In my opinion, this is also our duty in cases of chronic gonorrhea,

insanity, and hereditary or constitutional sexual perversions, etc.

Formerly, when sexual inversion was regarded as an acquired vice, it

was attempted to cure it by marriage. Such a social monstrosity is

even seen at the present day, and certain ignorant doctors recommend

it. We sometimes meet with inverts who desire to procreate homosexual

beings like themselves. As sexual intercourse with the objects of

their perverted passion cannot give them this pleasure, they marry in

order to procreate children by some poor woman whom they have

victimized, without in the least renouncing their homosexual orgies.

Their wives play the part of housekeeper or servant, whose accessory

function is to breed young inverts! Is it necessary to say that any

self-respecting doctor who is aware of this state of affairs should

never countenance such marriages? Here again, his duty is to threaten

the invert with immediate denunciation to his _fiancee_, when he

appears determined to accomplish his crime.

Again, the doctor may be consulted with regard to certain hereditary

taints, or possibly only a bad ancestral history, and whether marriage

is advisable under the circumstances. In some cases there may be some

doubt and it is necessary to know the opinion of the other party

concerned, and whether this party is also affected in a similar way,

etc. The first duty of the doctor is to demand absolute frankness and

to say, "under this or that condition and in such and such

circumstances, you may perhaps marry, but under no pretext have you

the right to conceal the truth from your betrothed. It is to your own

interest to be frank, for no marriage founded on deceit can be happy.

Give me permission to discuss the matter with your _fiancee_ (or

_fiance_). We shall then see what is best to be done."

In my experience, the person who consults a doctor usually accepts

this proposal, and we can thus avoid many misfortunes and do much

good.

It is impossible to fix a general rule. According to the degree of

hereditary taint or the nature of the infirmity, we allow marriage

with or without children, or do not allow it. In such cases it is

rarely necessary to have recourse to the threat of denunciation, but

this may be required in the case of egoistic or vicious individuals.

On several occasions a betrothed couple have come to me for advice as

to their proposed marriage, and have freely disclosed their most

intimate relations and antecedents. This is as it always should be, if

men were more loyal in sexual matters and understood better their true

interests. In this way the doctor's task is greatly facilitated. When

the public is more enlightened on the whole question it will become

more and more easy to arrive at a just conclusion, even without the

doctor's help.

=Artificial Abortion.=--We have already spoken of another question

which is often put to doctors--that of artificial abortion. (Vide

Chapter XIII.) In every case of this kind all the circumstances must

be carefully weighed. I repeat here, that in the future more attention

should be paid to social interests, instead of always requiring the

preservation of an embryo for the sole reason that the state of the

mother does not contra-indicate pregnancy or accouchement. The

question is whether a miserable abortion or an idiot should be allowed

to come into the world. If we allow children who are born monsters,

idiots or invalids to live, we should at least do what we can to

prevent them being born. It will no doubt be objected that it is much

easier to recognize the quality of a child after birth than before,

and this objection is quite legitimate. But so long as the laws

protect the lives of the most miserable monsters we must get out of

the difficulty as best we can.

=Treatment of Sexual Disorders.=--We cannot enter here into all the

details of a purely medical question, and shall only touch on certain

special points. Patients with venereal disease are often treated in a

very defective manner, because many of them are ashamed to submit to

rational treatment. The treatment of venereal diseases should be

carried out with more regard for the feelings of the patients; there

should be special hospitals for each sex, with separate divisions, so

that patients can be treated without betraying their identity. The

fear of being recognized prevents many better-class women from

applying for treatment. The idea of being placed in the venereal

divisions of a hospital along with common prostitutes is unbearable to

them. For this reason I maintain that anonymous treatment should be

instituted at hospitals in all the chief localities. This humanitarian

work would benefit not only the patients, but society in general, by

diminishing the number of venereal infections. Treatment by private

practitioners is too costly for poor people and does not easily remain

anonymous. Therefore, the creation of hospitals for venereal disease

is very necessary in the public interest, and would benefit public

health much more than the regulation of prostitution.

The treatment of sexual perversions is also very important. These

disorders are either hereditary, or acquired by auto-suggestion or

evil example. By provoking suggestion and good habits in the opposite

direction, hypnotic suggestion is alone capable of acting directly

against the evil. Other remedies, such as distraction of the mind by

work or fatigue, by marriage, electricity, etc., have only an indirect

suggestive action. When a perversion has been acquired by

auto-suggestion or by habit, especially in the case of onanism,

hypnotic suggestion should always be employed. In compensatory

masturbation, where normal sexual appetite exists, and where it is

only the opportunity of satisfying it that is wanting, marriage or

normal sexual intercourse are sufficient to cure the bad habit.

We must not, however, too easily admit the existence of acquired

perversions. Apart from compensatory masturbation, which is not a

perversion, but only an outlet to a pent-up natural want, true

acquired perversions are rather rare, and as we have seen generally

auto-suggestive. Pederasts, sodomists, and others, whose perverse

habits are truly acquired, have usually taken to them for want of

something better, and prefer normal coitus if they have the

opportunity and the means of procuring it. It is true, however, that

some debauchees contract these perverse habits from desire for change,

or from fear of infection or conception, but these individuals seldom

consult the doctor.

Thus the individuals who consult a doctor are nearly always more or

less pathological, and belong to the domain of hereditary or

auto-suggestive perversions. For the first, at least, we avoid

recommending marriage. Von Schrenck-Notzing has sometimes succeeded in

transforming hereditary inversion into normal sexual appetite for

women, by hypnotic suggestion. I have also succeeded myself, two or

three times. After a cure of long duration, confirmed by frequent

visits to prostitutes, Von Schrenck-Notzing has ventured to recommend

marriage; but I have never done this, as I do not consider a cure

sufficient to guarantee definite success, in the case of disorders so

deeply rooted in the constitution. In such cases I have endeavored, as

far as possible, to weaken the sexual appetite and induce the patient

to be contented with nocturnal emissions. I have always debarred

inverts from marriage, impressing them with the fact that to marry

would be a crime, and that they had a hundred times better masturbate;

or, if they wish to attempt intercourse with women, to be contented

with a mistress, avoiding the procreation of children.

Unfortunately, our present laws and customs prevent us from

recommending or even allowing inverts to "marry" their fellows, as

they so strongly desire to do. This would be very innocent from the

social point of view, and the poor wretches would be content, and

would cease to be a menace to normal individuals.

I am, therefore, of the same opinion as those who demand the

suppression of all laws which punish or prosecute sexual inversion and

pederasty committed between adults and in common agreement. So long as

pederasts do not harm normal individuals, and so long as they do not

seduce minors, they should be left alone, the same as all other

sexually perverted individuals who are not dangerous. But when a

patient of this kind wishes to be treated, through shame or nervous

excitement, the doctor should hypnotize him and suggest distraction of

mind by useful occupations. Psychic treatment is always the most

efficacious. It is only in cases where it is certain that the

perversion is purely acquired and easily curable that marriage can be

allowed, or the procreation of children. I am not referring here to

sterile marriages between perverts or psychopaths, which we have

mentioned above, and which can always be allowed when the two parties

are fully enlightened on the subject.

Frequent emissions, masturbation, sexual hyperaesthesia and impotence

may often be improved or even cured by suggestion. In such cases, if

the sexual appetite is otherwise normal, marriage need not always be

prohibited. Each case must be judged on its merits.

In sexual anaesthesia marriage is an error based on a grave

misconception. Even in partial anaesthesia it may have deplorable

effects. We are now only speaking of anaesthesia in man. Most young

virgins are anaesthetic in the sense that they are not acquainted with

the venereal orgasm and cannot tell how far their hitherto dormant

sexual appetite will develop. The sexual instruction which we have

recommended for young girls would have the advantage of making those

who are absolutely sexually frigid disgusted with marriage and coitus,

as soon as they know all about it.

The consequences of sexual anaesthesia are much more innocent in woman

than in man, because this anaesthesia neither prevents coitus nor

fecundation. A woman who is sexually anaesthetic may marry a man who is

affected with the same condition, when both parties are aware of the

fact and desire to contract a union which is hardly sexual, but rather

a union of minds with a common ideal. This is the true platonic love

which is admitted in theory. It is not very common and must not be

confounded with homosexual inclinations. It has its object of

existence, for those affected with anaesthesia may feel the want of

affection and of home, as well as sentimental communion. If they

desire children they can adopt them.

Unfortunately for themselves, the subjects of sexual anaesthesia have

as little idea of sexual sensations as a blind man has of colours;

this causes them to commit great blunders, because they do not

comprehend the nature of the sexual appetite in others, and often

marry an erotic individual without knowing what they are doing.

The special treatment of diseases of the male and female sexual

organs is beyond the scope of this book. I may, however, remark that

specialists are often wrong in treating the genital organs locally for

pathological symptoms which depend on cerebral disorder, which can

only yield to psychic treatment and suggestion. This is the case with

many disorders of menstruation in women, psychic impotence and

frequent seminal emissions in men, masturbation, etc., (except cases

due to phimosis, or local irritation caused by worms, etc.) I hasten

to add that this remark in no way excuses errors in the opposite

direction, viz, neglect of local treatment, when this is indicated

after careful examination.

CHAPTER XV

SEXUAL MORALITY

=Law and Morality.=--The limits of morality and law are difficult to

fix. With the old conception of law and the expiation of crime it was

otherwise. Yet it is precisely the old law, based on dogma and

religious metaphysics, which has most usurped the domain of morality,

by considering as crimes all kinds of acts which, without hurting men

in the least degree, were opposed to the ruling ideas and prejudices

concerning religion and morality.

=Human and Religious Morality.=--What then constitutes ethics or true

human morality? A dogmatic system, of ethics has been built on a

collection of commandments supposed to be inspired by God. Religions

have established different duties toward God, and these duties or

commandments are in part very inhuman. This has often resulted in

direct contradictions between ethics attributed to divine revelation,

and pure human ethics. Moreover, the divine commandments vary in

different religions.

The god of certain Malays commands them to eat the heart of their

enemies; Jehovah was vindictive and jealous, ordering Abraham to

sacrifice his own son to prove his faith, causing whole tribes to be

annihilated, even drowning the whole of humanity by the flood, while

the God of the Christians is milder and more conciliating; Allah rules

as a fatalist and orders the massacre of the Christians and abstinence

from alcohol, while Jesus Christ tells men to love their enemies and

allows wine; the god of the Hindus orders the widow to follow her

husband to the grave; a number of other gods exact human sacrifice;

Buddha taught oblivion in the future, others a more or less eternal

paradise, hell and purgatory, according to the conduct of men.

It will be agreed that it is difficult to obtain anything logical or

coherent from the total of different religious moralities. As regards

the sexual question, so-called divine commandments, such as those of

monogamy and polygamy, directly contradict each other.

For this reason, we will leave the so-called revealed morality to the

priests of diverse religions who pretend to have received them

directly from God, and will confine ourselves to the study of purely

human morality. This should never be based on any dogmatic formula,

like the above on their religious dogmas; it must be evolved from the

natural conditions of human life.

=Morality and Hygiene.=--Morality is intimately connected with

hygiene, and wherever there appears to be a contradiction between

hygiene and ethics this is due to the fact that individual hygiene has

only been considered, and not public or social hygiene--that is the

hygiene of the race. It is the duty of the medical profession to place

social above individual hygiene, to subordinate the hygienic welfare

of the individual to that of society. A contradiction may exist

between individual morality and hygiene, never between social morality

and hygiene.

=Definition of Morality.=--How can we define morality or ethics?

