{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26071/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26071","id":"gutenberg_26071","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26071","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Sex -- Religious aspects"],"text":"Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, LN Yaddanapudi and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Religion and Lust\n  OR\n  THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION\n  OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION\n  AND SEXUAL DESIRE\n\n  BY\n\n  JAMES WEIR, JR., M. D.\n  AUTHOR OF THE DAWN OF REASON, ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE,\n  ETC.\n\n  THIRD EDITION\n  REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES.\n\n  CHICAGO\n  CHICAGO MEDICAL BOOK CO.\n  1905\n\n  _Copyrighted August, 1897,\n  By\n  James Weir, Jr., M. D._\n\n  _Copyrighted March, 1905,\n  By\n  James Weir, Jr., M. D._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.\n\n\n_The author of this monograph has been incited to its publication by the\ncommendations of three of the most eminent critics and editors of\nmagazines in the United States, to whom it was submitted in manuscript.\nIn this essay, he discusses his subject from a physio-psychical\nstandpoint, and believes that he has kept intact the canons of\nscientific investigation, observation, and discussion._\n\n_\"Waveland,\" June 8, 1897._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.\n\n\n_In preparing The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual\nDesire for its second edition, the author has incorporated in it a\nconsiderable amount of additional evidence in support of his theory. He\nhas carefully verified all references; he has endeavored to eliminate\nall unnecessary material; and, finally, he has changed the style of the\nwork by dividing it into three parts, thus greatly simplifying the text.\nHe feels under many obligations to his critics, both to those who\nthought his little book worthy of commendation, and to those who deemed\nhis premises and conclusions erroneous. He feels grateful to the former,\nbecause they have caused him to believe that he has added somewhat to\nthe literature of science; he thanks the latter, because in pointing out\nthat which they considered untrue, they have forced him to a new and\nmore searching study of the questions involved, thereby strengthening\nhis belief in the truthfulness of his conclusions._\n\n_To the second edition of The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion\nand Sexual Desire, the author has seen fit to add certain other essays.\nIn preparing these essays for publication, he has borrowed freely from\nhis published papers, therefore, he desires to thank the publishers of\nthe New York Medical Record, Century Magazine, Denver Medical Times,\nCharlotte Monthly and American Naturalist for granting him permission to\nuse such of his published material (belonging to them) as he saw fit._\n\n_The author asks the indulgence of the reader for certain repetitions in\nthe text. These have not been occasioned by any lack of data, but occur\nsimply because he believes that an argument is rendered stronger and\nmore convincing by the frequent use of the same data whenever and\nwherever it is possible to use them. When this plan is followed, the\nreader, so the author believes, becomes familiar with the author's line\nof thought, and is, consequently, better able to comprehend and\nappreciate his meaning._\n\n_Finally, the author has been led to the publication of these essays by\na firm belief in the truthfulness of the propositions advanced therein.\nHe may not live to see these propositions accepted, yet he believes\nthat, in the future, perhaps, in worthier and more able hands, they will\nbe so weightily and forcibly elaborated and advanced that their verity\nwill be universally acknowledged._\n\n_\"Waveland,\" September 17, 1897._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.\n\n\n_The author, after mature consideration, has thought it advisable to\nconfine the subject matter of the Third Edition of Religion and Lust\nalmost wholly to the psychical correlation of religious emotion and\nsexual desire. He has eliminated certain of the psychical problems\nembraced in the First and Second Editions and has added instead a\nbibliography. The student, he thinks, will find these changes of value,\nespecially in the matter of reference. The author has also added certain\ndata to the thesis of the work, as well as foot-notes; which, he thinks,\nwill strengthen the deductions and conclusions therein enunciated. He\nhas carefully and conscientiously edited and verified all notes and\nquotations to be found in the book and rests satisfied in the conviction\nthat, whatever may be lacking in his little volume, it will not be \"the\ntruth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.