MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
BY RALPH GLOVER, M.D.
[Illustration: Alas! that it ever should have been born.]
OWEN’S MORAL PHYSIOLOGY:
OR,
A BRIEF AND PLAIN TREATISE
ON THE
POPULATION QUESTION.
SECOND EDITION,
WITH ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS,
BY RALPH GLOVER, M.D.
“The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.”
_Bentham on Morals and Legislation._
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY R. GLOVER, 2 ANN-ST.
1846.
ENTERED
According to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,
BY RALPH GLOVER,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern
District of the State of New York.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTION.
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER II. STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
CHAPTER III. THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.
CHAPTER IV. THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.
CHAPTER V. THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
CHAPTER VI. THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNEXION WITH
PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER VII. ADDITIONAL REMARKS.
CHAPTER VIII. TO THE MARRIED OF BOTH SEXES IN GENTEEL LIFE.
CHAPTER IX. THE PURPOSES AND OBLIGATIONS OF MARRIAGE.
CHAPTER X. CONCLUDING REMARKS.
EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.
The frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor
mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hôtel des Enfans
trouvés, (Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting, from
which this is a faithful copy, is by Vigneron, a French artist of
celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand dollars for the
Galerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French king.
The Hôtel des Enfans trouvés, than which a more humane institution was
never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy, and,
above all, a beautiful tenderness of the feelings of those poor
creatures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their
offspring, of the asylum it affords. No obtrusive observation is made,
no unfeeling question asked: the infant charge is received in silence,
and either trained and supported until maturity, or, if circumstances,
at any subsequent period, enable the parents to claim their offspring,
it is restored to their care.
There is surely no sect or creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it
can systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the
breasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The
benevolent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble
institution, was a Jesuit! Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul
remembered, long after the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow
sectaries are forgotten!
The case selected is one of mild, of modified,—I had almost said, of
_favoured_ misfortune: an extreme case were too revolting for
representation. But even under these comparatively happy circumstances,
when benevolence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the
forsaken, who that regards for a moment the abandoned helplessness of
the deserted child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but
will join in the exclamation, “Alas! that it should ever have been
born!”
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
Ten years have already elapsed since the publication of the last edition
of Mr. Owen’s book, and it is believed that such change of public
sentiment has taken place, as will render a republication of the work,
with such additions and alterations as the discoveries and improvements
in this department of physiology have brought to light, acceptable to
the author, his friends, and the public. Several years spent in a course
of experimental investigation, have brought to the Editor’s knowledge
some practical facts, which, taken in connexion with the author’s candid
investigation of the subject, would be sufficient apology (were any
necessary) for the publication of this little treatise, at the present
time. Moreover, a train of circumstances have developed themselves
during the last few years, which have done much to remove a bias from
the public mind, unfavourable to the subject matter herein discussed.
These circumstances will insure for it a more favourable reception at
this time. It is a self-evident fact, that every discovery in science
which serves to make mankind happier and better beings, and at the same
time evidently tends to the prevention of crime and to the removal of
moral evil, deserves to be extensively made known.
PREFACE.
It may be proper to state, in few words, the immediate circumstances
which induced me, at the present time, to write and publish this
treatise.
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him two
pretty specimens of English typography. One represented a triumphal arch
with a statue of the late king, and was made up of 17,000 different
pieces of common printing type; the other, an altar piece, having the
Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments, printed within it, and composed
of about 13,000 separate pieces. The gentleman was requested by a
Brighton printer who executed them, to present these, as specimens of
English typography, to some of his brethern craftsmen in America. He
presented them to me. I admired the ingenuity displayed in the
performance; but thought they ought to have been presented rather to
some printers’ society than to an individual. I therefore addressed them
to our Typographical Society in New York, accompanied by a note simply
requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in
England.
I thought no more of the matter, until I received, the other day, my
specimens back again, with a long and not a little angry letter, signed
by three of the members, accusing Robert Dale Owen of principles
subversive of every virtue under heaven, and calculated to lead to the
infraction of every commandment in the decalogue: and, more especially,
accusing him of having given his sanction to a work, as they expressed
it, “holding out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of
their daughters, sisters, and wives.”
