Bunyan, writer, _hallucinations_.
Swedenborg, theologian, _hallucinations_.
Loyola, theologian, _hallucinations_.
J. S. Mill, writer, _suicidal impulse_.
Linnaeus, botanist, _paresis_.
The reader will observe that I have made use of the comprehensive word,
writer, to designate all kinds of literary work except theology and
philosophy. The above list is by no means complete, and only contains
the names of those geniuses with whom the world is well acquainted.
When we come to the geniuses of the New World, we find that, though few
in number, they, nevertheless, show erraticism and degeneration. Poe was
undoubtedly a man of great genius, and his degeneration was indicated by
his excessive use of alcohol. Aaron Burr was the victim of moral
anaesthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic.
Randolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was,
morally, anaesthetic. Daniel Webster was addicted to an over-indulgence
in alcohol, likewise Thomas Marshall and the elder Booth. Booth also had
attacks of acute mania. His son Edwin had paresis; so also had John
McCullough, John T. Raymond, and Bartley Campbell. A distinguished
statesman and politician, and a man who stands high in the councils of
the nation, has, for a number of years, given evidence of mental
obliquity by his uncontrollable desire for alcohol. No power, outside of
bodily restraint, can control him and keep him from indulging his
appetite for alcohol when this desire seizes him. One of the most noted
poets of to-day, whose verses stir the heart with their pathos and bring
smiles to the gravest countenances with their humor, was, for a number
of years (and still is, so I have been told), an inordinate user of
alcohol.
Robert Ingersoll was undoubtedly a man of genius and of considerable
originality, and a close study of his writings shows conclusively his
mental eccentricity. Judging wholly from his printed utterances, Mr.
Ingersoll was only a superficial scientist and mediocre scholar. His
power lay in his wonderful word imagery, and his intricately constructed
verbal arabesques. He was a verbal symbolist. Symbolism, wherever
found, and in whatever art, if carried to any extent, must necessarily
be an evidence of atavism, consequently of degeneration.
Thomas Paine gave evidences of a lack of mental equipoise. We find
scattered throughout his works the most brilliant, irrefutable, and
logical truths side by side with the most inane, illogical, and stolid
crudities. Among other men of genius who showed signs of degeneration we
may include Alexander Stevens, Joel Hart, Adams, Train, Breckenridge,
Webster, Blaine, Van Buren, Houston, Grant, Hawthorne, Bartholow, Walt
Whitman. We must not confound genius and talent--the two are widely
different. Genius is essentially original and spontaneous, while talent
is to some extent acquired. Genius is a _quasi_ abnormality, and one for
which the world should be devoutly grateful. _Psychos_, in the case of
genius, is not uniformly developed, one part, being more favored than
the others, absorbs and uses more than its share of that element,
whatsoever it be, which goes to make up intellectuality, hence the less
favored or less acquisitive parts show degeneration.
THE EFFECT OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE ON POSTERITY.
_The greatest, best, and highest law of higher civilization is that
which declares that man should strive to benefit, not himself
alone, but his posterity._
I. THE ORIGIN OF THE MATRIARCHATE.
In the very beginning woman was, by function, a mother; by virtue of her
surroundings, a housewife. Man was then, as now, the active, dominant
factor in those affairs outside the immediate pale of the fireside. Life
was collective; "communal was the habitation, and communal the wives
with the children; the men pursued the same prey, and devoured it
together after the manner of wolves; all felt, all thought, all acted in
concert." Primitive men were like their simian ancestors, which never
paired, and which roamed through the forest in bands and troops. This
collectivism is plainly noticeable in certain races of primitive folks
which are yet in existence, notably the autochthons of the Aleutian
Islands. Huddled together in their communal _kachims_, naked, without
any thought of immodesty, men, women, and children share the same fire
and eat from the same pot. They recognize no immorality in the fact of
the father cohabiting with his daughter--one of them naively remarking
to Langsdorf, who reproached him for having committed this crime: "Why
not? the otters do it!" Later in life the men and women mate; but even
then there is no sanctity in the marriage tie, for the Aleutian will
freely offer his wife to the stranger within his gates, and will
consider it an insult if he refuses to enjoy her company. "As with many
savages and half-civilized people, the man who would not offer his guest
the hospitality of the conjugal couch, or the company of his
best-looking daughter, would be considered an ill-bred person."
This laxity in sexual relations was, at first, common to all races of
primitive men, but, after a time, there arose certain influences which
modified, to a certain extent, this free and indiscriminate intercourse.
Frequent wars must have occurred between hostile tribes of primitive
men, during which, some of them (physically or numerically weaker than
their opponents) must have been repeatedly vanquished, and many of their
females captured, for, in those old days (like those of more recent
times, for that matter) the women were the prizes for which the men
fought.
Under circumstances like these, the few remaining women must have served
as wives for all the men of the tribe; and, in this manner polyandry had
its inception. Polyandry gives women certain privileges which monandry
denies, and she is not slow to seize on these prerogatives, and to use
them in the furtherance of her own welfare. Polyandry, originating from
any cause whatever, will always end in the establishment of a
matriarchate, in which the women are either directly or indirectly at
the head of the government.
There are several matriarchates still extant in the world, and one of
the best known, as well as the most advanced, as far as civilization and
culture are concerned, is that of the Nairs, a people of India
inhabiting that portion of the country lying between Cape Comorin and
Mangalore, and the Ghats and the Indian Ocean.