\"_\n\n_\"Waveland,\" Owensboro, Ky., Feb. 25, 1905._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                   Page\n  Religion and Lust\n\n    Chap. I. The Origin of Religious Feeling                          9\n\n    Chap. II. Phallic Worship                                        41\n\n    Chap. III. The Psychical Correlation of Religious\n    Emotion and Sexual Desire                                        99\n\n  Viraginity and Effemination                                       121\n\n  Borderlands and Crankdom                                          135\n\n  Genius and Degeneration                                           155\n\n  The Effect of Female Suffrage on Posterity                        175\n\n  Is It the Beginning of the End?                                   199\n\n  Bibliography                                                      231\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.\n\n\nI believe that man originated his first ideas of the supernatural from\nthe external phenomena of nature which were perceptible to one or more\nof his five senses; his first theogony was a natural one and one taken\ndirectly from nature. In ideation the primal bases of thought must have\nbeen founded, _ab initio_, upon sensual perceptions; hence, must have\nbeen materialistic and natural. Spencer, on the contrary, maintains that\nin man, \"the first traceable conception of a supernatural being is the\nconception of a ghost.\"[1]\n\n     [1] Spencer: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i, p. 281.\n\nPrimitive man's struggle for existence was so very severe that his\nlimited sagacity was fully occupied in obtaining food and shelter; many\nthousands of years must have passed away before he evolved any idea of\nweapons other than stones and clubs. When he arrived at a psychical\nacuteness that originated traps, spears, bows and arrows, his struggle\nfor existence became easier and he had leisure to notice the various\nnatural phenomena by which he was surrounded. Man evolved a belief in a\ngod long before he arrived at a conception of a ghost, double, or soul.\nHe soon discovered that his welfare was mainly dependent on nature,\nconsequently he began to propitiate nature, and finally ended by\ncreating a system of theogony founded on nature alone.[A]\n\n     [A] \"Theology and religion are of service in morals and conduct in\n     direct proportion as they have become adapted to our knowledge of\n     natural phenomena\"--Lydston: _The Diseases of Society_, p. 68.\n\n\"It is an evident historical fact that man _first personified natural\nphenomena_, and then made use of these personifications to personify his\nown inward acts, his psychical ideas and conceptions. This was the\nnecessary process, and external idols were formed before those which\nwere internal and peculiar to himself.\"[2] Sun, moon, and star;\nmountain, hill, and dale; torrent, waterfall, and rill, all became to\nhim distinct personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great\nharm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a\ndog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling toward\nhim on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true\nworship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning\nhe was essentially a materialist--he became a spiritualist later on.\nMan's first religion must have been, necessarily, a material one; he\nworshiped (propitiated) only that which he could see, or feel, or hear,\nor touch; his undeveloped psychical being could grasp nothing higher;\nhis limited understanding could not frame an idea involving a spiritual\nelement such as animism undoubtedly presents. Apropos of the dream\nbirth of the soul, all terrestrial mammals dream, and in some of them,\nnotably the dog and monkey, an observer can almost predicate the subject\nof their dreams by watching their actions while they are under dream\ninfluence; yet no animal save man, as far as we know, has ever evolved\nany idea of ghost or soul.[B] It may be said, on the other hand, that\nsince animals show, unmistakably, that they are, in a measure, fully\nconscious of certain phenomena in the economy of nature, and while I am\nnot prepared to state that any element of worship enters into their\nregard, I yet believe that an infinitesimal increase in the development\nof their psychical beings would, undoubtedly, lead some of them to a\nnatural religion such as our pithecoid ancestors practiced.\n\n     [2] Tito Vignoli: _Myth and Science_, p. 85.