I subsequently learned, from one of the society, circumstances which
somewhat extenuate (albeit nothing can excuse) their childish
incivility. A gentleman who busied himself last year in making out a
notable reply to the “Society for the Protection of Industry,” got up,
at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the Society several
detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile, entitled
“Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be excessively
indecent; and asked the Society whether they would receive any thing at
the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a tendency so
dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society were (or
affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee to return
to me the heretical specimens, which committee penned the letter to
which I have alluded.
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be
of pernicious tendency. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read
to me, I might possibly have utterly misconceived its tone and tendency,
and its author’s motives. But he must be blind indeed, who can read the
pamphlet through, and then (whether he approve it or not) can attribute
other than good intentions to the individual who was bold enough to put
it forth.
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing
in Indiana, to publish it, and declined doing so. My chief reasons were,
that I doubted its physiological correctness; that I did not consider
its style and tone in good taste; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the
New Harmony Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this
country only “to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify
the curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into
the hands of the philanthropist, of the physiologist, and of every
father and mother of a family.” The circumstances I have just detailed
may afford proof, that my fears regarding the hands into which it might
fall, were well founded.
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a
duty to the cause of reform to step forward and vindicate them; and this
the rather, because, unless I give my own sentiments, I shall be
understood as unqualifiedly endorsing Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one
more admires than I do the courage and strength of mind which induced
that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject; and to
him be the praise accorded, that he was _the first_ to venture it. But
the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was
repulsive (I will not say revolting) to my feelings, on the first
perusal; and though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first
impression was not attributable, in a great measure, to my prejudices,
yet I cannot doubt that a similar, and even a more unfavourable
impression, will be made on the minds of others, and thus the interests
of truth be jeopardized. Then again, I think the physiological portion
of his pamphlet somewhat incorrect as to the facts, and therefore
calculated to mislead, where an error might be of fatal consequence.
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from
similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.
R. D. O.
INTRODUCTION.
The reader, after having been taxed with the perusal of two prefaces
before reaching the subject matter, may consider it a hardship to be
further called upon to read a somewhat lengthy introduction, when the
title of a book should be its best preface; but the Editor would ask
your indulgence while he briefly states the object and design of the
following pages.
It has often been held of questionable propriety, whether the public
should be furnished with medical readings, it being presumed that such
literature tended to thwart the very purposes it professed to encourage:
that, instead of affording an exposition of the ills of our nature,
whereby we might avoid or remove them, its effect necessarily, from the
probable absence of all preliminary medical knowledge on the part of the
reader, was but to create confusion and alarm, and, even where
understood, only to magnify the fear; and this latter notion is grounded
on the popular error, that even professional men, from the same cause,
are least efficient when in attendance upon themselves. The doubt,
however, may now be considered as removed if we but observe how of late
years the desire to possess general information on all matters relative
to the functions of life, has manifested itself, by the public
attendance at the various learned institutions, and how also it has been
encouraged by men eminent for their talents and worth, devoting
themselves to the unfolding and simplification of the professional lore
they had been years in acquiring. Lectures have been given, and large
crowds of silent and anxious auditors have attended them—edition after
edition of popular works on similar subjects, by the same men, have been
called for, and eagerly caught up—the mysteries of physiology have been
laid open from the lowest to the highest scale of creation: the history
of man has been displayed, and his several elements have been
demonstrated—the phenomena of respiration, digestion, and the
circulation of the blood, have all had their share of attention, and
many of the most prevalent diseases of humanity have been discussed and
examined, their causes exposed, and the means of their avoidance
detailed. So far from the public suffering from this diffusion of
medical knowledge, immense advantages have accrued to all classes of
mankind.
Among all the departments of anatomical research thus introduced, public
decorum has judiciously excluded popular enquiries into the
physiological laws of generation. I say judiciously, for the discussion
of such topics, constituted as society is, could not be tolerated in
large assemblies, and probably of both sexes, without the risk of
engendering associations inimical to morality and virtue;[1] but no one
can be blind to the creeping progress there is daily being made, of
touching upon these subjects in popular journals and publications, and
no one can deny at least the importance of obedience to the laws that
abide over the procreation of a healthy or diseased population. In the
absence of information afforded through legitimate channels to the
public, and feeling sensible that many errors are committed through
ignorance, and endured through shame, this little work is tendered,
accompanied with the hope that its usefulness may not be deteriorated by
any misinterpretation of the writer’s motives.