Liberated as far as possible from all hypothesis, ethics is

theoretically the study of what is good or bad in human actions, and

practically, as regards morality, the duty of doing good and avoiding

evil. But this is hardly explicit, for what do we understand by good

and evil? Not only do some consider good what others consider evil,

but the words which Goethe puts into the mouth of the devil (in

"_Faust_")--that while wishing evil he often did good--will always be

true. This gives a faithful representation of the deplorable want of

adaptation which exists between the good and evil effects of our

actions on the one hand, and the goodness or wickedness of our motives

on the other hand. The inverse is also true, for good intentions often

have evil results. We must, therefore, carefully distinguish between

the ethical motives of the good and bad effects of an action.

If we continue our analysis we shall discover that the same action may

be good for one and bad for another. When a wolf devours a lamb, it is

good for the wolf but bad for the lamb. We cannot live without

destroying other lives, animal or vegetable. The money we earn comes

out of the pockets of others without their always obtaining a

corresponding profit, and so on. Morality is thus _relative_, and we

have not the faculty of discovering anything which is absolutely good

or absolutely bad in itself.

All that men can expect by mutual exchange of their wisdom and good

will is to do as little evil and as much good as possible, that is to

say, to diminish the amount of their physical and psychic ills by

improving their mutual conditions of existence, and thus increasing

the amount of good. Even this is only possible by limiting the ideas

of good and evil almost exclusively to humanity, trampling on the

conditions of existence and the development of other beings, or at

least concerning ourselves with them only as far as they are useful to

us.

Further, we have seen that it is very difficult to extend the

conception of social welfare to all the living races of humanity, for

some of them are at the same time so fecund and so inferior in

quality, that if they were allowed to multiply around us without any

precaution they would soon starve and supplant us. Then the barbarity

of their lower instincts (vide weight of brain in different races at

end of Chapter VI) would soon take the upper hand and become general,

as the negroes of Hayti have shown us by a lesson which is worthy of

our attention.

Therefore, an exaggeration of moral sentiments, resting on a false

basis, would have the positive result of striking a fatal blow at our

social morality, slowly built up during hundreds or thousands of

years.

Lastly, the same action may first of all do evil and afterwards good,

for example, a painful lesson; or _vice versa_, as in the satisfaction

of a gluttonous appetite.

=Morality can only be Relative.=--It follows from these considerations

that our moral duties can only be relative, and cannot bind us in the

same way nor in the same degree to all living beings, not even to all

men, if we would avoid sacrificing what is lofty to what is vile. In

theory, the definition of human morality will consist in a just and

scientific definition of social welfare and the exigencies which it

imposes on individuals, in order that the latter do not do evil in

attempting to do good. In practice, it will be the general effort made

to develop successfully this social welfare by the aid of individual

will. This presupposes in the first place education of the will, the

dispositions to useful work, and the altruistic sentiments of each

individual. It is neither theoretical dogma nor preaching, but action

and example which make for the education of man.

The noblest task of moral action is to strive for the welfare of

future generations.

=Altruism and Egoism.=--Properly understood, altruism and egoism do

not form an antinomy, or only quite a relative antinomy. It is

absolutely wrong to found social order by letting loose all our

egoistic appetites without restriction. But it is quite as wrong to

oppose them with an exaggerated and unnatural asceticism, which

reflects in our eyes an erroneous ideal of altruism.

When a bee or an ant disgorges the honey from its stomach for the

benefit of its companions, it enjoys it. By sacrificing its life for

the hive or the nest, it satisfies an altruistic or social instinct.

Cannot man also be more happy in giving than receiving? How can we

explain the great sacrifices, the martyrs who suffer and die for their

country, for their family, for science, for an idea, if enthusiasm--an

expanded sentiment of pleasure--did not lead man to disinterested

sacrifice, or if an inner obsession did not find its satisfaction in

the welfare of humanity?

Let us seek all measures which by social adaptation can ennoble our

human egoism, reduce it to its indispensable and just measure, and

maintain it in proper equilibrium, by the aid of an active altruism;

that is to say, by social habits of self-sacrifice for the benefit of

the community. We shall then obtain a paradise on earth, no doubt very

relative, but far preferable to our present anarchy based on the

strife of personal interests.

The chief thing wanting is a good hereditary quality among human

individuals, a quality which is still entirely left to chance, by the

most deplorable selection; the second requisite is the education of

character and will in our children. Our religion and our schools have

shown themselves incapable of raising the bulk of the people above

barbarism, that is to say from apathy, vulgarity of sentiment,

routine, ignorance and prejudice. No doubt intellectual culture and

religious ethics have accomplished a certain amount of moral progress,

but the methods employed in our churches and schools have not advanced

with science. They are in no sense adapted to our present moral wants

and still less to the exigencies of the future.

It is on the basis of a natural human morality, such as we have just

described, that we must found sexual morality or ethics, and it is not

difficult to form clear ideas on this subject, if we take the trouble

to examine the facts explained in the first fourteen chapters of this

book.

From the social and moral point of view we may consider an action as

_positive_ or useful, _neutral_ or indifferent, and _negative_ or

harmful. But the same action may be at the same time positive,

negative or indifferent, relatively to one or more groups of

individuals. But in ethics it is not only a question of the action in

itself, but especially the inner motives which lead to it; for, to

leave the good and ill of society to chance and ignorance, is to deny

the possibility of progress. It is difficult for a man to accomplish

positive social actions, when the moral sentiments of conscience and

duty are wanting. On the other hand, a narrow-minded individual, with

false judgment, will accomplish negative social actions through moral

motives, while in certain cases an individual may accomplish positive

social acts fortuitously through perverse motives. Through vengeance,

a generous legacy may be left which injures an individual, while

profiting the public. Without being perverse, motives may be simply

egoistic and lead to good by calculated egoism.

By altruist, we understand a man animated by powerful moral sentiments

which preside over social humanitarian volitions. By the term pure

egoist, we designate one in whom self forms the exclusive object of

sentiments of sympathy. In himself, the egoist is indifferent from the

moral point of view, so long as he injures no one, and the altruist

himself cannot live without a certain amount of egoism. The ideal of

social sentiment therefore consists in the combined action of

egoistic and altruistic sentiments, adapted to the wants of society

and its members. As among certain ants, there should exist a complete

compensatory regulation between the egoistic sentiments and appetites

on the other hand. The antagonist of altruism is not the egoist, but

the perverse individual whose acts are by instinct almost constantly

negative from the moral point of view. Egoism urges a man in such an

irresistible way to abuse and harm others in order to satisfy himself,

that a pure egoist can rarely remain indifferent from the moral point

of view. These considerations suffice to show the impossibility of

basing social order on pure egoism, as so many people desire.

=Sexual Morality.=--Sexual morality depends upon what we have just

said. By itself, the sexual appetite is indifferent from the moral

point of view. A great confusion of ideas, based on religious

misunderstanding, has led to the term morality being more and more

identified with that of moral conduct in the sexual domain. In short,

ethics has been more or less confounded with sexuality. From this

point of view, a sexually anaesthetic individual is regarded as

extremely "moral," while he is perhaps in other respects a knave. In

reality his sexual indifference has not the least moral value. For the

same reason an invert is not virtuous because he does not seduce

girls.

From the Protestant point of view it is immoral to burden one's wife

with continual pregnancies, while from the Catholic point of view it

is immoral to interfere with these pregnancies by preventive measures.

Nevertheless, the sexual appetite gives rise to much conflict with

human morality, for the simple reason that it looks upon human beings

as objects of pleasure. Fetichism, in which the sexual appetite is

directed toward inanimate objects, and sodomy, directed to animals,

are by themselves almost incapable of entering into conflict with

morality as we understand it.

The opinion of many people who consider the employment of

anticonceptional measures as immoral, while defending prostitution,

shows how much ideas vary on the subject of sexual ethics. Preachers

of morality, and even priests, sometimes blame a young man who wishes

to marry his mistress, and urge him to get rid of her and the child

by paying a sum of money. The inconsistency of men in the way they

introduce their so-called moral ideas into sexual questions is simply

incredible. Their heads are full of a jumble of hypocrisy, mysticism,

prejudice, pecuniary interests, veneration for old traditional customs

called good manners, a jumble which absolutely confuses all ideas of a

healthy sexual morality. Look at the indignation of parents when their

children become betrothed to persons whom they consider to be beneath

them in social position, or who possess too little money! And all

these people are unconscious of their immorality, which sails under

the flag of morality!

What standpoint are we to take in the sexual domain, which is free

from prejudice, with regard to true human morality? This is the

question which an honest and truly moral man has to put to himself.

The first principle is the old medical adage: _Above all things do no

harm_; the second is: _Be as useful as possible, both individually and

socially._

The commandment of sexual morality will thus be: _Thou shalt do no

harm willingly to any person, nor to humanity, by thy sexual appetite

or acts, and thou shalt do thy utmost to promote the happiness of thy

neighbor and the welfare of society._

Endowed with sexual appetite and the faculty of love, the social man

will utilize both for the benefit of the community as well as his own.

If he acts honorably his task will not be easy, but he will experience

all the more satisfaction, for his good deeds will bring their own

reward. He should bear in mind the following examples:

(1). A man of bad disposition, excited by momentary sexual passion,

seduces a girl, makes her pregnant, and then disappears. He injures

his victim and himself without deriving any advantage. His action is

therefore negative, and is to be condemned both from the ethical and

the egoistic point of view.

(2). Through motives of religious morality, a virtuous girl marries a

depraved drunkard in order to save him. This rarely succeeds, and if

it does it is generally incomplete. From the egoistic point of view

this experiment is exclusively negative. From the altruistic point of

view the motives are, it is true, very positive, but the social

effects are still more negative. If all goes well, our virtuous and

exalted girl will succeed in improving the drunkard, but if she

procreates children, she will have unconsciously sinned against them,

and her good action will result in the sins of the father being

visited on the children.

(3). A man with marked hereditary taints, impulsive, psychopathic and

possessed of a strong sexual appetite, marries an honest girl of good

family, and has several children by her. Such an action is positive

from the egoistic point of view, for the individual in question

benefits himself. From the ethical point of view, it is negative, for

it makes an honest woman unhappy, and probably leads to the

procreation of children of bad quality.

(4). A man, healthy in body and mind, capable, hardworking and full of

ideals, finds a suitable companion. Instead of leading an easy life,

they both undertake as much work as possible, especially social

duties, and procreate at sufficient intervals as many children as they

can without injury to the health of the wife. This is an ideal

combination of positive altruism with positive egoism.

It is not every one who has the good fortune to fulfill the conditions

necessary for this combination. A positive sexual morality is,

however, by no means excluded in less favorable conditions. Certain

psychopathic or feeble individuals may contract sterile marriages in

the manner previously indicated, and may recompense themselves for the

absence of children by devoting themselves all the more to social

duties, or to the education of abandoned orphans.

When a union is concluded between a person who is capable in all

respects, and another who is not, the latter should give the other

permission to procreate children by a third party, more adapted to

give rise to healthy offspring. Although this is immoral according to

current conventional opinion, it seems to me that such a proceeding

could become reconciled with positive morality in the future.

In short, whoever understands the true nature of sexual ethics will

always find a means of accomplishing good actions and avoiding bad

ones, at the same time satisfying his normal appetites, provided these

injure no one.

The truly moral man will never become the accomplice of such a social

iniquity as proxenetism with prostitution and all its satellites, but

will oppose them with all his power. He will always avoid doing wrong

to any one by his sexual appetite; and if his passion drives him to a

thoughtless act, he will do his utmost to redress the bad effects

which may result from it.

The psychological action produced by conjugal infidelity merits

special attention. It depends on the more or less egoistic or

altruistic qualities of the one who becomes enamored of a third

person. I have observed the two chief varieties of cases. If the

guilty husband has naturally moral and social sentiments, his

extra-nuptial love renders him still more affectionate toward his

legitimate wife. He eases his conscience by becoming more indulgent to

his wife. When his amorous intoxication is over, he will try to avoid

everything which may damage the reputation of the other woman, and

will provide for her future. If there are children by this adultery,

he will provide for them.