\n\n     [B] Clarke in his interesting book gives us some very readable\n     stories anent the ability of animals seeing imaginary objects. I\n     myself have seen a parrot with a marked case of _delirium tremens_,\n     due to excessive use of alcoholic stimulants (Vid. Author: _The\n     Dawn of Reason_). Romanes also gives valuable data in his _Mental\n     Evolution_ (in Animal, and in Man) concerning this subject. The fox\n     terrier (Vid. Author: _Dawn of Reason_) which carried his dreams\n     into his awakened state is apropos.\n\nThe Egyptians noticed, over four thousand years ago, that cynocephali,\nthe dog-headed apes of the Nile Valley, were in the habit of welcoming\nthe rising sun with dancing and with howls of joy! \"The habit of certain\nmonkeys (cynocephali) assembling, as it were, in full court, and\nchattering noisily at sunrise and sunset, would almost justify the, as\nyet, uncivilized Egyptians in intrusting them with the charge of hailing\nthe god morning and evening as he appeared in the east or passed away in\nthe west.\"[3] An English fox-terrier of my acquaintance is very much\nafraid of thunder or any noise simulating thunder. A load of coal\nrushing through a chute into the coal cellar will send him, trembling\nand alarmed, to his hiding-place beneath a bed. This dog has never been\nshot over, nor has he, as far as I know, ever heard the sound of a gun.\nI am confident that he considers the thunder as being supernatural, and\nthat he would propitiate it, if he only knew how.\n\n     [3] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 103, and\n     Maspero: _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archiologie Egyptiennes_, vol.\n     ii, pp. 34, 35.\n\nIt is not probable that, at the present time, there exists a race of\npeople which has not formulated an idea of ghost or soul; yet in ancient\ntimes, and up to a century or so ago, there existed many peoples who had\nnot conceived any idea of ghosts or doubles.\n\nAccording to Maspero, Sayce, Champollion, and other Egyptologists, the\nancient Egyptians probably had a natural theogony long before they\narrived at any idea of a double. In the beginning they treated the\ndouble or ghost with scant ceremony; it was only after many years that\nan element of worship entered into their treatment of the ghosts of\ntheir dead ancestors. They believed, at first, that the double dwelt\nforever in the tomb along with the dead body; afterward, they evolved\nthe idea that the double of the dead man journeyed to the \"Islands of\nthe Blessed,\" where it was judged by Osiris according to its merits.[4]\nWe have no reason for believing that the ancient Hebrews at the time of\nthe Exodus had any knowledge of, or belief in, the existence of the soul\nor double, yet, that they did believe in the supernatural can not be\nquestioned.[C] When Cook touched at Tierra del Fuego, he found a people\nin whom there existed mental habitudes but little above those to be\nfound in the anthropoid apes. They had no knowledge whatever of the soul\nor double and but a dim concept of the powers of nature; they had not\nyet advanced far enough in psychical development to evolve any\nconsistent form of natural theogony. They had only a shadowy concept of\nevil beings, powers of the air that inhabited the dense brakes of the\nforest, whom it would be dangerous to molest. Father Junipero Serra\ndeclares that when he first established the Mission Dolores, the\nAhwashtees, Ohlones, Romanos, Altahmos, Tuolomos, and other Californian\ntribes had no word in their language for god, ghost, or devil.[5] The\nInca Yupangui informed Balboa that there were many tribes in the\ninterior which had no idea of ghost or soul.[6] Another writer says,\nthat the Chirihuanas did not worship anything either in heaven or on\nearth, and that they had no belief whatever in a future state.[7] Modern\ntravelers have, however, found distinct evidences of phallic worship in\ncertain observances and customs of this tribe.[8]\n\n     [4] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 183 _et seq._\n\n     [C] That the patriarchs had their household gods, we have every\n     reason for believing; these household gods were, however, tutelary\n     divinities, such as were kept in the house of every Chaldean, and\n     were not the images of ancestors. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole\n     the household gods of Laban, her father, who is called a Syrian.\n     Abraham himself was a Chaldean. Gen. 11:31; also Gen. 31:19-20.\n\n     [5] Bancroft: _The Native Races of the Pacific States of North\n     America_, vol. i, p. 400.\n\n     [6] Balboa: _History of Peru_.\n\n     [7] Garcilasso: _The Royal Commentaries of the Incas_.\n\n     [8] Browlow: _Travels_, p. 136.