The philosopher, in asking himself the question, _what is love_, solves
it by asking another question, _what is an animal_, or _what is man?_
Looking at mankind, he finds them of two classes, male and female,
varying but little as to external form or internal character. He finds
that they possess the same passions, the same desires, that they live by
the same means, and with the difference of the female being the body
qualified to breed the species, he sees them in every respect to be
exactly alike.
Reproduction or accumulation of identities similar to self is a common
law of animal and vegetable matter; and the disposition to reproduce in
all well-formed and healthy subjects is as powerful as hunger, or
thirst, or the desire of self-preservation. It is a passion not criminal
in the indulgence, but criminality attaches where the indulgence is
withheld; because health, and even life, is endangered. It is not an
artificial passion, such as a craving to exhibit the distinctions of
society; but a natural passion, which we hold in common with every other
animal. It grows with our growth, and is strengthened with our strength.
To prove that genuine love is nothing but this passion, it is sufficient
to refer to the period at which it comes on, and at which it leaves us.
We hear not of love in decaying age or in infancy; and the attachments
of habit, of kindness, of gratitude, or of human, social, individual,
parental, filial, or domestic affection, have no connexion with the
passion of love. We talk of a love, of virtue, of friendship, of
heroism, of character, of generosity; but this kind of love is a matter
wholly distinct from the passion of love between the male and female.
All men are apt to feel the tender passion of love for a beautiful
woman: all women for a handsome and agreeable man: but this is nothing
more than a desire to associate ourselves with the most agreeable
objects for sexual commerce. The every day occurrences of mankind
explain this matter, and hence the many violences and intrigues
connected with the passion of love; hence seductions, adulteries, rapes
and intercourses pronounced unlawful in different countries.
The present purpose of this work is, to explain the physiology of the
reproductive organs, and the social bearing that a proper control of the
reproductive instinct will have upon society, and its consequences when
uncontrolled, and the benefits that must necessarily accrue when kept
under due restraint.
Chemical science and experimental investigation, aided by the recent
discoveries in that department of literature, have enabled the Editor to
offer to the suffering mother a safe and sure preventive of conception.
The expediency and moral propriety of its use he trusts will be
satisfactorily explained in the subsequent pages.
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me to abuse
from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from the hypocritical, and
to reproach even from the honestly prejudiced. Some may refuse to read
it; and many more will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed
its publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the popular
mind was better prepared to receive it; but the enemies of reform have
already foisted the subject, under an odious form, on the public: and I
have no choice left. If, therefore, I prematurely touch the honest
prejudices of any, let them bear in mind, that the occasion is not of my
seeking.
The subject I intend to discuss is strictly a physiological subject,
although connected, like many other physiological subjects, with
political economy, morals, and social science. In discussing it, I must
speak as plainly as physicians and physiologists do. What I mean, I must
say. Pseudo-civilized man, that anomalous creature who has been not
inaptly defined “an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it ill
that I speak simply: I cannot help that.
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become queen of Spain,
passed through a little town of the peninsula, famous for its
manufactory of gloves and stockings. The magistrates of the place, eager
to evince their loyalty towards their new queen, presented her, on her
arrival, with a sample of those commodities for which alone their town
was remarkable. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received the
gloves very graciously; but when the stockings were presented, he flung
them away with great indignation, and severely reprimanded the
magistrates for this egregious piece of indecency. “Know,” said he,
“that a queen of Spain has no legs.”[2]
I never could sympathize with this major domo delicacy; and if you can,
my reader, you had better throw this book aside at once.
If you have travelled and observed much, you will already have learnt
the distinction between real and artificial propriety. If you have been
in Constantinople, you probably know, that when the grand seignor’s
wives are ill, the physician is only allowed to see the wrist, which is
thrust through an opening in the side of the room, because it is
improper even for a physician to look upon another man’s wife; and it is
thought better to sacrifice health than propriety.[3]
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know that
they consider a woman’s virtue sacrificed for ever, if, before marriage,
she be seen to stop on the public road to speak to her lover:[4] and if
you have read Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic
story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited her
reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers, who were
determined their sister should not survive her dishonor.