It is the same with a married woman who is in love with another man.

In this case the whole personality is more powerfully involved than in

man. But on the other hand, the natural energy of the woman will lead

her to try and arrange a marriage between her lover and some other

good woman, and to resist coitus with him.

If the matter goes as far as complete infidelity, and even without it,

various reactions may be observed. When her sentiments are monogamous,

as is the case with most women, the love of a woman for her husband

disappears and is replaced by pity. She easily becomes peevish in her

resignation. She often seeks divorce, even when adultery has not taken

place. When she is polyandrous, as is the case with many hysterical

women, she is quite capable of lavishing her caresses on her husband

as well as her lover, a thing which is impossible for normal women.

What induces want of respect for his wife in the unfaithful egoist, is

not so much the monogamous sentiment, which is somewhat exceptional in

man, but intoxication of his senses by another woman. He then becomes

miserly and disagreeable toward his wife, finding fault with her in

every way, but the innocent and deceived victim finally discovers the

true cause of this change of manner. Some women who are ill-treated in

this way, preserve their love for their husbands, while others never

pardon the slightest infidelity, not even an innocent platonic

affection, in their husbands.

The brutality of a husband toward his wife, when he is in love with

another, often knows no limits. From bad temper, chicanery, contempt

and hatred, he often goes on to blows and even murder, as the annals

of criminology prove too well. Egoistic women who have a lover, also

treat their husbands badly. Owing to their legal subordination and

comparative physical weakness, they reveal their sentiments in a less

brutal form, but malice and bad temper are not wanting. In such cases,

the woman's principal weapon is cunning, which may go as far as

poisoning the husband. More commonly she simply abandons him, to force

him to divorce.

There are many transitions and varieties, but the reactions we have

mentioned are the most common. It is quite natural, when one of the

conjoints falls in love with a third person, for the sexual appetite

to become cold toward the conjoint, and for this frigidity to make her

appear less desirable and show up her defects.

Sexual morality is twice mentioned in the ten commandments of Moses:

Seventh commandment: _Thou shall not commit adultery._

Tenth commandment: _Thy shall not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his

man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor

anything that is thy neighbor's._

In the eleventh commandment of Jesus Christ the words: _Thou shall

love thy neighbor as thyself_, represent approximately the point of

view of modern ethics. Nevertheless contemporary social progress

requires more and better. It is not so exalted as to say "Love those

who persecute you," but it demands a more rational and better

formulated ethics, somewhat as follows: _Thou shall love humanity more

than thyself, and thou shalt seek thy happiness in the welfare of its

future._ Such a formula expresses the commandment of sexual ethics as

we have defined it.

In the commandments of Moses the wife is regarded as property, and the

desire for the wife of one's neighbor is threatened with divine

punishment inasmuch as it covets the property of one's neighbor. When

woman is treated as a free subject and as the equal and companion of

man, it is evident that a fundamental revision of such ideas is

requisite. Certain forms of adultery with voluntary consent on both

sides may even become positive from the moral point of view.

_In spite of this, one of the principal tasks of man's sexual morality

will always be to restrain his erotic polygamous desires, for the

simple reason that they are especially apt to injure the rights and

the welfare of others._ We must make exception for certain special

cases in which no one is injured. (Vide Couvreur's "_La Graine_," and

de Maupassant's "_Mouche_.")

The novelist loves to treat of tragic situations, often giving them a

fatal ending to excite the feelings of his readers. We must avoid

basing sexual ethics on such ideas. The average man, or even one whose

nature is a little above the average, is rarely as passionate as the

heroes in novels. He does not commit suicide for rejected love, but

finds compensation in time. He can even overcome jealousy.

It is thus an exaggeration, depending partly on the suggestion and

auto-suggestion of amorous intoxication, to require in the ethics of

love the absolute fusion of the personality of two human beings, a

mutual fusion of sentiments and ideas destined to last till death.

This kind of morality reverts to dual egoism, and in no way represents

the ideal of human happiness. However beautiful conjugal fidelity, its

exaggeration is deplorable, when it only results in the idolatrous

worship of a single being, living or dead, and regards the rest of the

world with indifference, if not with hostility.

We have already shown that the altruistic sentiments of man are the

direct or indirect[10] derivatives of the sexual appetite, and

especially of sexual love. The true secret of sexual ethics consists,

therefore, in a cult of altruism in the sexual domain. This cult

should not waste itself in moral phrases, but show its strength by

social deeds.

A sad proof of human weakness is given daily by certain forms of

modern ethics which waste themselves in public conferences or in

declamations in the press. This kind of morality is in accordance with

pure egoism. Without social work, it is not true morality, whether

this work be public or modestly hidden.

The struggle for existence was formerly carried on by man against

nature, against animals, and especially against other men. Nature and

animals (excepting the cosmic forces and microbes) are nowadays

conquered by the human brain, and wars are seldom waged except between

great empires, a fact which will sooner or later reduce them to

absurdity. For this reason the morality of the god of war and of

patriotic chauvinism has had his day and loses more and more his

reason for existence. Modern ethics has already become a social and

international human ethics, and will become more so in the future.

As in olden times a true hero knew how to combine love of his wife

with love for his country, to obtain in his conjugal union the

strength to fight for his ideal, so our modern love will serve to

stimulate us in the pursuit of an ideal, in our fight for social

welfare. Man and woman must fight side by side, as this struggle

requires from both an intense and lifelong effort. But it is precisely

in this effort, in this work, that they will obtain their highest

enjoyment. This effort supports and strengthens not only the muscles,

but especially the mind, the cerebral energy.

The struggle for social welfare prepares for us the highest and most

ideal joy. It teaches man to master himself, to overcome his natural

idleness, his desire for pleasure, his dependence on all kinds of

futile habits and base appetites. It educates his will, curbs his weak

and egoistic sentiments, while exercising his faculty for creating

good and useful works. Thanks to this incessant strife, a brain of

even mediocre quality may become a useful social instrument.

I ask in all sincerity if, living in the way we have just described, a

man will find the time and inclination to indulge in the love stories

which the novels of our libraries offer to readers of both sexes for

their daily consumption? I reply: if the man is normal, no. It is only

pathological natures, with their exaggerated sentiment and morbid

passions, which remain incapable of mastering their passionate

emotionalism and reducing it to silence. Other individuals, normal or

semi-normal, are artificially urged to exaggerated exaltation in the

sexual domain by idleness, by reading pernicious novels which excite

their sexual appetite and their sentimentality, also by the artificial

life and feverish activity of life in cities.

Work in itself is not sufficient, and every one ought to add social

work to his ordinary occupation. In fact, the monotony of any special

occupation, and even the exclusive work of a scientific speciality,

ends by giving the cerebral energy itself an exclusive character. The

moral sentiments become atrophied. Exclusiveness in a speciality,

practiced without any complement, easily leads to exclusiveness in

love (not in the sexual appetite!). We often see two egoists, or

several in a family, working together to exploit the rest of society.

As long as they keep in good health and their business prospers, as

long as the egoistic plans of a third party do not upset their

calculations, they may remain faithful to each other and live in

comparative happiness. But what else?

Whoever, on the contrary, has known how to combine with his conjugal

love, a lively interest in humanity, will always find in the latter a

consoling compensation for the greatest misfortunes and the most cruel

losses. He will not fall into a state of despair, but will survive his

trouble, and will become reconciled to men and society without

expecting anything from them, for he will have been accustomed all his

life to work in an impersonal manner.

If I am accused of being enthusiastic over an ideal which is

impossible to attain, I protest strongly. Good habits may always be

acquired, and true altruists are found among the most modest of men,

among simple workingmen or peasants who comprehend and realize the

ideal I have just depicted.

In Chapter XVII we shall see in what way the dispositions of the child

can be and ought to be developed in the direction indicated. It is

needless to say that pure egoists and perverse individuals, who are

negative from the moral point of view, in other words natures which

are evil and harmful by heredity, can never be educated so as to

become altruists. But these perverse natures do not form the majority.

The great majority of men, although idle and indifferent, may still

become habituated to social work by suitable education, as soon as the

external forces which urge them to evil, such as drink and the greed

for money, have been removed and replaced by beneficial forces.

Lastly, the whole attention of humanity should be directed toward its

proper selection, so as to increase the number of useful individuals,

and diminish or gradually eliminate the bad and incapable. But this is

the work of many centuries of enlightenment and education, a work

which we can only begin at present. We find ourselves here in face of

one of the weakest points in human nature, a weakness which consists

in only becoming enthusiastic over progress which will enable self to

attain its object, and not help others. When self does not quickly

obtain a palpable result, it is paralyzed and discouraged, and turns

its back on reform under the most futile pretexts. I will give an

example:

A young bachelor became enthusiastic over the social reform of

abstinence from alcohol. For some years he worked with zeal, took part

in numerous public demonstrations, and became an apostle of total

abstinence. One day, after some failure, he turned his back on

abstinence, declaring that the movement had no future. Nevertheless,

the social movement of abstinence progressed without him. After some

years, he was asked the reason why he had abandoned the movement.

After having first of all repeated his pretext, he confessed that he

did not wish to appear eccentric. He admitted that he had never felt

so well as when he was an abstainer, appeared somewhat astonished to

learn that the movement had made so much progress without him, was

finally convinced of his error, and promised to return to the camp of

the faithful.

In common daily events of this kind lies the secret of the slow

progress of every social reform. Men who are momentarily enthusiastic

nearly always expect everything to progress according to their

imagination, and when they see that it will be some time before any

obvious result is attained, they become discouraged, because they have

neither the personal courage nor the perseverance to remain in a

minority and wait. The same want of perseverance, courage and judgment

is found in the education of children, and it will take a long time to

enlighten people on this subject.

It would seem that we have lost sight of our subject in occupying

ourselves with the irradiation of love, which forms the object of

social sentiments or ethics (vide Chapter V). But it is by exactly

understanding and realizing this irradiation of love that we shall

gradually suppress the unhealthy social aberrations of the sexual

appetite, and prevent them doing harm, by guiding them in the path of

a healthy morality. It is not the severe external constraint of

so-called moral laws, it is not by the threats or punishments of hell,

nor the promise of paradise, nor the moral preachings of the priests,

parents or pedagogues, nor an exalted asceticism, which can ever

construct a healthy, just and lasting sexual ethics. It is not by

words that we recognize the value of moral precepts, but by their

results. It is quite certain that the sexual life of man can never

rise above its present state without being freed from the bonds of

mysticism and religious dogma, and based on a loyal and unequivocal

human morality which will recognize the normal wants of humanity,

always having as its principal object the welfare of posterity.

Marriage should be considered as a means of satisfying the sexual

appetite, and at the same time a moral and social school of life; not

as a refuge for egoism. Division of duties, absolute equality of

rights and social work in common, will solidify more and more the

sexual bonds of two conjoints. By the aid of a better understanding of

the wants of human society, the conjoints will learn how to overcome

their egoistic sentiments, their polygamous inclinations, and their

jealousy, etc.

In striving for happiness, and especially for the sexual happiness of

others, such conjoints will learn better how to excuse and pardon the

sexual failings of other men. They will cease to despise the poor

man's household, the girl-mother, the divorced wife, the concubine,

even the poor invert, and other failings in their fellow beings. On

the contrary, they will do their utmost to make their lot a happier

one, by helping all those for whom help may be efficacious. They will

find their greatest pleasure in this work, and if one of them becomes

himself the victim of some sexual failing, he will be pardoned all the

more easily, and will master it all the more quickly.