The Nairs are described as being the handsomest people in the world; the
men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are
slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is
carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say,
fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is
selected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as
the groom ties the _tali_, or marriage cord, about her neck, he is
feasted and is then dismissed; the wife must never again speak to, or
even look at, her husband. Once safely wedded, the girl becomes
emancipated, and can receive the attentions of as many men as she may
elect, though, I am informed, it is not considered fashionable, at
present, to have more than seven husbands, one for each day of the week.
Of no importance heretofore, after her farcical marriage the Nair woman
at once becomes a power in the councils of the nation; as a matter of
course, the higher her lovers the higher her rank becomes and the
greater her influence. Here is female suffrage in its primitive form,
brought about, it is true, by environment, and not by elective
franchise.
As far as the children are concerned, the power of the mother is
absolute; for they know no father, the maternal uncle standing in his
stead. Property, both personal and real, is vested in the woman; she is
the mistress and the ruler. "The mother reigns and governs; she has her
eldest daughter for prime minister in her household, through whom all
orders are transmitted to her little world. Formerly, in grand
ceremonials, the reigning prince himself yielded precedence to his
eldest daughter, and, of course, recognized still more humbly the
priority of his mother, before whom he did not venture to seat himself
until she had given him permission. Such was the rule from the palace to
the humblest dwelling of a Nair."
During the past fifty years, these people have made rapid strides toward
civilization, monandry and monogamy taking the places of polyandry and
polygamy, and fifty or a hundred years hence, this matriarchate will, in
all probability, entirely disappear.
I have demonstrated, I think, clearly and distinctly, that matriarchy,
or female government, is neither new nor advanced thought, but that it
is as old, almost, as the human race; that the "New Woman" was born many
thousands of years ago, and that her autotype, in some respects, is to
be found to-day in Mangalore! A return to matriarchy at the present time
would be distinctly and emphatically and essentially retrograde in every
particular. The right to vote carries with it the right to hold office,
and if women are granted the privilege of suffrage, they must also be
given the right to govern. Now let us see if we cannot find a reason for
this atavistic desire (matriarchy) in the physical and psychical
histories of its foremost advocates. I will discuss this question in
Part II of this paper.
II. THE VIRAGINT.
There are two kinds of genius. The first is progressive genius, which
always enunciates new and original matter of material benefit to the
human race, and which is, consequently, non-atavistic; the second is
atavistic or retrogressive genius, which is imitative and which always
enunciates dead and obsolete matter long since abandoned and thrown
aside as being utterly useless. The doctrines of communism and of
nihilism are the products of retrogressive genius and are clearly
atavistic, inasmuch as they are a reversion to the mental habitudes of
our savage ancestors. The doctrines of the matriarchate are likewise
degenerate beliefs, and, if held by any civilized being of to-day, are
evidences of psychic atavism.
Atavism invariably attacks the weak; and individuals of neurasthenic
type are more frequently its victims than are any other class of people.
Especially is this true in the case of those who suffer from psychical
atavism.
The woman of to-day who believes in and inculcates the doctrines of
matriarchy, doctrines which have been, as far as the civilized world is
concerned, thrown aside and abandoned these many hundred years, is as
much the victim of psychic atavism as was Alice Mitchell, who slew Freda
Ward in Memphis several years ago, and who was justly declared a
viragint by the court that tried her.
Without entering into the truthfulness or falseness of the theory
advanced by me elsewhere in this book, in regard to the primal cause of
psychic hermaphroditism, which I attributed and do still attribute to
psychic atavism, I think that I am perfectly safe in asserting that
every woman who has been at all prominent in advancing the cause of
equal rights in its entirety, has either given evidences or
masculo-femininity (viraginity), or has shown, conclusively, that she
was the victim of psycho-sexual aberrancy. Moreover, the history of
every viragint of any note in the history of the world shows that they
were either physically or psychically degenerate, or both.
Jeanne d'Arc was the victim of hystero-epilepsy, while Catharine the
Great was a dipsomaniac, and a creature of unbounded and inordinate
sensuality. Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius, a woman of
masculine type, whose very form embodied and shadowed forth the regnant
idea of her mind--absolute and utter rulership--was a woman of such
gross carnality, that her lecherous conduct shocked even the depraved
courtiers of her lewd and salacious court. The side-lights of history,
as Douglas Campbell has so cleverly pointed out in his "Puritan in
Holland, England, and America," declare that there is every reason to
believe that the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth of England, was not such a pure
and unspotted virgin as her admirers make her out to be. Sir Robert
Cecil says of her that "she was more man than woman," while history
shows conclusively that she was a pronounced viragint, with a slight
tendency toward megalomania. In a recent letter to me, Mr. George H.
Yeaman, ex-Minister to Denmark, writes as follows: "Whether it be the
relation of cause and effect, or only what logicians call a "mere
coincidence," the fact remains that in Rome, Russia, France, and
England, political corruption, cruelty of government, sexual
immorality--nay, downright, impudent, open, boastful indecency--have
culminated, for the most part, in the eras of the influence of viragints
on government or over governors."
Viraginity has many phases. We see a mild form of it in the tom-boy
who abandons her dolls and female companions for the marbles and
masculine sports of her boy acquaintances. In the loud-talking,
long-stepping, slang-using young woman we see another form; while
the square-shouldered, stolid, cold, unemotional, unfeminine android
(for she has the normal human form, without the normal human _psychos_)
is yet another. The most aggravated form of viraginity is that known as
homo-sexuality; with this form, however, this paper has nothing to do.
Another form of viraginity is technically known as gynandry, and may be
defined as follows: A victim of gynandry not only has the feelings and
desires of a man, but also the skeletal form, features, voice, etc., so
that the individual approaches the opposite sex anthropologically, and
in more than a psycho-sexual way (Krafft-Ebing).