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you cannot be ignorant
how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is, to enquire of a husband
after his wife’s health; and probably you may know, that men have lost
their lives to atone for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course,
that in Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her face;
but perhaps you may not know, unless your travels have extended to
Abyssinia, that there the indecency consists in uncovering the feet.[5]
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in public, without
the slightest sense of impropriety; but you were doubtless told, that
men could not be permitted a similar liberty; seeing that modesty
requires they should perform their ablutions in private.
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries and customs, I doubt
not that he or she will read my little book understandingly, and
interpret it in the purity which springs from enlarged and enlightened
views; or, indeed, from common sense. If not—if you who now peruse these
lines have been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary
line of your own nation—perhaps of your own village—if you have not
learnt that there are other proprieties besides those of your country;
and that, after all, genuine modesty has its legitimate seat in the
heart rather than in the outward form or sanctioned custom—then, I fear
me, you may chance to cast these pages from you, as the major domo did
the proffered stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates’ honest offering, but in the
pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers impropriety in either.
Yet, even though inexperienced, if you be still young and pure-minded,
you may read this book through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in
your hearts, no odious misconstruction.
Young men and women! you who, if ignorant, are uncorrupted also; you in
whose minds honest and simple words call up none but honest and simple
ideas; you who think no evil; you who are still believers in human
virtue and human happiness; you who, like our fabled first parents in
their paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical
conventionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization; you, with
whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the breast more
powerful than that in the statue book; you whose feelings are still
unblunted, and whose sympathies still warm and generous; you who belong
to the better portion of your species, and who have formed your opinion
of mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men and women! it
is to your pure feelings I would fain speak: it is by your
unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise and my motives
judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You have nothing to
do with the subject of which it treats. Bringing to its discussion, as
you do, a distrust or contempt of the human race—accustomed as you are
to confound liberty with license, and pleasure with debauchery, it is
not for your palled feelings and brutalized senses to distinguish moral
truth in its purity and simplicity. I never discuss this subject with
such as you.
It has been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman, as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity; it is no less true, that the
most obtrusive and sensitive stickler for the etiquette of orthodox
morality is the heartless rake. The little intercourse I have had with
men of your stamp, warns me to avoid the serious discussion of any
species of moral heresy with you. You approach the subject in a tone and
spirit revolting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
pre-suppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the hearts of all
men, and more especially of all women, are deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked; that violence and vice are inherent in human
nature, and that nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from
becoming a vast slaughter-house, or an universal brothel. You judge your
own sex and the other by the specimens you have met with in wretched
haunts of mercenary profligacy; and, with such a standard in you minds,
I marvel not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue, but
that which is forced on the prudish hotbed of ceremonious orthodoxy. I
wonder not that you will not trust the natural soil, watered from the
free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun. How should you? you have
never seen it produce but weeds and poisons. Libertines and debauchees!
cast my book aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious
curiosity; and, if you read it, you will probably only give me credit
for motives and impulses like your own.
And you, prudes and hypocrites! you who strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel; you whom Jesus likened to whited sepulchres, which without indeed
are beautiful, but within are full of all uncleanness; you who affect to
blush if the ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or
displayed in crossing a style, but will read indecencies enough, without
scruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, asked to be helped to the
bosom of a duck, lest by mention of the word breast, you call up
improper associations; you who have nothing but a head and feet and
fingers; you who look demure by daylight, and make appointments only in
the dark—you, prudes and hypocrites! I do not address. Even if honest in
your prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are too artificial and
confused to profit by the present discussion; if dishonest, I desire to
have no communication with you.
Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or of libertines, I pray
you, follow my argument no farther. Stop here, and believe that my
heresies will not suit you. As a prude, you would find them too honest;
as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you might call me a
very shocking person; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded—if you be unconscious of
unworthy motive or selfish passion—if truth be your ambition, and the
welfare of our race your object—then approach with me a subject the most
important to man’s well-being; and approach it as I do, in a spirit of
dispassionate, disinterested free enquiry. Approach it, resolving to
prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. The discussion is
one to which it is every man’s and every woman’s _duty_, (and ought to
be every one’s _business_,) to attend. The welfare of the present
generation, and—yet far more—of the next, requires it. Common sense
sanctions it. And the national motto of my former country, “Honi soit
qui mal y pense,”[6] may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,
and in which it ought to be received.