There will then be no time to make life bitter by bad temper, slander,

acrimony, sulking and other conjugal disputes. The husband will no

longer behave with the despotism of a lord and master, and the wife

will no longer think it her duty to humble herself. Religious dogmas

will no longer separate man from woman. Priests will no longer be

required in marriage. Lastly, there will be no more fear of death;

this will be regarded as a welcome rest after the long labor and duty

fulfilled of a well-spent life.

I cannot help taxing with narrow-mindedness, and even unintelligence,

persons who consider such an ideal of life as a fantasy impossible to

realize, or as the product of exalted dreamers who do not know the

world. No doubt this ideal cannot be attained by ill-constructed,

unnatural beings, tainted by a morbid heredity, or depraved by

idleness, vice and passion for pleasure, who have lost their

elasticity and plasticity of brain or have never possessed them. It

has, however, been often realized already by men and women of better

quality. It is, therefore, necessary to act on the children, both by

education and selection, in order to obtain a youth of superior

quality.

Let us not abandon the future of our race to the fatalism of Allah;

let us create it ourselves!

FOOTNOTES:

[10] It is true that the friendly union of individuals of the same sex

is often fundamentally derived from the phylogenetic development of

animal or human societies. But the sentiments of sympathy, on the sole

basis of which such friendly unions may be developed, are only

themselves the derivatives of the more primitive sentiments of

sympathy of one individual for another, and these latter have

originated in sexual attraction.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SEXUAL QUESTION IN POLITICS AND IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

Power and money have always been the principal aims of politics.

Political economy is a science which deals with the great family of

nations and their conditions of existence. Based on history,

statistics and observation, it seeks for the laws which govern the

production, consumption and division of goods, labor and its products,

the social organization of nations, their health, the increase or

decrease of the population, the death-rate, birth-rate, etc.

I cannot here enter into the details of the domestic economy of the

nation, as this is beyond my province. I may, however, point out that

this science has too much neglected the natural sciences, owing to its

traditional connection with politics.

In 1881 Cognetti de Martiis[11] had already attempted to apply the

ideas of evolution to political economy. Recently, Prof. Eugene

Schwiedland of Vienna treated the same subject in an interesting study

of the ideas of want and desire in human psychology.[12] So far, it is

only the quantity and not the quality of men which has been taken into

account, originating from the false idea that man made in God's image

can only come into the world in a perfect state. If he was often

malformed in body and mind, this was the fault of his sins. Even

hereditary degeneration to the third and fourth generation was

considered as divine punishment for the sins of the fathers on the

children.

=War.=--The despots of olden times, like those of to-day, have always

regarded men as instruments of their ambition or even as food for

cannon. When Napoleon I established a bounty for large families, he

was no doubt thinking of the number of soldiers he could make for the

use of his son. He had good reason to provide for the replenishment of

the ranks of his army. The mental quality of the individuals mattered

little to him. Wars are a harmful factor in human selection, for they

destroy or mutilate the fittest in the prime of life, while leaving

the unfit and the aged.

Moreover, we have already seen to what an extent the quality and even

the quantity of soldiers suffer from venereal disease and alcohol.

After certain long wars the male population has been decimated to such

a point that polygamy had to be resorted to to reconstitute the

nation. It is, therefore, obvious that wars have a bad influence on

the sexual relations of men, and hence on the quantity, or what is

still worse, the quality of a nation.

=Statistics.=--Political economy is still more important. I do not

doubt the correctness of the figures which tell us that under this or

that economic system the population increases, while under another

system it diminishes, etc. But these are only summary data whose true

causes remain in the dark. It is necessary to carefully study the

factors which produce these figures. Emigration and immigration with

their causes, the intimate habits of individuals and families, their

willingness and aptitude for work, etc. One fact which follows another

is not always the direct consequence of it and if we examine things

more closely, we arrive at curious results.

=Alcohol.=--Things being otherwise equal, it is found that nations who

abstain from alcohol and those who are moderate consumers are more

prolific than nations who are addicted to drink. In Russia, for

instance, the abstainers, although of the same race and living under

the same conditions, are more prolific than their neighbors who drink.

As we have already pointed out, alcohol greatly deteriorates the

quality of man by blastophthoria, and we must agree with men such as

Darwin, Gladstone, Cobden, Comte, etc., that alcohol (even in

so-called moderation) does more harm to a nation than war, plague and

famine together.

We find here an economic factor of the first order, to which the

majority of economists (with the exception of Cobden) are blind. It

is a very short-sighted policy to regard the alcohol industry as a

source of wealth and welfare for nations. What an amount of labor,

human power and valuable land is employed to produce this mischievous

substance which, although useful in pharmacy and other industries,

neither nourishes nor strengthens, but deteriorates the organism and

leads to degeneration of the race! If it were not so sad, it would be

ridiculous to observe the serious way in which high officials, or even

scientists, calculate the product of taxes on distilled and fermented

liquors, the laws for their import and export, the monopoly of their

manufacture, etc. It is remarkable how the budget is balanced by the

aid of the alcoholic intoxication of the people, and how people are

made to believe that a masterpiece of political economy is thereby

achieved. In reality, the health and strength of the nation are

sacrificed. This kind of political economy can only be qualified as

false and deceitful. We cannot too often nor too strongly stigmatize

its destructive influence on sexual matters and on the hereditary

energies of humanity.

=Density of Population.=--As regards the most desirable figures for

population, opinions are diametrically opposed. Some authors look for

the happiness of humanity in prolific reproduction, and imagine that

by utilizing all parts of the globe an unlimited number of people

could be supported by its produce.

We cannot regard with favor this singular Chinese-like ideal, which

would tend to transform the whole world into a huge cornfield for the

raising of men like rabbits. Moreover, it is greatly to be feared that

the real Chinese, when they have become sufficiently armed and

re-civilized, will transform the surface of the earth into a human

stable, if we do not take sufficient precautions.

=Neo-malthusianism.=--On the other hand, a certain group of idealists,

the neo-malthusianists, have declared a war of extermination against

all increase of the population. I have myself been accused by one of

them of committing a crime by procreating more than four children!

Neo-malthusianists of this kind only deal with quantity and do not

concern themselves with quality.

They recommend, as we do, the employment of anticonceptional

measures, but they do so without any discrimination. They address

themselves to the altruistic and intelligent portion of the public,

and induce the most useful members of society to procreate as little

as possible, without recognizing that with their system, not only the

Chinese and negroes, but, among European races, the most incapable and

amoral classes of the population are those who trouble the least about

their maximum number of children. Hence, the result they obtain is

exactly the opposite of what they intend.

Among the North Americans and New Zealanders, with whom

neo-malthusianism is very prevalent, the number of births among the

intelligent classes is diminishing to an alarming extent, while the

Chinese and negroes multiply exceedingly. In France, the practice of

neo-malthusianism is chiefly due to reasons of economy.

=Rational Selection.=--These two extremes, which are equally absurd,

should be replaced by rational selection. Neo-malthusianism should be

confined to the unfit of all kinds, and to the lower races. On the

contrary, the fit should be urged to multiply as much as possible. By

this means we obtain an indirect factor of the first order for a

rational political economy; I even maintain that it is the most

important of all. No doubt its action is extremely slow, and it would

take centuries to obtain a definite result. But if the principle of

proper human selection ever prevails, we may confidently hope for a

good future for our descendants.

A time will come when the human population of the earth will become

more or less stationary. If, in the meantime, human nature has

succeeded in appreciably improving its quality, and in gradually

suppressing the physical and mental proletariat with its poverty,

hunger and brutality, which now infests the world--then only will the

dogmas of our modern neo-malthusianists acquire a certain object for

the whole world.

If humanity does not soon begin to degenerate by brutish accumulation,

but finds in time the means to gradually elevate its quality, our

future descendants will take care not to abandon rational selection. A

capable and active man gives to society much more than he receives,

and thus forms an economic asset. A person who is unfit in body or

mind, receives more than he gives, and thus constitutes an economic

deficit.

=Contrary Selection.=--We have seen in Chapter VI how certain customs

of essentially human origin ended by becoming part of religion.

Unfortunately for humanity, religion and politics have at all times

generally combined to do wrong. The celibacy of priests (to say

nothing of the Inquisition, religious wars, and the fatalism of Islam)

which is based on a kind of religious politics, has largely resulted

in sterilizing the more intelligent among Catholic races.

The prohibition of inquiry into paternity is another abominable custom

of the same kind introduced by Napoleon. Laws of this nature lead to

artificial abortion and encourage promiscuous intercourse. The safety

of families and sexual intercourse lies in the duties of parents

toward their children.

The principal task of a political economy which has the true happiness

of men at heart, should be to encourage the procreation of happy,

useful, healthy and hard-working individuals. To build an

ever-increasing number of hospitals, asylums for lunatics, idiots and

incurables, reformatories, etc.; to provide them with every comfort,

and manage them scientifically, is no doubt a very fine thing, and

speaks well of the progress and development of human sympathy. But,

what is forgotten, is that by concerning ourselves almost exclusively

with human ruins, the results of our social abuses, we gradually

weaken the forces of the healthy portion of the population.

By attacking the roots of the evil and limiting the procreation of the

unfit, we shall be performing a work which is much more humanitarian,

if less striking in its effect.

Formerly, our economists and politicians hardly ever considered this

question, and even now very few are interested in it, because it

brings neither honors nor money, as we do not ourselves see the fruits

of such efforts. Any one who aims at serious reforms and puts his hand

to the work is looked upon as eccentric, or even mad. This is why we

are contented with the kind of humanitarianism which makes a show and

panders to the sentimentality of the masses, by holding out a

charitable hand to the visible and audible evils which make women

weep. In short, we amuse ourselves with repairing the ruins, but are

afraid of attacking what makes these ruins!

=The Laws of Lycurgus.=--There was once in Sparta a great legislator

named Lycurgus, who attempted to introduce a kind of human selection

into the laws. He wished to make the Spartans a strong nation, because

at that time bodily strength was almost the only ideal of the people.

He understood the value of hardness but not that of work. The

importance of selective elimination of the diseased and weak was

apparent to his pre-Darwinian intuition, but in his time natural laws

were not understood. However, in spite of their failings, the laws of

Lycurgus succeeded up to a certain point in making the Spartans a

strong nation.

According to the laws of Lycurgus, the Spartan inherited no property,

and was forbidden all luxury. He had to eat his simple black broth

with his fellows, and to exercise himself continually in trials of

strength and skill. Every Spartan had to marry, and the bonds of

matrimony were strictly observed. Every weak child was eliminated. But

there were two fundamental errors in the Spartan organization.

First of all, the Spartan was a warrior, but not a worker, and

although hardened, was an aristocrat. He left all labor to his slaves,

and in this way strengthened his slaves and enfeebled himself in many

respects. The value of work in strengthening and developing the brain

and the whole body was not then understood.

In the second place, all the efforts of the Spartans were directed

toward muscular strength, bodily skill, courage, and simple wants, but

not at all toward a life of higher intelligence or ideal sentiments.

The exclusiveness with which they only promoted man's bodily

development, while neglecting his intellect, their negligence of the

laws of organic evolution due to ignorance of natural science, would

sooner or later have led to the decay of the Spartans.

However, it was not the laws of Lycurgus in themselves, but their

abandonment, which was the direct cause of the decadence of Sparta.

The Spartans only sought for power, and this led to envy and jealousy,

a deplorable although indirect result of the exclusiveness of their

laws. These laws, however, will always constitute a unique historical

document, a remarkable attempt at human selection.

We are at the present day incomparably better armed intellectually

than Lycurgus to deal with the question of selection. What is chiefly

wanting is initiative on the part of the men who are charged with the

government of their fellows. They are so deeply absorbed in economic

interests and rival influences, that all desire of aspiring to a

higher social ideal is paralyzed and etiolated in them. We require a

powerful social shaking if we are to make steady progress.