As it is probable that this form of viraginity is sometimes acquired to
a certain extent, and that, too, very quickly, when a woman is placed
among the proper surroundings, I shall give the case of Sarolta,
Countess V., one of the most remarkable instances of gynandry on record.
If this woman, when a child, had been treated as a girl, she would in
all probability have gone through life as a woman, for she was born a
female in every sense of the word. At a very early age, however, her
father, who was an exceedingly eccentric nobleman, dressed her in boy's
clothing, called her Sandor, and taught her boyish games and sports.
"Sarolta-Sandor remained under her father's influence till her twelfth
year, and then came under the care of her maternal grandmother, in
Dresden, by whom, when the masculine play became too obvious, she was
placed in an institute and made to wear female attire. At thirteen she
had a love relation with an English girl, to whom she represented
herself as a boy, and ran away with her. She was finally returned to her
mother, who could do nothing with her, and was forced to allow her to
resume the name of Sandor and to put on boy's clothes. She accompanied
her father on long journeys, always as a young gentleman; she became a
_roue_, frequenting brothels and _cafes_ and often becoming intoxicated.
All of her sports were masculine; so were her tastes and so were her
desires. She had many love affairs with women, always skillfully hiding
the fact that she herself was a woman. She even carried her masquerade
so far as to enter into matrimony with the daughter of a distinguished
official and to live with her for some time before the imposition was
discovered." The woman whom Sandor married is described as being "a girl
of incredible simplicity and innocence;" in sooth, she must have been!
Notwithstanding this woman's passion for those of her own sex, she
distinctly states that in her thirteenth year she experienced normal
sexual desire. Her environments, however, had been those of a male
instead of a female, consequently her psychical weakness, occasioned by
degeneration inherited from an eccentric father, turned her into the
gulf of viraginity, from which she at last emerged, a victim of complete
gynandry. I have given this instance more prominence than it really
deserves, simply because I wish to call attention to the fact that
environment is one of the great factors in evolutionary development.
Many women of to-day who are in favor of female suffrage are influenced
by a single idea; they have some great reform in view, such as the
establishment of universal temperance, or the elevation of social
morals. Suffrage in its entirety, that suffrage which will give them a
share in the government, is not desired by them; they do not belong to
the class of viragints, unsexed individuals, whose main object is the
establishment of a matriarchate.
Woman is a creature of the emotions, of impulses, of sentiment, and of
feeling; in her the logical faculty is subordinate. She is influenced by
the object immediately in view, and does not hesitate to form a judgment
which is based on no other grounds save those of intuition. Logical men
look beyond the immediate effects of an action and predicate its
results on posterity. The percepts and recepts which form the concept of
equal rights also embody an eject which, though conjectural, is yet
capable of logical demonstration, and which declares that the final and
ultimate effect of female suffrage on posterity would be exceedingly
harmful.
We have seen that the pronounced advocates and chief promoters of equal
rights are probably viragints--individuals who plainly show that they
are psychically abnormal; furthermore, we have seen that the abnormality
is occasioned by degeneration, either acquired or inherent, in the
individual. Now let us see, if the right of female suffrage were
allowed, what effect it would produce on the present environment of the
woman of to-day, and, if any, what effect this changed environment would
have on the psychical habitudes of the woman of the future. This portion
of the subject will be discussed in Part III of this paper.
III. THE DECADENCE.
It is conceded that man completed his cycle of physical development many
thousands of years ago. Since his evolution from his pithecoid ancestor
the forces of nature have been at work evolving man's psychical being.
Now, man's psychical being is intimately connected with, and dependent
upon, his physical being; therefore it follows that degeneration of his
physical organism will necessarily engender psychical degeneration also.
Hence, if I can prove that woman, by leading a life in which her present
environments are changed, produces physical degeneration, it will
naturally follow that psychical degeneration will also accrue; and,
since one of the invariable results of degeneration, both physical and
psychical, is atavism, the phenomenon of a social revolution in which
the present form of government will be overthrown and a matriarchate
established in its stead, will be not a possibility of the future, but a
probability.
That the leaders of this movement in favor of equal rights look for such
a result, I have not the slightest doubt; for, not many days ago, Susan
B. Anthony stood beside the chair of a circuit judge in one of our
courthouses and, before taking her seat, remarked that there were those
in her audience who doubtless thought "that she was guilty of
presumption and usurpation" (in taking the judge's chair), but that
there would come a day when they would no longer think so!
Statistics show clearly and conclusively that there is an alarming
increase of suicide and insanity among women, and I attribute this
wholly to the already changed environment of our women. As the matter
stands they have already too much liberty. The restraining influences
which formerly made woman peculiarly a housewife have been, in a
measure, removed, and woman mixes freely with the world. Any new duty
added to woman as a member of society would modify her environment to
some extent and call for increased nervous activity. When a duty like
suffrage is added the change in her environment must necessarily be
marked and radical, with great demands for an increased activity. The
right of suffrage would, unquestionably, very materially change the
environment of woman at the present time, and would entail new and
additional desires and emotions which would be other and most exhausting
draughts on her nervous organism.
The effects of degeneration are slow in making their appearance, yet
they are exceedingly certain. The longer woman lived amid surroundings
calling for increased nervous expenditure, the greater would be the
effects of the accruing degeneration on her posterity. "Periods of
moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with
times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only
be conceived as occurring with increased demands on the nervous system,
which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of
nervousness there is increase of sensuality, and since this leads to
excess among the masses it undermines the foundations of society--the
morality and purity of family life" (Krafft-Ebing).