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I am, who now
addresses you. Truth is truth, if it fall from Satan’s lips; and error
ought to be rejected, though preached by an angel from heaven. Even as
an anonymous work, therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and
candid examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I am ashamed
of honestly discussing a subject so useful and important, I have given
you my name on the title page.
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or has been. No
man of sense or modesty unnecessarily obtrudes personalities that regard
himself on the public. And, most assuredly, it is neither to gratify
your curiosity or my vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and
speak a few words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can,
prejudice of her sting; and thus to obtain the ears, even of the
prejudiced; and also to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing on
such a subject as this, with one, whom circumstance and education have
happily preserved from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.
All those who have intimately known the life and private habits of the
writer of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that what he now
states is true, to the letter. He was indebted to his parents for habits
of the strictest temperance—some would call it abstemiousness—in _all_
things. He never, at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or
strong drink of any kind: latterly, he has not even used animal food. He
never chanced to enter a brothel in his life; nor to associate, even for
an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom the brutal, yet
tolerated vices of man, and sometimes their own unsuspicious or
ungoverned feelings, betray to misery and degradation. He never sought
the company but of the intellectual and self-respecting of the other
sex, and has no associations connected with the name of woman, but those
of esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even girlishly
sensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which young men think it
witty to indulge at the expense of a sex they cannot appreciate. The
confidence with which women may have honored him, he has never selfishly
abused; and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which to
reproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the equal of man in
all essentials of character, and his superior in generous
disinterestedness and moral worth.
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken the confidence of
those whose confidence I value; and enough, assuredly, to excite the
ridicule, or the sneer, of him who walks through life wrapped up in the
cloak of conformity, and laughs among his private boon companions, at
the scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard
debauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited amusements.
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your attention, and
enlisting in this enquiry your reason and your better feelings, approach
with me a subject the most interesting and important to you—to me—to all
our fellow-creatures. Reader! if you be a woman, forget that I am a man:
if a man, listen to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not
as men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common interests,
instincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it be possible,
without prejudice and without passion. Reader! whatever be your sex,
sect, rank, or party, to you I would now, ere I commence, address the
poet’s exhortation—here, far more strictly applicable, than in the
investigation to which he applied it:—
“Retire! the world shut out: thy thoughts call home.
Imagination’s airy wing repress.
Lock up thy senses; let no passion stir;
Wake all to reason; let her reign alone.”
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
Among the human instincts which contribute to man’s preservation and
well-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a distinguished rank. It
peoples the earth; it perpetuates the species. Controlled by reason, and
chastened by good feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its
charm and zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is
prolific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely directed,
its influence is that of a master principle, that colours, brightly or
darkly, much of the destiny of man.
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity; and the
Shakers call it a “carnal and sensual passion.”[7] I see nothing in the
instinct itself that merits such epithets. Like other instincts, it may
assume a selfish, mercenary, or brutal character. But in itself, it
appears to me the most social and least selfish of all our instincts. It
fits us to give, even while receiving, pleasure; and, among cultivated
beings, the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter. Not
one of our instincts, perhaps, affords larger scope for the exercise of
disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral feelings of our
race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle, more humanizing and
endearing; not one lies more immediately at the root of the kindliest
charities and most generous impulses that honor and bless human nature.
Its very power, indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations; even as
the waters of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their
bed, flood and ruin the country: but the gentle flow and fertilizing
influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the instinct, when
suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to follow its own quiet
channel.
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as a low, selfish
propensity, and, as such, that the discussion of its nature and
consequences should be almost interdicted in what is called decent
society, is to me a proof of the profligacy of the age, and the impurity
of the pseudo-civilized mind. I imagine that if all men and women were
gluttons and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to speak
of diet or of temperance.
Were I an optimist, and, as such, had I accustomed myself to judge and
to admire the arrangements of nature, I should be inclined to put
forward, as one of the most admirable, the arrangement according to
which the temperate fulfilling of the dictates of this, as well as of
almost all other instincts, confers pleasure. The desire of offspring
would probably induce us to perpetuate the species, though no
gratification were connected with the act. In the language of the
optimist, then, “pleasure is gratuitously super-added.” But instead of
pausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the great whole of which
human reason seems little fitted to appreciate or comprehend, I content
myself with remarking, that this very circumstance (in itself surely a
fortunate one, inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human
happiness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a blessing, has
been perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to excess, and sometimes
to tyranny and barbarous injustice.