=Politics and the Sexual Question.=--"_Cherchez la femme_" is the

common expression when anything unusual occurs in society. It would be

more correct to say "Look for the sexual motive!" The actions of men

are determined much more by their passions and sentiments than by

purely intellectual reflection, _i.e._, by reason and logic.

But no sentiment is stronger than the direct sexual sentiment, or its

derivatives--love, jealousy and hatred. From this results a fact which

social systems have too much neglected, namely: that in all the

domains of human social activity, the sexual passions and their

psychic irradiations often interact directly or indirectly in a

mischievous way. Mistresses and courtesans have always played a

considerable part in political intrigue.

It is not necessary to have such a tragic scandal as that which caused

the assassination of the king and queen of Servia. Everyday

influences, even the smallest and most dissimulated, are often the

most efficacious. Sexual intrigues have at all times influenced and

directed the fate of nations. History relates a number of cases of

this kind, but there are many more which have never been revealed to

the public. It is sufficient to mention this fact. Every one who

reflects will find an illustration of it, in the history of the past

as well as in the politics of the present, in the courts of monarchs

and in small democracies, in the local history of provinces, in his

own parish, and lastly among his own relatives, friends and

acquaintances.

=Sexual Life in Social Action.=--The socialist who said that the

social question was exclusively a question of stomach mistook its

scope as well as human psychology. However admirably the economic

relations of men and their work may be regulated, the introduction of

sexual passions into social life will never be eliminated. All that

can be done is to give both sexes an education which will elevate

their social conscience and attenuate the evil influences exercised by

personal sexual sentiments on social actions.

The sexual question, therefore, intervenes in politics and in the

whole of social life. Moreover, if the deplorable social influence of

money and the attraction it exerts could be eliminated, antisocial

acts, which only depend indirectly on the sexual passions, would lose

much of their danger and infamy.

=The Role of Women.=--Here again, much may be expected from the free

emancipation of woman, and from her work in social questions in

conjunction with man. This work in common will make them more clearly

understand the high importance of their social task. Then sexual life

will encourage social development instead of hindering it; it will

cease to be considered as an egoistic pleasure but as a means of

procreation, and will become the acme of an existence founded on the

joy of work.

We can already see, in countries where women have a vote, that they

know very well how to benefit by social progress. If it is objected

that woman is more conservative and more routine than man, I reply

that this inconvenience is compensated by the fact that she is on the

whole more inclined to enthusiasm, and to be led by noble masculine

natures, who have the sense of the ideal, than by others (vide Chapter

V). Her great perseverance and courage are also inestimable qualities

for social work which aims at true progress.

=Necessity and Desire.=--In the work which I have already quoted,

Schwiedland points out the need for distinguishing between necessity

and desire, in political economy. In practice it is no doubt difficult

to always make an exact distinction between necessity and luxury. What

our ancestors considered as luxuries we now regard as necessities. Man

knows no limits in his desires; he is insatiable in his passion for

pleasure and change. Certain socialists, especially anarchists, make a

great mistake in proclaiming the right of man to satisfy all his

desires. This is a proclamation of corruption and degeneration. As it

is just to exact the right to satisfaction of the natural wants of

each, so is it unjust to sanction every desire and every appetite.

It is a question of distinguishing between good and useful wants and

evil desires. All wants which promote a healthy life, all instincts

which lead to social work, are good. All desires, which damage the

health and life of the individual or injure the rights and welfare of

society, are bad, and are the procreators of luxury, excessive

concupiscence, and often corruption. Between these two extremes there

are desires which are more or less indifferent, for example, that of

possessing objects of beauty.

Certain objects of human desire are harmful in themselves, such as the

use of alcoholic liquor and narcotics. Others are only harmful when

pushed to excess, such as good living, sexual pleasures, personal

adornment, etc. Among the things desired by man, sexual pleasure plays

a great part. Thus, when a pasha or a sultan provides himself with a

large number of women, this excess is harmful from the social point of

view, as it injures the rights of others. I have sufficiently dwelt on

this fact elsewhere. I wish only to indicate here, with Schwiedland,

how necessary it is to fix the limits between necessities and desires

from the point of view of political economy, however relative and

subjective these limits may be.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Le forme primitive nella evoluzione economia."

[12] "Die psychologischen Grundlagen der Wirtschaft." _Zeitschrift fuer

Sozialwissenschaft_, 1905.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SEXUAL QUESTION IN PEDAGOGY

=Heredity and Education.=--If we review the facts contained in

Chapters IV, VI, VII and VIII, we must conclude that the sexual

appetite, sensations and sentiments of every human being consist of

two groups of elements: (1) _phylogenetic_ or hereditary (hereditary

mneme); and (2) elements _acquired_ during life by the combined action

of external agents and habit or custom.

The first lie dormant in the organism for a time, in the form of

latent energies or dispositions, and form part of what is called

_character_. Most of them do not disclose themselves till the age of

puberty, and their development afterwards takes place under the

influence of external stimuli, which are modified by the will of the

individual, _i.e._, by his brain.

The second are the result of the influence excited by erotic

excitations and habit on the first.

Pedagogy can in no way change the first, for they are predetermined,

and constitute the soil to be cultivated by education. The task of the

latter can, therefore, only be to guide the hereditary sexual

dispositions into paths as healthy and useful as possible. In the case

of perverse dispositions, such as homosexual appetites, sadism, etc.,

moral education can only act in a general way on the character, and

combat that which excites the appetites. It cannot change the

character of the latter; there must be no illusion on this point.

Wherever hereditary dispositions present a normal average, education

can do much to avoid pathological errors and habits, by guiding the

sexual appetite in a healthy direction and by avoiding excess.

=Sexual Education of Children.=--Habit always diminishes the erotic

effect of certain perceptions of the senses; and inversely, eroticism

or sexual desire is especially excited by unaccustomed perceptions

and images relating to the other sex. The adult, unfortunately, nearly

always makes the same error in pedagogy; he unconsciously attributes

his own adult sentiments to the child. What excites the sexual desire

of an adult is quite indifferent to a child. It is, therefore,

possible to speak plainly to children to a certain extent on sexual

questions, without exciting them in the least; on the contrary, if the

child becomes accustomed to consider sexual intercourse as something

quite natural, this will excite his curiosity to a much less degree

later on, because it has lost the spice of novelty.

If the child is accustomed to the sight of nudity in adults of his own

sex, he will see nothing peculiar in his own sexual organs and pubic

hairs when these develop. On the other hand, children brought up with

strict prudery and in complete ignorance of sexual matters, often

become greatly excited when their pubic hairs develop; they feel

ashamed and at the same time erotic. When they are not prepared, girls

become still more excited at the first appearance of menstruation, and

boys at their first seminal emission. The mystery which is made of

everything relating to sexual matters is not only a source of anxiety

to children, but also excites their curiosity and the first signs of

eroticism, so that they generally end by being instructed on the

subject by other depraved children, by observing copulation among

animals, or by obscene books, in a manner which is certainly not

favorable to healthy development. What is still worse is that the

child is generally instructed at the same time in masturbation,

prostitution, and sometimes even sexual perversion.

The so-called innocence, or naive ignorance, of an adolescent

possesses quite a peculiar charm of attraction for libertines of both

sexes, who find a refined erotic pleasure, a unique relish, in the

seduction of the innocent, in the role of "initiator in the sexual

art." Parents, unfortunately, seldom realize the evil consequences of

their passiveness, I will even say cowardice, in making use of

subterfuge, pretext and falsehood, to elude the naive questions of

their children concerning sexual matters. I will here quote the

opinion of an enlightened mother of a family, Madame Schmid-Jager, an

opinion with which I entirely agree:

"All mothers, or nearly all, bring up their daughters with a

view to matrimony. Can we pretend that they are properly

prepared for it? Alas! no; the most elementary knowledge which

should be possessed by the future wife and mother is neglected,

and for centuries our young girls have been married in more or

less complete ignorance of their natural functions and duties.

The slaves of routine will reply that it has always been so,

that the world has been none the worse for it, and that women

when once married have always learnt by personal experience all

that was necessary. No doubt they are sometimes taught to cook

and sew and to do household work, but they are told nothing

concerning their sexual functions, nor of the consequences of

these. At Zurich a school has been instituted for nurses and

midwives which will soon give good results. This school is also

open to young girls who, without becoming professional nurses,

desire to learn how to take care of the sick in their own

families, and especially the newly born. This is an experiment

worthy of encouragement which should be extended universally.

"The awkwardness, incapacity and ignorance of a young wife, when

she starts housekeeping and has a baby, are astonishing. She

often pays dearly for it, in spite of the instinct which is so

much talked about. It is not the same as with animals, whose

instincts are sufficient for the care of the young.

"A lady doctor of Zurich, Madame Hilfiker, has lately developed

a scheme of much greater importance, which will require a great

effort on the part of women and the intervention of legislation,

if it is to be realized. Men, she says, maintain their muscular

strength by military service. Every young woman, who is not

prevented by her occupation, should perform the equivalent of

military service, from the age of eighteen, in obligatory

service for a year, in hospitals, asylums, maternities,

_creches_ (public nurseries) or public kitchens. Such training

would be extremely useful for future wives, and would at the

same time provide the institutions in question with useful

workers. Why should men be the only ones to perform obligatory

social service? I expect," says Madame Schmid, "many adverse

criticisms on this proposal, one of which I will refute at

once. The ladies of the middle classes will strongly object

because their daughters will see and hear so many things which

ought to be hidden till they marry! But why should they be

hidden? In order to prepare our daughters for marriage, is it

not logical to begin by telling them what it is, what it

involves and what it exacts?" ("_L'Education sociale de nos

filles_," 1904.)

In neglecting this duty our parents and teachers commit a veritable

crime. Does a normal man ever marry without knowing what he is doing?

Yet our young girls are kept by their mothers in insensate and often

dangerous ignorance of their whole future. Whoever invented this

absurd and mischievous idea that a young girl should remain ignorant

of her natural functions till the moment when she has bound herself

for life to fulfill them? The law punishes persons who cause others to

enter into contracts, while intentionally concealing the true

conditions. This might almost equally well apply to parents who allow

their daughters to marry in ignorance. Some women reply to this that

marriage would be too sad and would have little attraction if it were

not preceded by any illusion. Certain illusions which are natural to

youth may be healthy, but the fantastic dreams which are in evident

contradiction with reality, and nearly always followed by disillusion,

are bad. A young woman who has always lived in a state of

transcendental idealism till her marriage, infallibly courts

disappointment, deception and heart-break. A wiser education would

often succeed in sparing young women from this sudden and cruel

disillusion. The moral level of men would also be raised if their

future wives were better instructed in sexual matters, and exacted

that the past life of their future husbands should give a better

guarantee for the future.

It must, moreover, be understood that blind and obstinate resistance

to new ideas serves no purpose. Our manners and customs change in

spite of us; our girls will no longer allow themselves to be led

blindly, but will seek more and more freedom. Would it not be wiser to

take things in time and warn them of the dangers ahead? With

incredible carelessness parents send their daughters into service

abroad, without considering that they may be at the mercy of the

first Don Juan who comes across them, or even fall into the meshes of

"white slavery," if they are left to go in ignorance of sexual

affairs, as is often the case (vide Chapter X). Moreover, by no longer

taking a false and artificial view of life, girls will be more capable

of understanding and sympathizing with the misery which surrounds

them--the troubles of unfortunate marriages, seduced and abandoned

girls, etc. What they lose in illusion they will gain in more useful

knowledge.