\n\nCertain autochthons of India, when first discovered, were exceedingly\nimmature in religious beliefs; they had neither god nor devil; they\nwandered through the woods subsisting on berries and fruits, and such\nsmall animals as their undeveloped and feeble sagacity allowed them to\ncapture and slay. They did not even provide themselves with shelter,\nbut, in pristine nakedness, roamed the forests of the Ghauts, animals\nbut slightly above the anthropoid apes in point of intelligence. \"In\nCentral California we find,\" says Bancroft, \"whole tribes subsisting on\nroots, herbs, and insects; having no boats, no clothing, no laws, no\nGod.\"[9]\n\n     [9] Bancroft: _The Native Races of the Pacific States of North\n     America_, vol. i, p. 400.\n\nIn the northwestern corner of the American continent there dwells a\nprimitive race, which, for the sake of unification, I will style the\nAleutians. When these people were first discovered they were in that\nstate of social economics which they had reached after thousands of\nyears of psychical and social evolution; a primitive people, such as our\nown ancestors were in the very beginning of civilization. The word\ncivilization is used advisedly; civilization is comparative, and its\ndegrees begin with the inception of man himself.\n\nIn their theogony, the Aleutians had arrived at an idea of the double or\nsoul, thus showing that their religion had progressed several steps\ntoward abstraction, that triumph of civilized religiosity; yet there\nremained enough veneration of natural objects to show that the origin of\nthe religious feeling began, with them, in nature-propitiation. The\nbladder of the bear, which viscus, in the estimation of the Aleutians,\nis the seat of life, is at once suspended above the entrance of the\n_kachim_ or communal dwelling and worshiped by the hunter who has slain\nthe beast from which it was taken. Moreover, when the bear falls beneath\nthe weapons of an Aleutian, the man begs pardon of the beast and prays\nthe latter to forgive him and to do him no harm. \"A hunter who has\nstruck a mortal blow generally remains within his hut for one or several\ndays, according to the importance of the slain animal.\"[10] The first\nherring that is caught is showered with compliments and blessings;\npompous titles are lavished upon it, and it is handled with the greatest\nrespect and reverence; it is the herring-god![11]\n\n     [10] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 18.\n\n     [11] Dall: _Alaska and its Resources_, p. 96.\n\nSidne, chief god of the Aleutian theogony, on final analysis, is found\nto be the Earth, mother of all things. The _angakouts_, or priests, of\nthis people individualize and deify, however, all the phenomena of\nnature; there are cloud-gods, sea-gods, river-gods, fire-gods,\nrain-gods, storm-gods, etc., etc., etc. Everywhere, throughout all\nnature, the Inoit, or Aleutian system of theology, penetrates, stripped,\nit is true, of much of its original materialism, yet retaining enough to\nshow its undoubted origin in the sensual percepts, recepts, and concepts\nof its primal founders.\n\nAs I have observed above, the religion of these people has gained a\ncertain degree of abstraction, and this abstraction is further shown by\nthe presence of certain phallic rites and ceremonies in their religious\nobservances; but of this, more anon.[D]\n\n     [D] In a letter to me, a naval officer of high rank states that,\n     beyond question of doubt, the Aleutian priests keep male concubines\n     whom they use in their religious observances. He, also, gives other\n     evidences of phallic worship among these people.\n\nIn most of the tribes of Equatorial Africa, nature-worship has been\nsuperseded by ghost-worship, devil-worship, or witch-worship, or,\nrather, by ghost, devil, or witch propitiation; yet, in the sanctity of\nthe fetich, which is everywhere present, we see a relic of\nnature-worship. Moreover, many of these tribes deify natural phenomena,\nsuch as the sun, the moon, the stars, thunder, lightning, etc., etc.,\netc., showing that here, too, in all probability, religious feeling had\nits origin in nature propitiation.\n\nAbstraction also enters, to a certain extent, into the religious beliefs\nof most of these negroes, in whom primal materialism has given place to\nthe unbridled superstition of crude spiritism. The curious habit these\npeople have of scraping a little bone dust from the skull of a dead\nancestor and then eating it with their food, thus, as they think,\ntransmitting from the dead to the living the qualities of the former, is\nclose kin to, and, in my opinion, is probably derived from, a worship of\nthe generative principle. When we take into consideration the fact that\ncircumcision, _extensio clitoridis_, and other phallic rites are\nexceedingly common and prevalent among these negroes, this opinion has\nstrong evidence in its support.[12]\n\n     [12] Negroes of Benin and Sierra Leone (Bosman, _loc. cit._, p.\n     526), Mandingoes (Waitz, vol. ii, p. 3), Bechuanas (Holub, _loc.\n     cit._, p. 398); quoted also by Westermarck, _Human Marriage_, p.