The inherited psychical habitudes, handed down through hundreds and
thousands of years, would prevent the immediate destruction of that
ethical purity for which woman is noted, and in the possession of which
she stands so far above man. I do not think that this ethical purity
would be lost in a day or a year, or a hundred years, for that matter;
yet there would come a time when the morality of to-day would be
utterly lost, and society would sink into some such state of existence
as we now find _en evidence_ among the Nairs. In support of this
proposition I have only to instance the doctrines promulgated by some of
the most advanced advocates of equal rights. The "free love" of some
advanced women, I take it, is but the free choice doctrine in vogue
among the Nairs and kindred races of people.
John Noyes, of the Oneida Community, where equal rights were observed,
preached the same doctrines. It is true that the people who advocate
such unethical principles are degenerate individuals, psychical
atavists, yet they faithfully foreshadow in their own persons that which
would be common to all men and women at some time in the future, if
equal rights were allowed, and carried out in their entirety.
This is an era of luxury, and it is a universally acknowledged fact that
luxury is one of the prime factors in the production of degeneration.
We see forms and phases of degeneration thickly scattered throughout all
circles of society, in the plays which we see performed in our theaters,
and in the books and papers published daily throughout the land. The
greater portion of the _clientele_ of the alienist and neurologist is
made up of women who are suffering with neurotic troubles, generally of
a psychopathic nature. The number of viragints, gynandrists, androgynes,
and other psycho-sexual aberrants of the feminine gender is very large
indeed.
It is folly to deny the fact that the right of female suffrage will make
no change in the environment of woman. The New Woman glories in the
fact, that the era which she hopes to inaugurate will introduce her into
a new world. Not satisfied with the liberty she now enjoys, and which is
proving to be exceedingly harmful to her in more ways than one, she
longs for more freedom, a broader field of action. If nature provided
men and women with an inexhaustible supply of nervous energy, they might
set aside physical laws, and burn the candle at both ends without any
fear of its being burned up. Nature furnishes each individual with just
so much nervous force and no more; moreover, she holds every one
strictly accountable for every portion of nervous energy which he or she
may squander; therefore, it behooves us to build our causeway with
exceeding care, otherwise we will leave a chasm which will engulf
posterity.
The baneful effects resulting from female suffrage will not be seen
to-morrow, or next week, or week after next, or next month, or next
year, or a hundred years hence, perhaps. It is not a question of our day
and generation; it is a matter involving posterity. The simple right to
vote carries with it no immediate danger, the danger comes afterward;
probably many years after the establishment of female suffrage, when
woman, owing to her increased degeneration, gives free rein to her
atavistic tendencies, and hurries ever backward toward the savage state
of her barbarian ancestors. I see, in the establishment of equal rights,
the first step toward that abyss of immoral horrors so repugnant to our
cultivated ethical tastes--the matriarchate. Sunk as low as this,
civilized man will sink still lower--to the communal _kachims_ of the
Aleutian Islanders.
IS IT THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
When we come to examine the history of the world we find evidence that
certain nations have, at times, reached a high state of prosperity, and
have then degenerated to such a degree that they have either passed
entirely out of existence, or have lapsed into a state of
semi-barbarity. This has generally been brought about by conquest, but
the races conquered had first become enfeebled by their habitudes of
thought and manner of living. It is a well-established fact that luxury
brings debauchery, and that debauchery occasions degeneration. All
nations that have, heretofore, reached the zenith of their prosperity,
have been engulfed, at some time or other, in the maelstrom of luxurious
habits, and have fallen under the lethal influence of a degeneration
occasioned solely by debauchery; for the luxury and debauchery of one
class brought increased poverty on, as well as excess in, other classes,
and poverty and excess are prominent factors in the production of
degeneration, as we shall see further on in this paper. Says the
brilliant author of "Psychopathia Sexualis," Krafft-Ebing: "Periods of
moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with
times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only
be conceived as occurring with increased demands upon the nervous
system, which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of
nervousness, there is increase of sensuality, and, since this leads to
excesses among the masses, it undermines the foundations of society--the
morality and purity of family life. When this is destroyed by excesses,
unfaithfulness, and luxury, then the destruction of the state is
inevitably compassed in material, moral, and political ruin."
Such was the condition of the Latin race when the fierce and hardy
Vandals overran the Roman peninsula; such was the condition of the
Assyrians when Babylon fell beneath the onslaughts of the great
Macedonian; such was the condition of the Egyptians when the northern
myriads swept down upon the fertile valley of the Nile, and destroyed
forever the once powerful and all-conquering kingdom of the Pharaohs;
and such, too, was the condition of the French nation in 1794, when
Anarchy unfurled its red banner at the head of the most gigantic social
revolution the world has ever known.
At the present time, community of interests, as well as higher
civilization, would utterly forbid the total subjugation of one
civilized nation by another, such as occurred in the olden times; hence
no nation need fear annihilation from such a source. The danger comes
from another point, and consists in the almost certain uprising, at some
time in the future, of degenerate individuals in open warfare and
rebellion against society.
The question whether the world is growing better or worse is often
debated, and can be answered affirmatively on both sides. Better,
because superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism have given way, to a great
extent, to the tolerance and freedom of higher civilization and purer
ethics in normal, healthy man; worse, because crime (and I mean by crime
_all_ anti-social acts) has greatly increased on account of the
pernicious influence of degeneration.
That superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism are on the wane, and that they
will, sooner or later, be entombed in that depository of obsolete savage
mental habitudes--absolute and utter oblivion--a glance at the success
that science has achieved in the warfare waged against it by the Church,
will at once declare. (Throughout this article I use the word Church to
express priests of any and every denomination, whether Jew, Gentile, or
Pagan, Protestant or Catholic.) A short incursion into this subject, _i.
e._, the Church's warfare on science, is absolutely necessary. For the
triumph of science over its enemies--superstition, bigotry, and
dogmatism, coincidently, ignorance and illiterateness--shows that the
civilized world, at the present time, is markedly different in some
respects from the world of ancient, medieval, and even comparatively
recent times; and, in summing up, this changed condition will be a
weighty factor in making up an answer to the question which heads this
paper.
When Olympus first faded away from the enlightened eyesight of the
Greeks, and changed into space besprinkled with stars; when Zeus no
longer held his divine court on its mystic summit; when oracles became
mute and the fabled wonders of the "Odyssey" either vanished, or
resolved themselves into prosaic commonplaces under the investigations
of the skeptic or the accidental discoverer, the Church made a most
strenuous protest against the destruction of its traditions.
Many of these early seekers after truth were even killed and their goods
confiscated. The Church issued its edict against heresy (and any
doctrine that taught a belief antagonistic to the accepted tenets of
pagan mythology and theogony was heresy), and hurled its anathemas
against the heretic. Olympus, in the eyes of the Church, still existed,
and Zeus, the man-god, still quaffed the sacred ambrosia in its shady
groves. The Sirens still sang their entrancing songs, while Scylla and
Charybdis were ever stretching out eager arms toward unwary mariners.
Gigantic one-eyed Cyclops, with Polyphemus as their leader, still
patrolled the shores of Sicily, and kept their "ever-watchful eyes"
turned toward the open sea.
The hardy Greek sailor landed on the Cyclopean island, and discovered
that Polyphemus, and Arges, and Brontes, and Steropes, and all the
other one-eyed monsters were nothing but sea-wrack, bowlders, and weeds.
He sailed farther, past Scylla and Charybdis, and discovered no greater
dangers than sharp rocks and whirlpools. Yet farther he sailed out into
the unknown sea, and the only Siren's song he heard was the whistling of
the wind through the cordage of his vessel.
In vain the Church thundered against the daring investigator. Neither
fire, nor sword, nor imprisonment, nor death itself could check the
march of truth. Mythology and pagan theogony had received their
death-blows; superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism were elbowed aside and
gave place to dawning science. The Church held that that which had been
believed by pious men for untold ages must necessarily be true. Science,
in the garb of philosophy, with cold, dispassionate criticism, proved
that these hitherto accepted truths were arrant fallacies. The poets
and writers then took up the subject, and finally the people fell into
line, so superstitious, bigoted, dogmatic mythology died,
intellectuality took its place, and higher civilization took a step
forward.
Thomas H. Huxley writes, in his preface to "Science and Christian
Tradition," as follows: "I have never 'gone out of my way' to attack the
Bible or anything else; it was the dominant, ecclesiasticism of my early
days, which, as I believe, without any warrant from the Bible itself,
thrust the book in my way.
"I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of
exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's
breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue; and
yet I found that, whatever route I took, before long I came to a tall
and formidable looking fence. Confident as I might be in the existence
of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood the thorny
barrier with its comminatory notice-board--'NO THOROUGHFARE. By order.
MOSES.' There seemed no way over; nor did the prospect of creeping
round, as I saw some do attract me.... The only alternatives were either
to give up my journey--which I was not minded to do--or to break the
fence down and go through it."
Huxley found that this Mosaic fence, as erected by dogmatic theologians
and scholasticists, was but a flimsy structure at best, and one that was
easily overthrown and destroyed.
Dogmatic theology teaches that man was created from the dust of the
earth, and that he at once fell heir to an estate of physical and
psychical habitudes which were God-like in character; scientific
investigation, on the contrary, demonstrated the fact that man's
inception begins in bathybian protoplasm and culminates, as far as his
general physical organism is concerned, in the last link of an
evolutionary chain that reaches back and back, through countless eons of
ages, to the very beginnings of life.
The History of Life written upon the rocky frame-work of this gray and
hoary old world, declares that man's physical being is but the result of
the laws of evolution. He did not spring into being, like the sea-born
Venus, a creature of physical grace, and strength, and beauty; nor did
the sacred flame of an inborn intelligence at once illumine his
countenance. For thousands of years, the forbears of the present
civilized _homo sapiens_ were but slightly above the _Alalus_ (ape-like
man) of Haeckel in point of personal pulchritude; and for thousands of
years, the ancestors of the civilized man of to-day were savages, with
all the psychical traits of primitive peoples.
Social ethics are as much the result of evolutionary growth as is man
himself. Civilization, which is but another name for ethical culture,
is the outcome of the inherited experiences of thousands of years. These
experiences were the results of law, and that law can be embraced in one
comprehensive word--evolution.
Now, one of the most noticeable facts in biological history is the
tendency that animal structures or organisms, under certain
circumstances, have toward atavism or reversion to ancestral types. Not
only is this to be observed in the physical organisms of animals, but
also in their psychical beings as well.
Atavism is invariably the result of degeneration, as I will endeavor to
demonstrate later on in this paper.
I believe that we are rapidly hurrying toward a social cataclysm, beside
which the downfall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of ancient
Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations, and the bloody days of the French
Revolution will sink into utter insignificance. I believe, also, and
think that I can demonstrate the truthfulness of my belief, that the
inciting cause of this social revolution will not be found in those
citizens of the United States of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic parentage, but
that it will be observed among our Slavonic, Teutonic, and Latinic
citizens. But, in order to furnish a parallel (from which you may draw
your own conclusions), before I enter fully into the discussion of this
part of my subject, I wish to review, very briefly, certain historical
epochs.