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure of any kind,
it would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of abuse. As it is, the
instinct is susceptible of either; just as wisdom or ignorance governs
human laws, habits, and customs. It behooves us, therefore, to be
especially careful in its regulation; else what is a great good may
become for us a great evil.
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light; _first_, as
giving the power of reproduction: _secondly_, as affording pleasure.
And here, before I proceed, let me recall to the reader’s mind, that it
is the province of rational beings to bear UTILITY strictly in view.
Reason recognizes as little the romantic and unearthly reveries of
Stoicism, as she does the doctrines of health-destroying and
mind-debasing debauchery. She reprobates equally a contemning and an
abusing of pleasure. She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and
excess on the other. In all our enquiries, then, let reason guide us,
and let UTILITY be our polar star.
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the Shakers,[8]
touching the two-fold light in which the reproductive instinct may be
regarded. They commonly stand out stoutly against the propriety of
considering it, except as a means of perpetuating the species; and,
apart from that, they deny that it may be regarded as a legitimate
source of enjoyment. In this I totally dissent from them. It is a much
more noble, because less purely selfish, instinct, than hunger or
thirst. It is an instinct that entwines itself around the warmest
feelings and best affections of the heart; and though it differ from
hunger and thirst in this, that it may remain ungratified without
causing death. I have yet to learn, that because it is _possible_, it is
therefore also _desirable_, to mortify and repress it. I admit, to the
Shakers, that in the world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it,
this instinct is the source of infinite misery; perhaps even, on the
whole, of a _balance_ of unhappiness: and I always freely admit to them,
that if I had to choose between the life of the profligate man of the
world and that of the ascetic Shaker, I should not hesitate a moment to
prefer the latter. But for admitting that the most social and kindly of
human instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think
its influence moral, humanizing, polishing, beneficent; and that the
social education of no man or woman is fully completed without it. Its
mortification (though far less injurious than its excess) is yet very
mischievous. If it do not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or
incipient disease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always
freezes and stiffens the character, by checking the flow of its
kindliest emotions; and not unfrequently gives to it a solitary,
anti-social, selfish stamp.
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the instinct is
justifiable (if, indeed, it be at all) only as necessary to the
reproduction of the species. It is justifiable, in my view, just in as
far as it makes a man happier and a better being. It is justifiable,
both as a source of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the
sexes can mutually polish and improve each other.
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot reconcile his
mind to this idea, he may as well shut it at once. I found all my
arguments on the position, that the pleasure derived from this instinct,
independent of, and totally distinct from, its ultimate object, the
reproduction of our race, is good, proper, worth securing and enjoying.
I maintain, that its temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself
and in its influence on human character.
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold character,
hinges the chief point in the present discussion. It sometimes happens,
nay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey its impulses, not
from any calculation of consequences, but simply from animal impulse.
Thus many children that are brought into the world owe their existence,
not to deliberate conviction in their parents that their birth was
really desirable, but simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in
the mass, have not learnt either to resist or control.
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper and important
one—whether man can obtain, and whether he is benefitted by obtaining,
control over this instinct. IS IT DESIRABLE, THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE
GRATIFIED WITHOUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION? OR, IS IT DESIRABLE, THAT
IN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHETHER OFFSPRING SHALL BE
THE RESULT OR NOT?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be necessary to
substantiate, that such control may be obtained without the slightest
injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral feelings; and
also, that it should be obtained without any real sacrifice of
enjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as little as possible.
Thus have I plainly stated the subject. It resolves itself, as my
readers may observe, into two distinct heads; first, the _desirability_
of such control; and, secondly, its _possibility_.
In discussing its desirability, I enter a wide field—a field often
traversed by political economists, by moralists, and by philosophers,
though generally, it will be confessed, to little purpose. This may be,
in a great measure, attributed rather to their fear than their
ignorance. The world would not permit them to say what they knew. I
intend that my readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for I
have long since ceased to ask the world’s leave to say what I think, and
what I believe to be useful to the public.
I propose to begin by considering the question in the abstract, and then
to examine it in its political and social bearings.