 226. 
 Prudery, 66, 151, 181. 
 Psalms, Book of, 13. 
 Psychosexual hermaphroditism, 
 
 192. 
 Punishment, 29ff. 
 
 capital, 19G, 199. 
 
 corporal, 29f. 
 
 divine, 42f., 218. 
 
 unwise, 24, 189. 
 Purity guilds, 119, 219. 
 
 question, 16, 19. 
 Q'ri, 184. 
 
 Quacks (see Specialists). 
 Queenslanders, 183n. 
 
 Ramsay, 209, 213. 
 
 Rape, 199. 
 
 Rarotongans, 232. 
 
 Reaction after orgasm, 57, 136, 196. 
 
 Reformatories, 31, 37f., 116. 
 
 Registration of illegitimates, 117fE. 
 
 Reglementation, 98ff. 
 
 Rehearsal, sexual, 96n. 
 
 Religion, personal, 70f., 130f., 239, 
 
 242, 246. 
 Religious instruction, 113. 
 Remarriage, 168n., 206. 
 
 after divorce, 160ff. 
 Remondino, 235n. 
 Renan, 143. 
 
 Renaissance, art of, 180. 
 Repulsion, sexual, 35, 126, 164, 169. 
 Rescue work, 99, 102, 105. 
 Responsibility, 5, 20, 192, 194, 197f., 
 225f. 
 
 of woman, 1721 
 
INDEX. 
 
 255 
 
 Restoration of sexual nature (see 
 
 Healing Processes). 
 Revelation, primitive, 10, lOn. 
 Review of Reviews, 118. 
 Richmond, Ennis, 22, 30. 
 Rights, natural, 92n., 204. 
 
 sexual, 60, 92n., 147, 150, 107, 169, 
 172, 173n., 205. 
 Robertson, F. W., 178. 
 Rodin, 179. 
 
 Roman Church and divorce, 160. 
 Romans, Epistle to, 209. 
 Russian legislation, 118. 
 Rut, 141n. 
 
 in humanity, rationale of, 125. 
 Ruth, story of, 150. 
 
 Sacrament of marriage, 68, 211. 
 
 Sadism (see Algolagnia). 
 
 Safe (see Condom). 
 
 Sallust, 179. 
 
 Samuel, Books of, 13, 14, 63, 140, 
 
 222, 235. 
 Sandow exercises, 244. 
 Satyriasis, 83. 
 Sayce, 22f. 
 
 School life, 26ff., 3 Off., 239ff. 
 Schoolmasters, 27. 
 School notices, 29. 
 Schrenk-Notzing, 187n. 
 "Scientific Meliorism," 74, 84. 
 Sculpture, Greek, 178. 
 
 Roman, 179. 
 Secrecy, desire for, 8ff. 
 
 medical, 110. 
 Secularism, 160n. 
 Seduction, 62f., 93. 
 Self -abuse (see Masturbation). 
 Selfishness, masculine, 62f., 118f. 
 Self-sacrifice, 60, 67, 157 ,191f., 199, 
 
 201ff., 206, 211, 146. 
 Seminal discharges (see Nocturnal 
 
 Pollution). 
 Senator-Kaminer, 53, 58, 75n., 82n., 
 
 123, 125, 126, 129n., 136n., 
 
 Senator-Kaminer, 147n., 188n., 192n., 
 
 194n., 199, 219n., 243n. 
 Serpent, 222. 
 
 Sex, a factor, in progress, llf. 
 differentiation, imperfect, 80, 18S. 
 cells, 54. 
 future of, 143f. 
 Sexual act, 55, 79, 81, 240. 
 activity in the female, 148. 
 attraction, 11, 35, 140, 146, 148, 
 
 152, 235f. 
 desire, moderated in marriage, 83, 
 
 132f. 
 ethics, 1, 11. 
 
 Christian, 3f., 92ff., 207ff. 
 excess in marriage, 121, 125f. 
 function, imperfect control of, 
 
 49. 
 gratification, how far necessary, 
 
 52ff. 
 instinct, development of, 22, 55. 
 nature, cleansing of, 13(iff. 
 neurasthenia, 43ff., 107f., 244. 
 organs, dormancy of, 54. 
 
 imperfect formation of, 80. 
 periodicity (see Periodicity), 
 perversion, 2, 30f., 80, 89, 187ff., 
 
 219. 
 repulsion (see Repulsion), 
 sin, 5, 61, 1361L, 215ff. 
 among animals, 20, 225. 
 analysis of, 15, 20f. 
 effects of, 42ff., 218. 
 unions, illicit, 67, 92ff. 
 Sexuality among women, 15, 82, 
 127, 147, 153. 
 in antiquity, 15, 1391 
 in civilization, 1, 14ff., Ill, 147. 
 in primitive races, 16n. 
 in spiritually minded men, 49. 
 spiritualized, 139ff. 
 two Biblical views of, 13ff. 
 Sin (see Evil). 
 