How are we to begin? We should certainly not wait till the eve of

marriage, but begin in childhood. In theory, it is wrong to lie to

children, if they are to maintain unshaken confidence in their

parents, and remain truthful themselves. No doubt we cannot explain

everything to a child at the age when it begins to ask its mother

certain embarrassing questions, but we should endeavor as far as

possible to tell it the truth in a manner suitable to its age. When

this is impossible, every child who knows that no reasonable

explanation is ever refused it will be satisfied with the answer: "You

are too young now to understand that; I will tell you when you are

older." Every child who speaks openly to its mother asks sooner or

later how children come into the world. It is easier to reply to this

when the child has had the opportunity of observing the same thing in

animals. Why should the mother conceal the fact that it is nearly the

same in man as in animals? The child never thinks of blushing or

laughing at natural phenomena.

The initiation of children into the mechanism of reproduction is best

obtained by the study of botany and zoology. If no mystery is made of

these things in the case of plants and animals, why should not

instruction be given in human reproduction? On this point Madame

Schmid remarks as follows:

"The father or the master should instruct the boys in this subject,

and the mother or mistress the girls. Parents will then be able more

easily to abandon their old and absurd prejudices, which they

preserve, not so much because they attach any great importance to

them, but because they shrink from the difficulty of explaining

themselves to their children. We often see mothers, who would never

have touched on the question with a child still ignorant of sexual

matters, abandon the reserve hitherto observed in their language in

the presence of the child, as soon as they perceive that it has become

more or less acquainted with sexual phenomena. This is quite

characteristic, and what is more so is that these mothers, and often

also the fathers, frequently make equivocal jokes on the subject with

their children instead of seriously discussing it.

"It is regrettable that so few pedagogues take up these questions, and

that the instruction of children on the sexual question is left to the

most impure sources--domestic servants, depraved companions,

pornographic books, etc. This results in a deplorable estrangement

between the children and their parents or masters, which destroys

mutual confidence.

"If we wish to contend with sexual perversions acquired at an early

age, or the precocious development of an unhealthy sexual appetite,

this is not to be effected by prudery or vague moral preaching, but by

affection and frankness. In this case, evasive replies, combined with

so-called strict morals, only lead to estrangement, dissimulation and

hypocrisy, and the result is often irreparable."

Madame Schmid also insists on the necessity of making young girls work

and learn some business, so as to render them capable of surviving in

the struggle for existence without being obliged to throw themselves

at the head of the first man who presents himself, or becoming the

prey of prostitution. She also emphasizes the necessity of

remunerating the wife for her work as mother and housekeeper, as the

husband is remunerated for his work.

It is needless to add that it is quite as necessary to instruct boys

as girls in sexual questions. They do not run the risk, like girls, of

falling through ignorance into the abject dependence of a forced

marriage, and have no pregnancies to fear; but they are more exposed

to temptation. When their sexual appetite has been once excited by

masturbation or in some other way, it becomes very difficult to put

them on the right path; to say nothing of the danger of venereal

disease.

I therefore appeal to all fathers and masters in the same way that

Madame Schmid appeals to mothers and mistresses Take measures in time

and do not wait till the boys are instructed by evil persons of either

sex, or till they have already been seduced, thanks to their erotic

curiosity. It is generally evil companions who seduce them, but

sometimes erotic women.

=Exclusiveness in Education. Punishment. Automatism of Parents. Wants

of Children.=--In the human brain, intelligence and sentiment are

intimately connected with one another, and from their combination

arise volitions, which in their turn, react more or less strongly on

cerebral activity, according to their solidity and duration. It is

thus a great mistake to think that we can treat separately, by the aid

of theoretical dogmas, the three great domains of the human

mind--intelligence, sentiment and will. It is a fundamental error to

imagine that the intelligence can be educated only at school, leaving

sentiment and will to the parents. But it is still more absurd to

attempt to act on sentiment, especially on ethical sentiment, and on

the conscience, which is derived directly from sympathy, by moral

preaching and punishment. What false conceptions of the human mind lie

in these moral sermons, in this theoretical moral teaching, in these

punishments and anger! Is it credible that, by the aid of abstract and

arid dogmas supported by punishment, conscience and altruistic

sentiments can be impressed on the brain of a child, which is only

accessible to concrete ideas, to sympathy, affection and amusement? We

may see daily, in nearly every family, parents finding fault with

their children, in a vexatious, irritated or sorrowful tone of voice,

to which the children reply by inattention, or tears, or more often by

a repetition of the same tone of irritation. These scoldings pass

through the child's mind without leaving any trace of an effect. Such

stereotyped scenes produce in the intelligent observer the painful

impression of two barrel-organs whose tunes are automatic. If this is

the kind of moral teaching which is supposed to act on the child's

mind, it is not astonishing that it has futile and even harmful

effects. The parents do not appreciate the fact that when scolding

their children they are only giving vent to their own bad temper. But

the children are well aware of this fact, consciously or not, and

react accordingly. The most deplorable thing is that they copy all

these bad habits, like monkeys.

True moral teaching, the true way of influencing children for good,

lies in the manner of speaking to them, treating them and living with

them. Affection, truth, persuasion and perseverance should be manifest

in the acts and manners of parents, for these qualities only can

awaken sympathy and confidence in the breasts of children. It is not

cold moral speech, but warm altruistic feeling, which alone can act as

a moral educator of children.

A savant who delivers excellent and erudite lectures to his pupils in

a dry and wearisome manner teaches them nothing, or at any rate very

little. The students yawn, and are quite right in saying they could

learn these things just as well out of a book. A teacher, however, who

speaks with animation and knows how to hold the attention of his

audience impresses his remarks on their brain. In the former case

there is intelligence without feeling, while in the latter case the

audience is held by the suggestive and contagious power of enthusiasm.

Dry science, at the most, fills the memory, but it leaves "the heart"

empty. What does not come from the heart has difficulty in entering

the head.

It is precisely in this way that the will must be exercised by

perseverance. The child must be made eager for social work; he must be

urged to all noble and disinterested actions, without stimulating his

emulation by promises of reward, or by punishment.

=New Schools.=--The object we desire may be attained by a system of

education such as that of the new schools (_Landerziehungsheime_),

which were first founded by Reddie in England, afterwards by Lietz in

Germany, by Frey and Zuberuuebler in Switzerland, and by Contou in

France. These institutes have finally realized the ideas of Rousseau,

Pestalozzi, Owen and Froebel.

For the teacher who understands the psychology of children, it is a

true pleasure to witness the teaching at these Landerziehungsheime.

The children take a delight in their school and become the comrades of

their master. Physical exercise, the development of the powers of

reason and judgment, the education of the sentiments and will, are all

harmoniously combined. The children are not given the dry text-books

of our schools, but made familiar with the works of the great authors

and men of genius. Instead of their existence becoming etiolated under

the weight of domestic duties, and under the sword of Damocles of

examinations, they thrive by living as far as possible among the

things they ought to learn. They thus assimilate the object of

instruction, which becomes a living and useful part of their

personality, instead of becoming encysted in the brain in the form of

dead erudition like a foreign body, and filling it with formulae learnt

by heart. Such formulae are ill-understood by children, and later on it

is difficult for them to clear their brains of this indigestible

rubbish to make room for the realities of observation and induction.

The only punishments at the Landerziehungsheime are those which

naturally result from the fault committed.

The pupils and their masters bathe together in a state of nature. The

sexual question is treated openly in these schools in a proper,

natural and logical way. The open confidence which obtains between

masters and pupils, combined with free intellectual and physical work

and the absolute exclusion of alcoholic drinks, constitute the best

preventive and curative remedy for masturbation, sexual precocity and

all perversions which are not hereditary.

It is needless to say that such schools cannot cure a pathological

sexual hereditary mneme, whether it consists in perversion, precocity

or some other vice. Every boarding school has its drawbacks, on

account of the possible influence of mischievous individuals.

Nevertheless, no boarding school offers such excellent conditions as

the Landerziehungsheime, for as soon as a boy gives evidence of any

sexual perversion, this perversion soon becomes well known, thanks to

the good sense which prevails in the whole school.[13]

=Standard of Human Value in the Child.=--Our pedagogy has hitherto not

understood the true standard of human value. The social value of a

man is composed of two groups of factors; mental and bodily hereditary

dispositions, and faculties acquired by education and instruction.

Without sufficient hereditary dispositions, all efforts expended in

learning a certain subject will generally fail more or less. Without

instruction and without exercise, the best hereditary dispositions

will become atrophied, or will give indifferent results. But

hereditary dispositions not only influence the different domains of

knowledge, as the traditional pedagogues of our public schools seem to

admit, they also act on all the domains of human life, especially on

the mind. Good dispositions in the domains of will, sentiment,

judgment, imagination, perseverance, duty, accuracy, self-control, the

faculty of thinking logically and distinguishing the true from the

false, the faculty of combining aesthetic thoughts and sensations, all

constitute human values which are much superior to the faculty of

rapid assimilation or receptivity, and a good memory for words and

phrases.

Nevertheless these last faculties are almost the only ones which are

taken into consideration in our examinations, which decide nearly

everything in our schools and universities. Is it to be wondered at

that, by the aid of such a false standard, mediocrities whose brains

are only the echoes of their masters and those who bow to authority,

climb to the highest official positions, and even to most of those

positions which are not official?

With a good memory and the gift of rapid comprehension, one can obtain

everything, even without the protection of the clergy, freemasonry or

any other powerful association or personality (male or female)! If

they do not possess these natural secondary gifts, the most capable

men, even men of genius, are passed over or only obtain a situation by

circuitous routes and great efforts, after much loss of time.

In the Landerziehungsheime, Dr. Hermann-Lietz uses a scale intended to

estimate the psychological and social value of the pupils. First of

all the results obtained from two standards are measured:

(_a_) _Individual_: Does the actual value of work performed by the

pupil always correspond to his faculties?

(_b_) _Objective_: Is the work very good, good, mediocre or bad,

compared with the normal human average?

After this the different domains of psychology and human activity are

passed in review, a thing which is quite possible in a school of this

kind whose object is to carry out the integral education of man.

1. _Bodily results_: Health, disease, weight of body, activity,

walking, running, swimming, cycling, games, ski, gymnastics.

2. _Conduct_: Order, cleanliness, punctuality. Conduct outside, etc.

3. _Moral and religious results_: Conduct toward parents, masters,

companions, self and others. Veracity, zeal and sentiment of duty;

honesty in the administration of his personal property and that

entrusted to him; sentiment of solidarity and disinterestedness. Is

the pupil worthy of trust? Is he conscientious? Strength of moral

sentiments, moral comprehension and moral will.

4. _Intellectual results_: Practical work; gardening, agriculture,

carpentry, turning, locksmith's work, work in forge. Drawing, writing,

elocution, music. Knowledge of literature and human nature, physics,

mathematics and natural science.

5. _General results_: Strength of character, physique and

intelligence; faculty of observation, imagination and judgment. Real

value of practical work, artistic and scientific.

Measured by such a standard, the human value of a pupil takes quite

another character to that judged by the results of examinations. By

means of this standard, it is possible to predict with much more

certainty what kind of man the child will become. There is no need to

add that there are no examinations in these schools, for the whole

life is a perpetual examination.

Samuel Smiles, in "_Self Help_" relates that Swift failed in his

examinations, that James Watt (the discoverer of the motive power of

steam), Stephenson and Newton were bad pupils, that an Edinburgh

professor regarded Walter Scott as a dunce. [The same with Darwin, who

says in his autobiography, "When I left the school I was, for my age,

neither high nor low in it, and I believe that I was considered by all

my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the

common standard in intellect."] These examples of the way in which the

school of tradition judges human mental value might be multiplied a

hundredfold, but they will suffice, especially if we compare them with

the future of the distinguished pupils of colleges in practical life.