\n     206.\n\nThe Wa-kamba may have some idea of immortality, though observers have\nnever been able to determine this definitely. \"The dead bodies of chiefs\nare not thrown to the hyenas, as with the Masai, but are carefully\nburied instead.... The bodies of less important members of the tribe are\nsimply thrown to the hyenas.\"[13]\n\n     [13] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 351.\n\nIn this people, religious ideas are exceedingly primitive and\nindefinite. They seem to propitiate nature, however, when they wish\nrain, for they offer up to the rain-spirit votive offerings of bananas,\ngrain, and beer, which they place beneath the trees. This seems to be\ntheir only religious rite according to Gregory, who, in all probability\nis in error. For, in the next sentence, he informs us that these\nnegroes practice circumcision. He thinks that they perform this\noperation for sanitary reasons, \"as the natives have continually to ford\nstreams and wade through swamps abounding in the larvae of _Bilharzia\nhaematuria_, the rite no doubt lessens the danger of incurring\nhaematuria.\"[14] This is bestowing upon ignorant and savage negroes a\npsychical acuteness which far transcends that of the laity of civilized\nraces! What do the Wa-kamba know of sanitation, haematuria, and the larva\nof Bilharzia![E] Circumcision among these people always occurs at\npuberty, and is, unquestionably, a phallic rite. Parenthetically, it may\nbe stated here that a few of the primitive peoples still in existence\nappear to have grasped the idea of the life-giving principle, and to\nhave established worship of the _functio generationis_ without having\nexperienced certain preliminary psychical stages necessary for its\nevolution from nature-worship. I believe, however, that this is apparent\nand not real; nature-worship, very probably, at one time existed among\nall these people.\n\n     [14] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 351.\n\n     [E] Inasmuch as the haematuria occasioned by the larvae of Bilharzia\n     has its origin in the parenchyma of the kidney, and, since we have\n     no reason for believing that this race has any idea of histology or\n     pathology, it is manifest folly to ascribe circumcision as a\n     prophylactic measure against this parasite. Bilharzia is now\n     considered a true parasite by Wolfe.\n\nThe Kikuyu have a very elaborate system of theogony, in which all of the\nphenomena of nature with which they are acquainted are deified. A goat\nis invariably sacrificed to the sun when they set out on a journey, and\nits blood is carried along and sprinkled on the paths and bridges in\norder to appease the spirits of the forest and the river.\n\nStuhlmann places this tribe among the Bantu; from the evidence of other\nobservers, however, they seem to be Nilotic Hamites, and belong properly\nto the Masai.[15] This would account for the similarity of method in\ncircumcision, which, among both Kikuyu and Masai, is incomplete.\nJohnston calls attention to this very peculiar method and describes it\nminutely in a Latin foot-note.[16]\n\n     [15] Stuhlmann: _Mit Emin Pasha_, p. 848.\n\n     [16] Johnston: _The Kilima-Njaro Expedition_, p. 412.\n\nThe Masai are mixed devil, nature, and phallic worshipers; the last\nmentioned cult being evolved, beyond question, from nature-worship. It\nmay be set down as an established fact that, where nature-worship does\nnot exist in some form or other among primitive peoples, phallic worship\nis likewise absent. Indeed, such peoples generally have no religious\nfeeling whatever. They may have some shadowy idea of an evil spirit like\nthe \"_Aurimwantya dsongo ngombe auri kinemu_,\" the Old Man of the\nWoods[17] of the Wa-pokomo, but that is all.\n\n     [17] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 344.\n\nCarl Lumholtz, writing of the Australians, says: \"The Australian blacks\ndo not, like many other savage tribes, attach any ideas of divinity to\nthe sun or moon. On one of our expeditions the full moon rose large and\nred over the palm forest. Struck by the splendor of the scene, I pointed\nat the moon and asked my companions, 'Who made it?' They answered,\n'Other blacks.' Thereupon I asked, 'Who made the sun?' and got the same\nanswer. The natives also believe that they themselves can produce rain,\nparticularly with the help of wizards. To produce rain they call\n_milka_. When on our expeditions we were overtaken by violent tropical\nstorms, my blacks always became enraged at the strangers who had caused\nthe rain.\"[18] In regard to their belief in the existence of a double or\nsoul, the same author sums up as follows: \"Upon the whole, it may be\nsaid that these children of nature are unable to conceive a human soul\nindependent of the body, and the future life of the individual lasts no\nlonger than his physical remains.