 Sinfulness, notion of, in sex (see 
 Modesty, Impurity). 
 
256 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Smith, G. A., 13. 
 
 H. P., 14. 
 
 W. R., 14, 167n., 245n. 
 Smyth, Newman, 156. 
 "Social Evil" (see Prostitution). 
 Sodomy (see Homosexuality). 
 Song of Songs, 13, 140, 180. 
 Specialists, 43, 44, 44n. 
 Spectator, the, 224n. 
 Speech, sins of, 131, 185f. 
 Sperry, 15, 52, 81, 134, 136n. 
 Spinsters, freedom of, 148. 
 Spiritism, 144. 
 Spiritual marriage, 143. 
 Spiritualized love, 139ff. 
 Stall, 20, 22, 28, 74n., 245. 
 State (see Legislation). 
 Statuary (see Sculpture). 
 Sterilization, 31, 56, 197ff. 
 Stimuli, sexual, 35, 194. 
 Stratz, 12. 
 Suetonius, 197. 
 Suggestion, prohibitive, 23. 
 
 self-, 45. 
 Swahili women, 222. 
 Sympathy, 51, 58, 174. 
 Symbolism, nature, 222ff. 
 Syphilis, 108f. 
 
 Taboo, sexual, 10, 14, 34, 96n., 167, 
 
 169. 
 Tacitus, 140. 
 Taraowsky, 187, 198. 
 Taylor, C, 206n. 
 
 Bishop, 134. 
 Temptation, 219, 224, 246. 
 Tennant, 221, 222n., 228ff. 
 Terence, 95, 140. 
 Themistocles, 141. 
 Theocritus, 140, 180. 
 Thessalonians, Epistle to, 4, 65, 94, 
 
 121. 
 Thompson, Campbell, 223n. 
 Thoughts, impure (see Impure 
 
 Thoughts). 
 
 Timothy, Epistle to, 149, 206, 146. 
 
 Titus, Epistle to, 206. 
 
 Tobacco, 24. 
 
 Tolstoy, 136, 201f., 205. 
 
 Toy, 122. 
 
 Trail, 24f., 57, 121. 
 
 Tree of life, 222ff. 
 
 knowledge, 222ff. 
 Tuberculosis, 75, 83. 
 Tumescence, 55, 80, 128, 135. 
 
 Ultzmann, 44, 58, 80. 
 
 University life, 37. 
 
 Unchastity (see Incontinence, Sex- 
 ual Sin). 
 
 Unnatural crimes (see Sexual Per- 
 version). 
 
 Use, law of, 54, 54n. 
 
 Ussher, 74. 
 
 Varicocele, 29. 
 Veil, symbolism of, 210. 
 Vergil, 245. 
 
 Venereal disease, prevention of, 
 98ff. 
 and marriage, 107ff. 
 Vicpa-taokhma tree, 223. 
 Vine of Eridu (see Eridu). 
 Virginity, 93. 
 Volition (see Will). 
 
 Washing, hygiene of, 238. 
 
 symbolism of, 137 . 
 Watkins, 175n. 
 Weissmann, 11. 
 Wells, 2, 28, 35, 85n., 100. 
 Westcott, Bishop, 200. 
 Westcott-Hort, 203n., 208. 
 Westermarck, 2, 6f., 20, 35, 91, 148, 
 
 155n., 164, 166, 168n., 175, 
 
 213, 235f. 
 Whipping, 30. 
 White Cross Series, 20, 79. 
 Widowhood, 168n. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 257 
 
 Wife's kindred, 168, 171f. 
 
 Will, 49, 50, 59, 149, 156, 229, 244f. 
 
 Winton, Mary, 154. 
 
 Wolff, 84. 
 
 Woman, emancipation of, 210. 
 
 sexuality in, 15, 82, 147. 
 
 modesty in, 145n\, 210. 
 "Woman at Home," 88. 
 Woods, Alice, 35. 
 
 Woods, Hutchinson, 9. 
 Words, indecent, 183ff., 240. 
 Word painting, 180. 
 
 Yahwist, 221ff. 
 
 Zephaniah, Book of, 140. 
 Zockler, 86n., 121n., 206, 207. 
 Zola, 76, 88, 129, 179.