When the first conquerors of Egypt, about whom history can tell us so
little, first occupied the fertile valley of the Nile, the country, in
all probability, was inhabited by negroes. The conquering race drove out
or enslaved the native population and founded the ancient kingdom of
Egypt. This kingdom waxed strong and mighty until, at the time of
Rameses the Great, more than three thousand two hundred years ago, it
was the most powerful monarchy in the whole world. The mighty son of
Ra, Meiamoun Ra, or Rameses, as he is most generally styled, was a
warrior and a statesman. He led his victorious troops north, east, and
west, conquering nations as he went, until he dominated and brought into
a state of vassalage over two-thirds of the then known world.
Wealth flowed into his kingdom from all the surrounding countries,
consequently, luxury, with its never-failing associate, debauchery, made
its appearance, and the decadence of this mighty kingdom set in.
It is true that many Pharaohs reigned after Rameses, and that the
monarchy maintained its greatness for a long period of time, but luxury
had taken hold on the Egyptians at the time of their greatest prosperity
and had sown the seeds of degeneration, which flourished and grew apace,
until the emasculated and effeminate people yielded up their
independence to the conquerors, and passed out of existence as a nation
forever.
The Roman people, under the leadership of their ancient heroes, was a
nation of hardy warriors and husbandmen. That preeminent military
genius, Julius Caesar, had carefully fostered this warlike spirit in the
bosoms of his compatriots, and, by a series of brilliant campaigns, had
made the Roman nation the most powerful on the face of the globe. The
Roman legions were not only victorious on land, extending their
conquests into Iberia, farther Gaul, and still farther Britain, but the
Roman triremes also swept the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of
Hercules to the shores of Syria and Egypt. Wealth poured into the
country from all sides, and the people reveled in a boundless
prosperity.
Luxury had already begun to enervate the hardy soldiery at the time of
Caesar's assassination, yet not enough to show the full effects of
degeneration and demoralization. The empire under the first emperors
steadily grew richer and more powerful, and the luxury of the rich more
unlimited and licentious. At length a change can be noticed. The Roman
legions, hitherto victorious over every foe, are now frequently
vanquished; conquered tribes uprear the standard of revolt and refuse to
pay tribute; the territorial boundaries of the empire materially shrink,
and its once conquered provinces pass out of its dominion forever.
The gradual degeneration of this nation is faithfully mirrored in the
character of the emperors who governed it. Nero, Caligula, Tiberius,
Caracalla, and Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius and the daughter
of Domitia Lepida, herself a licentious and libidinous woman, were but
accentuated types of the luxurious and debauched nobility. Not only did
the nobility become victims of degeneration, but the poorer classes also
lost their virility, until at last we find the stability of the nation
preserved through the instrumentality of foreign mercenaries. The
greatness of this once widespread empire dwindled away (the freedom of
its institutions contracting along with its shrinking boundaries), until
we find it lapsed into a state of barbarian despotism under the son of
Aurelius; and, had it not been for outside influences, it would have
eventually fallen into a state of utter and complete savagery.
Now let us turn to a recent civilization. At the time of Louis XVI., the
French nation was thoroughly under the influence of degeneration
consequent to a luxury and licentiousness that had had a cumulative
action for several hundred years. The peasantry and the inhabitants of
the faubourgs, owing to their extreme poverty, itself a powerful factor
in the production of degeneration, had lapsed into a state closely akin
to that of their savage ancestors. The nobility were weak and
effeminate, the majority of them either sexual perverts or monsters of
sensuality and lechery.
The middle class, as ever the true conservators of society, seeing this
miserable state of affairs, attempted to remedy it. Not fully
understanding the danger of such a procedure, they allowed the
degenerate element to share in their deliberations. Their moderate and
sensible counsels were quickly overruled by their savage associates, who
brought about a Reign of Terror (with such psychical atavists as Marat,
Danton, and Robespierre at its head), the like of which the world had
never seen before, nor has ever experienced since.
I have demonstrated, in the three instances of history just cited, that
degeneration has invariably followed luxury, and that a social and
political cataclysm has been, invariably, the result of this
degeneration. That certain classes of the Old World, and of the New
World, also, are living in inordinate luxury; and that certain other
classes are, even now, struggling in the very depths of poverty, is a
well-known fact. That this state of affairs is rapidly increasing the
percentage of degenerates, such as sexual perverts, insane individuals,
and congenital criminals, is not generally known; yet it is a woeful
truth.
The factors in the production of degeneration are as multitudinous as
they are varied, and I can find space for only a few of them. The
artificiality of many peoples' lives, wherein night is turned into day,
is a prominent factor in the production of degeneration. Now, the long
continued influence of artificial light exerts a very deleterious effect
on the nervous system; hence it is not to be wondered at that so many
men and women of society are neurasthenic. Not only are those
individuals who, voluntarily and preferably, spend the greater portions
of their lives in artificial light, rendered nervously irritable, but
those, also, who are driven by force of circumstances to turn night
into day are likewise afflicted. Several years ago, I met a
distinguished editor at Waukesha, who was suffering greatly from nervous
exhaustion. He told me that he was so situated that he did all of his
work at night, often writing until three o'clock in the morning. I
advised him to quit this and to do his editorial work during daylight.
Not long after, he wrote me that he had followed my advice, and that he
was a new man in point of health.