\"[19] Mr. Mann, of New South Wales,\nwho, according to Lumholtz, has made a thirty years' study of the\nAustralians, says that the natives have no religion whatever, except\nfear of the \"devil-devil.\"[20] Another writer, and one abundantly\nqualified to judge, says that they acknowledge no supreme being, have no\nidols, and believe only in an evil spirit whom they do not worship. They\nsay that this spirit is afraid of fire, so they never venture abroad\nafter dusk without a fire-stick.[21]\n\n     [18] Lumholtz: _Among Cannibals_, p. 282.\n\n     [19] _Ibid._, p. 279.\n\n     [20] Lumholtz: _Among Cannibals_, p. 283.\n\n     [21] _Ibid._, p. 283.\n\n\"I verily believe we have arrived at the sum total of their religion, if\na superstitious dread of the unknown can be so designated. Their mental\ncapacity does not admit of their grasping the higher truths of pure\nreligion,\" says Eden.[22] It is simply an inherent fear of the unknown;\nthe natural, inborn caution of thousands of years of inherited\nexperiences.\n\n     [22] Eden: _The Fifth Continent_, p. 69; quoted also by Lumholtz:\n     _Among Cannibals_.\n\nIn these savages we see a race whose psychical status is so low in the\nintellectual scale that they have not evolved any idea of the double or\nsoul. The mental capacity of the Australians, I take it, is no lower\nthan was that of any race (no matter how intellectual it may be at the\npresent time) at one period of its history. All races have a tendency\ntoward psychical development under favorable surroundings; it has been a\nprogress instead of a decadence, a rise instead of a fall! Evolution has\nnot ceased; nor will it end until _Finis_ is written at the bottom of\nTime's last page.\n\nThere are yet other people who believe in the supernatural, yet who have\nno idea of immortality. When Gregory ascended the glacier of Mount\nKenya, the water froze in the cooking-pots which had been filled over\nnight. His carriers were terribly alarmed by the phenomenon, and swore\nthat the water was bewitched! The explorer scolded them for their\nsilliness and bade them set the pots on the fire, which, having been\ndone, \"the men sat round and anxiously watched; when it melted they\njoyfully told me that the demon was expelled, and I told them they could\nnow use the water; but as soon as my back was turned they poured it\naway, and refilled their pots from the adjoining brook.\"[23]\n\n     [23] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 170.\n\nStanley declares that no traces of religious feeling can be found in the\nWahuma. \"They believe most thoroughly in the existence of an evil\ninfluence in the form of a man, who exists in uninhabited places, as a\nwooded, darksome gorge, or large extent of reedy brake, but that he can\nbe propitiated by gifts; therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of\nthe meat, which he tosses, however, as he would to a dog, or he places\nan egg, or a small banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature\ndwelling, which is always at the entrance to the zeriba.\"[24]\n\n     [24] Stanley: _In Darkest Africa_, vol. ii, p. 400.\n\nThis observer shows that he does not know the true meaning of the word\nreligion; the example that he gives demonstrates the fact that these\nnegroes _do_ have religious feeling. The simple act of offering\npropitiatory gifts to the \"evil influence\" is, from the very nature of\nthe deed, a religious observance. Furthermore, these savages have charms\nand fetiches innumerable, which, in my opinion, are relics of\nnature-worship. The miniature house mentioned by Stanley is common to\nthe majority of the equatorial tribes, and seems to be a kind of common\nfetich; _i. e._, one that is enjoyed by the entire tribe. It is\nmentioned by Du Chaillu, Chaille Long, Stanley, and many others.[25]\n\n     [25] Du Chaillu: _Equatorial Africa_; Chaille Long: _Naked Truths\n     of Naked People_; Stanley: _In Darkest Africa_.\n\nDu Chaillu tells of one tribe, the Bakalai, in which the women worship a\nparticular divinity named Njambai.[26] This writer is even more inexact\nthan Stanley, hence, we get very little scientific data from his\nvoluminous works. From what he says of Njambai,[F] I am inclined to\nbelieve that he is a negro Priapus; this, however, is a conjectural\nbelief and has no scientific warrant.\n\n     [26] Du Chaillu: _Equatorial Africa_, p. 240.\n\n     [F] Possibly, this god is the same as the god mentioned by\n     Livingstone, Baker, and Stanley.\n\nThe Tucuna Indians of the Amazon Valley, who resemble the Passes, Juris,\nand Muahes in physical appearance and customs, social and otherwise, are\ndevil-worshipers. They are very much afraid of the _Jupari_, or devil,\nwho seems to be \"simply a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all\nthose mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which are not very\nimmediate or obvious to their dull understandings. The idea of a Creator\nor a beneficent God has not entered the minds of these Indians.