These facts are not due so much to later development, as to the

disgust inspired by our system of education in reflective minds which

refuse to be overloaded with a heap of dry things learnt by heart,

undigested, often hardly comprehensible, or open to contradiction.

It is only on the basis of a just evaluation of man, from all points

of view, that we can found a proper human selection.

=Coeducation.=--It is now beginning to be understood that the

coeducation of the two sexes in schools, not only does no harm, but is

very advantageous, both from the sexual and the moral points of view.

In the universities it is already established. In children's schools

and many primary schools it has always existed. It is especially the

authorities of secondary schools who have raised opposition.

In the secondary schools in Holland and Italy, as well as in some

Swiss gymnasiums, coeducation has been introduced without the least

inconvenience; on the contrary, it has led to the best results.

A native of Finland, Miss Maikki Friberg, has lately made an appeal in

favor of coeducation based on the excellent results obtained in her

country. Some feared that sexual excitement would result; but this is

an error, for the custom of daily co-existence of the sexes diminishes

the sexual appetite. The forbidden fruit loses its charm as soon as it

appears no longer to be forbidden!

It is unnecessary to say that it is not intended that girls and boys

should sleep in the same dormitories, nor bathe together in the

costume of Adam and Eve! Our remarks do not apply to boarding-schools,

but to coeducation in public schools.

When we speak of coeducation, we generally meet with the argument that

the nature and vocation of women differ from those of men, and that

consequently their education ought to differ. To this I reply as

follows: The external objects of the world, the branches of human

knowledge, in fact the subjects for study and instruction, are the

same for both sexes. It is, therefore, both a useless waste of forces

and an injustice to organize an inferior education for women.

=Instruction in Coeducation.=--A course of instruction as interesting

as possible should be organized for each subject, without distinction

of sex. This rule should also apply to things which are generally

considered as the special province of women; such as sewing,

dressmaking, cooking, household work, etc. It will then be the

business of each sex to choose the subject most suited to its

abilities.

Part of the course of instruction should be obligatory for all, while

another part intended for ulterior individual development should be

optional, according to individual taste and talent. In the obligatory

part of instruction certain subjects might be made obligatory for one

sex and optional for the other; sewing and algebra, for instance. In

this way each sex could choose the most suitable subjects, as is the

case now in universities only.

=Danger of Sexual Perversions.=--A very important point, unfortunately

little understood in sexual pedagogy, is that of congenital sexual

perversions. Tradition regards every sexual anomaly as an acquired

vice, which should be treated by indignation and punishment. The

effects of this manner of looking at the question are disastrous. It

gives entirely wrong ideas to youth, and shuts the eyes of parents and

teachers to the truth.

It is not without a serious motive that I have described at length the

repugnant phenomena of sexual pathology (Chapter VIII). Teachers and

parents should be thoroughly acquainted with this subject. But this is

not enough, for these phenomena commence in infancy. It is a long time

before the child whose sexual appetite is perverted has the least idea

that his inclinations and desires are considered by others as

abnormal. The psychic irradiations of his abnormal appetite usually

constitute the sanctuary of his ideal aspirations and sentiments, the

object of obscure hopes and struggles which are opposed to nature and

the inclinations of his comrades. This is why he neither understands

the world nor himself in this respect. His amorous exaltations are

ridiculed, or else they inspire disgust. Anxiety and shame alternate

more and more with the perverse aspirations of his mind, which slowly

increase. It is only when he arrives at the age of puberty that the

pervert understands his exceptional position; he then feels that he is

exiled from society, abandoned and without a future. He sees his ideal

aspirations mocked by men and regarded as a ridiculous caricature or

even as a culpable monstrosity. He is obliged to hide his passions

like a criminal. As his character is often weak and impulsive, and is

combined with a strong and precocious sexual appetite, he is very

easily led astray, especially if he discovers suitable objects for his

appetite, or perverted companions like himself.

In this way, in secondary schools, we often find groups of young

inverts who succeed by cunning in seducing their friends. The mention

of these phenomena, which from time to time give rise to school

scandals, should be enough to make any one who is unprejudiced

understand the urgency for instructing children betimes in sexual

questions. This is a duty which is necessary in the name of hygiene

and morality.

It is evident that if parents and masters exchange ideas on this

subject with children, freely but decently, they will soon bring to

light the sexual nature of the latter. They will discover which girls

are cold and indifferent, and which are precociously erotic.

It is needless to say that one should speak and act differently in the

two cases. There is no risk in instructing the first on the whole

sexual question, but prudence is required with the latter, who should

be guarded against anything which stimulates their appetite, by

warning them of the dangers of venereal disease, illegitimate children

and seduction.

We sometimes meet with young girls of hysterical nature with inverted

inclinations, who become enamored of other girls and have a sexual

repugnance for men. Occasionally a sadist is discovered.

Among boys we observe analogous differences in the intensity and

precocity of the sexual appetite. An attentive observer will

frequently discover homosexual appetites in boys, for these are

comparatively common. Other perversions, such as sadism, masochism,

fetichism and exhibitionism, etc., are more rarely met with.

Masturbation is common in both sexes.

The great advantage of such discoveries is that children affected with

sexual perversions can be put under special supervision, and above all

things kept away from boarding schools, where they are subject to

great temptations. An invert in a boarding-school is in reality almost

in the same position as a young man who sleeps in the same room as

young girls, and no one thinks of the danger.

When perversion is recognized, the subject should not be treated as a

criminal, nor even as a vicious individual, but as a patient afflicted

with a nervous affection who is thereby dangerous to himself and

others. He should be treated and prevented from becoming a center of

infection for his surroundings. Inverts should be specially supervised

and taken care of till adult age. When they come of age, in my

opinion, it would be an innocent idea to allow them to marry persons

of their own sex, as they so much desire to do. Normal adults can very

well protect themselves against their attentions, when they are warned

by sufficient instruction in sexual questions.

The child, on the other hand, has the right to be protected against

all contamination by perversion, as against all sexual assault of

whatever nature, and it is the duty of society to organize its

protection. But this cannot be done unless society is itself

instructed on the question, and in a position to give a rational

education to youth such as we have sketched above.

If dangerous congenital perversions are discovered, such as sadism and

pederosis, energetic measures of protection should be taken; in grave

cases, the operations we have spoken of, or permanent internment.

Apart from suggestion, there is no better remedy against masturbation

than a system of education such as that in force in the

Landerziehungsheime, especially continuous physical labor combined

with useful and attractive intellectual occupation. When such a system

of education is put in force at an early age, the sexual appetite

develops more slowly and more moderately, and has the most favorable

influence on the whole sexual life of man.

In speaking of masturbation in Chapter VIII we have seen that it may

be the expression of very different conditions, and we should act

accordingly.

=Eroticism in Childhood.=--By giving children betimes the requisite

instruction on the sexual question, they are tranquilized. Many boys

and girls give themselves up to despair because of the erroneous and

terrifying ideas they have of sexual affairs. On the one hand, they

hear pornographic remarks which disgust them, while their parents

envelop the subject in mystery; on the other hand, their sexual

appetites evoke desire and call for satisfaction. When a young man in

this state of mind has an emission, either spontaneously or as the

result of artificial excitation, he is seized with anxiety and shame,

often also with phantoms of disease and moral depravity. He then

requires almost heroic resolution to unburden his mind to a doctor or

to his father. With nervous subjects, inclined to be melancholic or

hypochondriacal, such a state of mind sometimes leads to suicide.

Another advantage in the instruction of children in sexual matters is

that the questions of heredity, alcohol and venereal disease can be

explained to them at the same time. In giving these explanations it is

important not to awaken eroticism in the child by dwelling more than

necessary on sexual topics. Instruction in this subject should not be

given too frequently; on the contrary, the attention of youth should,

as far as possible, be drawn away from sexual questions to other

subjects, till the age of maturity.

With the same object, erotic and pornographic literature should be

condemned. Unfortunately, many novels and dramas which meet with the

approbation of society, thanks to their fashionable or even decent

form of presentation, are often full of half-veiled eroticism, which

is much more exciting to the sexual appetite than the brutal and

realistic descriptions of Zola or Brieux, or even the erotic art of de

Maupassant.

A doctor once told me that in his country the country children, who

observed copulation among animals, often made similar attempts

themselves, while bathing or otherwise. Yet these country-people are

no more corrupt or degenerate than the townspeople. Here again,

proper instruction and warnings would be the best remedy, especially

in the case of girls.

What is to be said, on the contrary, of certain Austrian judges who

punish by imprisonment urchins of fourteen, who have copulated with

girls of the same age or made them pregnant? Have they punished the

real culprit? Do they imagine that they have done anything that will

improve these children?

The confession of Catholics plays a deplorable pedagogic part in the

sexual domain. We may admit that some high-minded priests may be

capable of modifying their interpretation of the prescriptions of

Liguori and others which we have cited, and do little or no harm to

young people of either sex. It must, however, be recognized--and the

most devout Catholic cannot deny it--that priests are only human, and

have not all the noble spirit nor the tact to fulfill the ideal

required of them in their behavior toward women. This is enough to

make the confessional, in many cases, a depraved institution from the

sexual point of view. On this subject, I refer the reader to what has

already been said in Chapter XII on the experiences of the Canadian

reformer, father Chiniqui.

The following instance is very characteristic. A very prudish man,

observing children of both sexes bathing together, exclaimed to them

indignantly, that this was improper. Thereupon a little boy replied

naively: "We do not know which is a boy nor which is a girl, because

we have no clothes." This charming reply shows how certain moral

intentions are more likely to attract the attention of young people to

erotic subjects.

=Corporal Punishment and Sadism.=--An important fact has recently

attracted the attention of the whole world, concerning certain

terrible crimes. There is no longer any doubt that in some cases

perverted masters and teachers find satisfaction for their sadist

sexual appetite in the corporal punishment of children. This was the

case with the German teacher, Dippold, who, to satisfy his perverted

appetite flogged two children confided to him by their parents, till

one of them died.

The _Arbeiter Zeitung_, of Vienna, a very conscientious journal,

published the case of a prince of a small German state, who, whenever

a schoolmaster ordered corporal punishment to a pupil, offered to

execute it himself. The journal in question attributes with good

reason this fantasy to sadism.

Again, many children were at one time belabored with blows for several

years by a person who pretended to be a police agent, and who

threatened them with prosecution if they complained. One boy more

courageous than the others finally gave information, and the affair

then ended.

We thus see that sadism does not always manifest itself by

assassination. Its less dangerous forms in which pleasure is obtained

by blows or some other form of bodily or mental ill-treatment, are no

doubt much more common. They constitute a kind of complement to sexual

desire in pathological individuals whose appetite is only partly

perverted. This fact, which has hitherto not received sufficient

attention, gives one more reason for the abolition of corporal

punishment in schools, for the art of dissimulation and refinement of

torture are unlimited in the sexually perverted. A thousand

hypocritical pretexts serve to conceal their morbid appetite, and it

has been proved by experience that they can succeed for a long time in

deceiving even experts in this subject. This was the case with Dippold

and many others.

Corporal punishment of schoolboys is only useless and harmful

brutality. It is a disgrace to civilization that it is still

maintained at a time when the bastinado has been suppressed among

convicts.

=Protection of Childhood. Child Martyrs.=--Children, especially when

illegitimate or of another marriage, are often exposed to atrocious

treatment in which alcohol and sexual passion, inconvenienced by the

presence of the child, play a great part.

I here refer the reader to the last work of Lydia von Wolfring.[14]

This author, who has made a special study of the judicial protection

of children, makes the following propositions directed against parents

and tutors who commit misdemeanors against children or pupils confided

to them, or who incite the latter to commit misdemeanors, or who show

themselves incapable of protecting them against others who abuse them

in the manner indicated (this last condition applies especially to

concubines, widows, etc.).