The loss of nervous vitality makes itself evident by a feeling either of
exhaustion or irritability. The fashionable devotee, in order to
counteract this, either stimulates the system with alcohol, or exorcises
the "fidgets" by the use of sedatives, such as chloral or morphia. The
baneful effects of such medication are not at once appreciable, but, if
continued for any length of time, they will eventually result in a total
demoralization of the nervous system. Time and again have I seen
fashionable men and women, at the close of the season, veritable nervous
wrecks.
What necessarily would be the effect of physical and psychical lesions
like these on a child begotten by such parents? The inevitable result
would be degeneration in some form or other.
Again, many men and women stand the drain of a fashionable season on
their nervous systems without attempting to recoup through the agency of
drugs, and at the end find themselves physically and psychically
exhausted. They go to the seaside or some other resort, and, in a
measure, recover their nervous vitality, only to lose it again during
the next season. This continues for season after season, the nervous
system all the time becoming weaker, until some day there is a collapse,
ending in hysteria, paresis, or some other of the hundred forms of
neurotic disorder. What will be the effect on the progeny resulting from
the union of such individuals? Again the answer must necessarily
be--degeneration.
The long and continued intercourse of the sexes in the ball-room, where
the women are dressed so _decollete_ that they excite sensuality in the
men, very frequently without the men being conscious of the fact, must
necessarily exert a deleterious effect on the nervous system.
Contact of the sexes in the dance is only pleasurable because of that
contact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and
denied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim
that no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. I know
from personal experiences that they are honest in this declaration, yet,
from a psychical standpoint, they are woefully in error. Aestheticism
and carnality are by no means as dissociate as the aesthete would have us
believe. _All pleasurable emotions that have their inception in the
senses are, fundamentally, of carnal origin._ The waltz is aesthetic,
yet all of its pleasure is based on an emotion closely akin to
sensuality. Men derive no pleasure from waltzing with one another, nor
do women under like circumstances.
Nature demands in the interest of health a certain amount of exercise.
The luxurious society man or woman utterly disregards this demand of
nature, consequently indigestion, with all of its associated ills, steps
in, and becomes an additional factor in the production of nervous
exhaustion. To tempt the appetite, highly seasoned foods, many of which
are deleterious and injurious, are prepared and taken into the torpid
and crippled stomach. Finally nature rebels and the unfortunate
dyspeptic is forced to go through life on a diet of oatmeal, or,
weakened by lack of healthy sustenance, the brain gives way, and the
victim passes the remainder of his or her life in a lunatic asylum.
Children begotten by miserable invalids like these, beyond a
peradventure, must necessarily be degenerate.
Indigestion is not the only ill that nature inflicts for any disregard
of her laws. She is a rough nurse but a safe one, consequently she
forbids the rearing of her hardiest creation, man, in hot houses, as
though he were a tender exotic. The luxurious individual pampers his
body, following the dictates of his own selfish desires and utterly
disregarding the laws of nature, and before he reaches middle age,
discovers that he has become an old, old man, weak in body, but still
weaker in mind.
The children resulting from the union of the various neurasthenics
described above are necessarily degenerate. As they grow up, they show
this degeneration by engaging in all kinds of licentious debauchery, and
unnatural and perverted indulgences of appetite. In nine cases out of
ten, they will spend the fortunes inherited from their parents in
riotous debauchery, and will eventually sink, if death does not
overtake them, to the level of their fellow degenerates--those who have
been brought into existence by poverty and debauchery, and who await
them at the foot of the social ladder. Among such degenerate beings, the
doctrines of socialism, of communism, of nihilism, and of anarchy have
their origin.
Now let us turn our attention to the evidences of luxury and debauchery,
and the consequent evidences of degeneration, which obtrude themselves
on all sides. The reckless extravagance of the nobility of the Old World
is well known. Vice and licentiousness even penetrate to royal
households, and princes of the blood pose as roues and debauchees. As I
have demonstrated elsewhere, degeneration in the wealthy classes of
society generally makes itself evident by the appearance of
psycho-sexual disorders. The horrible abominations of the English
nobility, as portrayed in the revelations of Mr. Stead, are well known.
Charcot, Segalas, Fere, and Bouvier give clear and succinct accounts of
the vast amount of sexual perversion existing among the French, while
Krafft-Ebing informs us that the German empire is cursed by the presence
of thousands of these unfortunates. When we come to examine this phase
of degeneration in our own country, we find that it is very prevalent.
This is especially noticeable in the larger cities, though we find
examples of it scattered broadcast throughout the land.
The editor of one of our leading magazines, in a remarkable series of
letters, has shown that the wealthy New Yorkers revel in a luxuriousness
that is absolutely startling in its license. Thousands are expended on a
single banquet, while the flower bills for a single year of some of
these modern Luculli would support a family of five people for three or
four years! Bacchanalian orgies that dim even those of the depraved,
corrupt, and degenerate Nero are of nightly occurrence.[AI] Drunkenness,
lechery, and gambling are the sports and pastimes of these ultra rich
men, and it is even whispered that milady is not much behind milord in
the pursuit of forbidden pleasures.
[AI] I know from personal observation that "Seeley Dinners" are of
frequent occurrence in New York, as well as in other large cities.
J. W., Jr.
Psycho-sexual disorders are not the only evidences of degeneration in
the wealthy, by any means. Many a congenital criminal is born in the
purple, who shows his moral imbecility in many ways. Sometimes he sinks
at once to the level of a common thief, but generally his education
keeps him within the pale of the law. Always, however, his sensuality is
unbounded, and he will hesitate at nothing in order to gratify his
desires. This unbridled license has already had its effect elsewhere. We
see that it has even corrupted the guardians and conservators of the
public peace. The recent investigation of the police board of New York
shows a degree of corruption that is simply overwhelming, and that the
same state of affairs exists in Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and
other large cities, I have every reason to believe.
There are yet other evidences of degeneration; witness the eroticism
that is to be found in our literature. Unless a book appeals to the
degenerate tastes of its readers it might just as well never have been
published. This is not cynicism; it is plain, unvarnished truth. Again,
turn to the stage, and we find the same thing. The tragedies and
comedies of Shakespeare are shelved, while immoral "society plays" and
"living pictures" and "problem plays" hold the boards. Salacity, with
only sufficient and that is, degeneration. That which happened centuries
ago will happen again, for covering to hide downright lewdness, is
everywhere apparent. Now what is the result of this? There can be but
one answer, man is governed by the same laws of nature now as he was
then.
Statistics show that insanity is markedly on the increase. This is not
to be wondered at when we take into consideration the fact that
debauchery is the rule, and not the exception, among certain classes of
people. Syphilis, one of the most productive causes of degeneration, is
exceedingly active throughout the whole civilized world. Blashko states
that one out of every ten men in the city of Berlin is tainted with this
terrible malady. This is wholly attributable to the unbounded sensuality
of the people. Crime of every description is rearing its hydra-head, and
clasping in its destroying embrace an alarming proportion of human
beings.
I have shown elsewhere, that the congenital criminal is the result of
degeneration, and that he comes from all classes of society. He is,
however, most frequently the product of the lower classes, and lives
and dies among his congeners. I have shown, also, that the anarchist,
the nihilist, and the socialist belong to the same category of
degenerate beings. Poverty, brought on by high taxation, by war, and by
overcrowding, has been, during the last millenary period, very fertile
in the production of degenerates in the Old World. Lack of food and
sanitation, the usual adjuncts of poverty, are powerful factors in the
production of degenerate individuals. The Old World has gotten rid of
these people as rapidly as possible by unloading them on our shores.
Year after year, practically without restriction, thousands of these
anti-social men and women have swarmed into our country, until we,
comparatively speaking, a nation just born, contain as many of these
undesirable citizens as any of the older nations. They still continue to
enter our gates, and we ourselves are adding to their number, as I have
shown, by our own production.
Some day--and I greatly fear that day is not very far distant--some
professional anarchist (for there are professional anarchists as well as
professional thieves) will consider the time ripe for rebellion, and,
raising the fraudulent cry of "Labor against Capital!" instead of his
legitimate cry of "Rapine! Murder! Booty!" will lead this army of
degenerates, composed of anarchists, nihilists, sexual perverts, and
congenital criminals, against society. And who will bear the brunt of
this savage irruption? The ultra-rich? By no means! The great "middle
class"--the true conservators of society and civilization--will fight
this battle. It will be a fight between civilization and degeneration,
and civilization will carry the day. There would have been no French
revolution had the middle class been as wise then as it is to-day. It
was taken by surprise at that savage, bloody time, but as soon as it
recovered, how quickly it brought order out of chaos!
Education is the bulwark of civilization, and the great middle class,
freed of dogmatism, bigotry, and superstition, is welcoming education
with outstretched hands. It is gaining recruits, and is strengthening
its defenses, so that when the time comes its enemies may find it fully
prepared.
From the signs of the times and the evidence before me, I have no
hesitation in declaring that I believe that the beginning of the end is
at hand! This social cataclysm may not occur for many years, yet the
agencies through which it will finally be evolved are even now at work,
and are bringing the culmination of their labors ever nearer and nearer
as time passes!
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DE REMUSAT: _Nouv. Mel. Asiatiques_.
DRAPER: _The Conflict between Religion and Science_.
DE QUATREFAGES: _The Human Species_.
DE QUATREFAGES: _Hommes Fossiles_.
DORSEY: _Siouan Cults; An. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1889-90_.
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FORBES: _Oriental Memoirs_.
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HAMMOND: _Impotence in the Male_.
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HERODOTUS: _Euterpe, Clio, Etc._
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WEIR: _Dawn of Reason_.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Notes and Errata |
| |
| There are two series of footnotes in this book. Footnotes |
| with Arabic numbers are references to external sources. |
| Footnotes with uppercase English letters are the author's |
| notes. There is one hand-written correction in the book |
| which has been marked with a third type of footnote, one |
| with a lowercase roman number. |
| |
| The trasliteration of a few Grek phrases has been inserted |
| in the text in square brackets immediately after the text. |
| |
| The following words are found in both hyphenated and |
| unhyphenated form. The number of each instance is given in |
| parentheses. |
| |
| |foot-note (1) |footnote (2) | |
| |
| The following words were found in the text with acented and |
| unaccented letters, with ligatures and separated letters. |
| The number of each instance is given in parentheses. |
| |
| |anaesthesia (2) |anaesthesia (2) | |
| |haematuria (1) |haematuria (3) | |
| |hetarae (1) |hetarae (4) | |
| |Martene (2) |Martene (3) | |
| |poeniteat (2) |poeniteat (1) | |
| |Remusat (2) |Remusat (2) | |
| |saepe (1) |saepe (1) | |
| |Wappaus (1) |Wappaeus (2) | |
| |
| The following typographic errors have been corrected. |
| |
| |Error |Correction | |
| |sancity |sanctity | |
| |phophylactic |prophylactic | |
| |Pharoahs |Pharaohs | |
| |hun-hundreds |hundreds | |
| |errotic |erotic | |
| |Voltair |Voltaire | |
| |enverated |enervated | |
| |considerd |considered | |
| |Kraft-Ebing |Krafft-Ebing | |
| |neuroloogist |neurologist | |
| |Brittain |Britain | |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+