(1). Withdrawal of paternal, maternal or tutelary authority and

nomination of another tutor.

(2). Complete withdrawal of children in grave cases.

(3). Nomination of a "co-tutor" in all cases where a husband who

survives his wife and has children who are minors, contracts a second

marriage or lives in concubinage.

(4). Withdrawal of paternal and sometimes maternal authority from all

parents who leave the education of their children to public or private

charity, unless compelled to do so by poverty.

Without having a direct bearing on our subject the above propositions

contain the elements of an efficacious, though indirect, protection

against the abuses committed toward children; for example, when

parents urge their children to prostitution. As regards proposition 4,

I refer to what I have said in Chapter XIII. While authority over

their children is withdrawn, unnatural parents of this kind should be

obliged to work for their children's maintenance.

=Future Possibilities.=--Unfortunately we must admit that the programme

of a sexual pedagogy for the future, such as we have sketched here, is

very far from being realized. The Landerziehungsheime, which should

serve as examples for future state schools are still sparsely

distributed, and it seems impossible to carry out universally a

rational sexual education, till the state and the public are better

informed on the subject and have got rid of their prejudices. This hope

appears to be only the reflection of a distant future. In the meantime

every one must do his best. Parents, and some masters, can do much by

free initiative. It is above all things necessary that young people who

are interested in social reforms should not be satisfied with empty

phrases, nor "play to the gallery." They should set the example in

their own sexual relations, in condemning old customs which are opposed

to true natural human ethics; they should show their adherence to

sexual reforms by action and example, by raising objections to marriage

for money, to the tyranny and formality of marriage, to prostitution,

etc.; and they should attempt to put in force a healthy selection and a

rational education such as we have indicated above.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Vide.--Ernest Contou: _Ecoles nouvelles et Landerziehungsheime_,

Paris, 1905; Wilhelm Frey: _Landerziehungsheime_, Leipzig, 1902;

Forel: _Hygiene des nerfs et de l'esprit_, Stuttgart, 1905.

[14] "Das Recht des Kindes: Vorschlaege fuer eine gesetzliche Regelung."

_Allgemeine oesterreichische Gerichtszeitung_, 1904.

CHAPTER XVIII

SEXUAL LIFE IN ART

=The Genesis of Art.=--Art represents in a harmonious form the

movements of our sentimental life. The phylogeny of art is still very

obscure; Darwin attributes it to sexual attraction, through the

efforts made by one sex to attract the other; but his arguments have

never convinced me.[15]

Aristotle recognized in art the principles of representation of the

beautiful and of imitation. Karl Groos, of Giessen, refutes Darwin's

hypothesis, and upholds the principle of the representation of self by

sensations which relate to the subject, thus giving a tangible object

to corresponding internal emotions (among animals, for example, the

pleasure of hearing their own voice).[16]

The motor instinct and the movements executed in play seem to be among

the most primitive autonomous creators of art. Similar play is

observed in ants. In man, Groos attributes a considerable role to

religious ecstasy and ecstasy in general, in the genesis of art.

"Since its object is to excite the sentiments, it is obvious that art

utilizes from the first the domain which is richest in emotional

sensations, that is the sexual domain." He shows at the same time that

erotic subjects have a much more general and definite importance in

highly developed art than in what we know of primitive art.

Groos is certainly right, for primitive eroticism was too coarse and

sensual, too exclusively tactile to affect the mind as deeply and with

such gradations of symphony as is the case with civilized man. This

reason alone seems to me sufficient to support Groos' view, which is

also confirmed by the fact that primitive works of art contain very

few erotic subjects.

The more delicate art becomes the better it acts. The intensity of its

action depends, however, more especially on the power with which it

moves our feelings. Art requires discord, not only in music, but

elsewhere, in order to act more strongly on the human emotions by the

effect of contrast. In describing the ugly it awakens desire for the

beautiful. Art should be spontaneous and exuberant with the truth of

conviction; it should be free from mannerism and all dogmatism,

intellectual or moral. The positive aesthetic sentiment, or sentiment

of beauty is very relative, and depends essentially on the

phylogenetic adaptation of the human sentiments, as well as on

individual habits and popular customs. The odor of manure is no doubt

pleasant to a farm laborer, but it is unpleasant to us. The male

invert finds man more beautiful than woman. A savage or a peasant

regards as beautiful what a cultured man considers ugly. The music of

Wagner or Chopin is tiresome to a person with no musical education or

ear, while a melomaniac goes into raptures over it.

=Erotic Art.=--It is quite natural that the chord whose vibrations

influence the most powerful human emotion--sexual love--has an

infinite variety of vibrations in all forms of art. Music gives

expression to the sexual sensations and their psychic irradiations by

tones representing desire, passion, joy, sadness, deception, despair,

sacrifice, ecstasy, etc.

In sculpture and painting it is love in all its shades which furnishes

the inexhaustible theme; but it is in the domain of literature that

love celebrates its triumphs, and often also its orgies. The novels

and dramas in which it plays no part could be easily counted. I am not

referring only to common novelettes, nor to those pot-house dramas

which, in spite of repeating continually the same sentimental motives,

always succeed in arousing the uncultivated sentiments of the masses.

The greatest art aims at representing tragic, refined and complex

conflicts of the human sexual sentiments and their irradiations, so as

to awaken emotion by causing vibrations in the deepest chords of the

human mind. Among poets and authors I may mention Shakespere,

Schiller, Goethe, de Musset, Heine, Gotthelf, and de Maupassant; among

musicians, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Loewe; among

painters, Titian, Murillo, Boecklin; and sculptors such as those of

the ancient Greeks or the modern French school.

Art and pure intellect do not form an antinomy; they are associated

together in the human mind as thought and sentiment, each preserving

its own, though relative, independence. Every artistic representation

requires an intellectual foundation, in the same way as every

sentiment is connected with ideas. The artist takes his subjects from

the external world, from life, and from the events of all ages. He

also utilizes the progress of science for the mechanism of his art.

But, to transform the material into a complete picture, with a unity

of action, where the different sentiments harmonize; to transform the

work of art into a symbol of something human; to make the whole work

speak to every mind capable of comprehending it, all this can only be

the work of a great artist with creative genius.

=Art and Morality.=--True art is in itself neither moral nor immoral.

Here we can well say--to the pure everything is pure. In the mirror of

an impure mind, every work of art may appear as a pornographic

caricature, while to the high-minded it is the incarnation of the

noblest ideal. The fault is not with art and its products, but with

nature and the peculiarities of many human brains, which deform

everything they perceive, so that the most beautiful works of art only

awaken in their pornographic minds cynical sexual images.

=Art and Pornography.=--After having enunciated the preceding

fundamental principles, we must examine the following facts, which

have a special importance for the question with which we are dealing.

Under the banner of art are grouped a number of human enterprises

which are far from deserving this honor. There are few great artists,

but thousands of charlatans and plagiarists. Many of those who have

never had the least idea of the dignity of art, pander to the lower

instincts of the masses and not to their best sentiments. In this

connection, erotic subjects play a sad and powerful part. Nothing is

too filthy to be used to stimulate the base sensuality of the public.

Frivolous songs, licentious novels and plays, obscene dances,

pornographic pictures, all without any trace of artistic merit,

speculate on the erotic instinct of the masses in order to obtain

their money.

In these brothels of art, the most obscene vice is glorified, even

pathological. Unfortunately, this obscenity spoils the taste of the

public and destroys all sense of true and noble art. At the bottom of

all this degeneration of the sentiment of art and its products in the

sexual domain, we always find on close examination, corruption by

money and brutalism by alcohol. I say advisedly, the sentiment of art

and the products of art, for it is not sufficient for true artists to

create their masterpieces, it is also necessary for them to find an

echo in the public, and be understood by them. The two phenomena go

hand in hand, as supply and demand. When the sentiment of art is low

among the public, the quality of the artistic production is also low,

and inversely. Professor Behrens, director of the Industrial School of

Art at Dusseldorf, is in complete accord with me in the debasing

effect of alcohol on the artistic sentiment. (_Alkohol und Kunst._)

After establishing these facts, we return to the fundamental but

delicate question: How is true erotic art to be distinguished from the

pornographic? While certain ascetic and fanatical preachers of

morality would burn and destroy all the erotic creations of art under

the pretext that they are pornographic, other disciples of decadence

defend the most ignoble pornography under the shield of art.

I will cite two examples which have already been mentioned previously

(Chapter XIII). In a very primitive and bigoted region of the Tyrol,

certain undraped, but very innocent, statues of women were erected in

the streets. Feeling their modesty deeply wounded, and regarding the

representation of the natural human body as a great inducement to

misconduct, the peasants of the district broke up these statues. The

same with the captain of police at Zurich, who made himself notorious

by ordering the removal of the picture by Boecklin, entitled "The

Sport of the Waves," regarding the two mermaids in the picture as a

danger to the morality and virtue of the citizens of Zurich!

I designate by the term charlatanism, everything which consists in

decorating or covering by the term art, all possible perversions of

pornography, often pathological. Persons of artistic nature, dominated

by emotional sentiments, will no doubt be excused for being often

overexcited to a more or less pathological degree, for executing all

kinds of fantastic vagaries in their sexual life, and for being

capricious and excessive in love. These things are almost inseparable

from the artistic temperament. But the systematic education of

pornography, and the sexual orgies which are cynically made public, go

decidedly beyond what is licit, and cannot be included in the scope of

art without degrading it. The individual and pathological failings of

artists and the eccentricities to which they often become victims,

must not be confounded with art and its products.

On the other hand, we often find eroticism hidden where we should

least expect it, for instance in certain books for the edification of

the pious. Here also it does not fail to produce its effect, although

old maids and pious families place these books in their libraries and

recommend them as proper reading. It has been said with reason, that

"what is improper in the nudity of a statue is the fig-leaf and not

what is underneath." It is, in fact, these fig-leaves--sculptured,

painted, written or spoken--which awaken lewdness rather than deaden

it. By drawing attention to what they conceal, they excite sensuality

much more than simple nudity. In short, the eroticism which plays at

hide and seek is that which acts with greatest intensity. The

directors of ballets and other similar spectacles know this only too

well, and arrange accordingly.

I have seen at the Paris Exposition an Arab woman perform the erotic

dance called the "danse du ventre," in which the various movements of

coitus are imitated by movements of the hips and loins. I do not

think, however, that this pantomime, as cynical as it is coarse,

produces on the spectators such an erotic effect as the _decollete_

costumes of society ladies, or even certain amorous scenes of

religious ecstasy in words or pictures (vide Chapter XII). As the

"danse du ventre" was produced under the head of _ethnology_, it was

witnessed by society ladies without their being in the least degree

wounded in their sentiments of modesty! It is extremely difficult, if

not impossible, to define the limit between art and pornography. I

will attempt to give an example.

In his novels and romances, Guy de Maupassant has given perhaps the

finest and most true descriptions which exist of the psychology of

love and the sexual appetite. Although he has depicted the most

ticklish sexual situations, often most _recherche_, we can say that

with few exceptions he has not written in a pornographic spirit. His

descriptions are profound and true, and he does not attempt to make

attractive what is ugly and immoral, although he cannot be blamed for

moralizing.

We have seen that the old hypocritical eroticism consisted essentially

in the art of describing sexual forbidden fruit and making it as

desirable as possible, at the same time covering it with pious phrases

which were only a transparent mask. Vice was condemned, but described

in such a way as to make the reader's mouth water. There is nothing of

this in Guy de Maupassant, nor in Zola. By their tragic descriptions,

they provoke disgust and sadness in the reader, rather than

sensuality. It is otherwise with the illustrations which de

Maupassant's publisher has added to his works and which are frankly

pornographic. These are not fair to the author.