\"[27]\n\n     [27] Bates: _The Naturalist on the River Amazon_, p. 381.\n\nThe Peruvians, at the time of the Spanish conquest, worshiped nature;\nthat is, the sun was deified under the name of _Pachacamac_, the Giver\nof Life, and was worshiped as such. The Inca, who was his earthly\nrepresentative, was likewise his chief priest, though there was a great\nHigh Priest, or _Villac Vmu_, who stood at the head of the hierarchy,\nbut who was second in dignity to the Inca.[28] The moon, wife of the\nsun, the stars, thunder, lightning, and other natural phenomena were\nalso deified. But, as it invariably happens, where nature-worship is\nallowed to undergo its natural evolution, certain elements of phallic\nworship had made their appearance. These I will discuss later on.\n\n     [28] Prescott: _The Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 101.\n\nThe great temple of the sun was at Cuzco, \"where, under the munificence\nof successive sovereigns, it had become so rich that it received the\nname of Coricancha, or 'the Place of Gold.'\"[29] According to the\n_relacion_ of Sarmiento, and the commentaries of Garcilasso and other\nSpanish writers, this building, which was surrounded by chapels and\nsmaller edifices, and which stood in the heart of the city, must have\nbeen truly magnificent with its lavish adornments of virgin gold!\n\n     [29] Prescott: _The Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 95.\n\nUnlike the Aztecs, a kindred race of people, the Peruvians rarely\nsacrificed human beings to their divinities, but, like the religion of\nthe former, the religion of the latter had become greatly developed\nalong ceremonial lines, as we will see later on in this essay.\n\nIt is a far cry from Peru to Japan, from the Incas to the Ainus, yet\nthese widely separated races practiced religions that were almost\nidentical in point of fundamental principles. Both worshiped nature, but\nthe Peruvians were far ahead of the Ainus in civilization, and their\nreligion, as far as ritual and ceremony are concerned, far surpassed\nthat of the \"Hairy Men\" when viewed from an aesthetic standpoint.\nEthically, I am inclined to believe the religion of the Ainus is just as\nhigh as was that of the Incas.\n\nLiterature is indebted to the Rev. John Batchelor for that which is,\nprobably, the most readable book that has ever been published about\nthese interesting people; from a scientific standpoint, however, this\nwork is greatly lacking. Many ethnologists and anthropologists\nconsidered the Ainu autochthonic to Japan; I am forced to conclude from\nthe evidence, however, that he is an emigrant, and that he came\noriginally from North China or East Siberia. Be he emigrant or indigene,\none thing is certain, namely, that he has been an inhabitant of the\nJapanese Archipelago for thousands of years. The oldest book in the\nJapanese language has this in it anent the Ainus: \"When our august\nancestors descended from heaven in a boat, they found upon this island\nseveral barbarous races, the most fierce of whom were the Ainu.\"[G]\n\n     [G] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 13.\n\nThe Ainu is probably the purest type of primitive man in existence. I\nhad been led to believe by the work of Miss Bird[30] that these people\nwere on a par with the Australians, and that they had no religious ideas\nwhatever. (Vogt seems to advance this conclusion also,[31] while De\nQuatrefages[32][H] appears to have omitted this people from his\ntabulation. Peschel places them among the Giliaks on the Lower Amoor,\nand the inhabitants of the Kurile Islands.[33] These tribes are mixed\nnature, devil, and phallic worshipers.) Batchelor, however, shows very\nclearly that these people _do_ have a religion, and that this religion\nis highly developed.\n\n     [30] Bird: _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan_.\n\n     [31] Vogt: _Lectures on Man_.\n\n     [32] De Quatrefages: _The Human Species_.\n\n     [H] De Quatrefages, in his _Hommes Fossiles_, places the Ainus\n     anthropologically among the Primeval Teutons!\n\n     [33] Peschel: _The Races of Man_, p. 388.\n\nTheir chief god, or rather goddess (for the Ainus regard the female as\nbeing higher than the male as far as gods are concerned), is the\nsun.[34] Like the Peruvians, they regard the sun as the Creator, but\nthey are unlike them in the fact that they think that they cannot reach\nthe goddess by direct appeal. She must be addressed through\nintermediaries or messengers. These messengers, the goddess of the fire,\nthe goddess of the water, etc., are in turn addressed through the\nagency of _inao_, or prayer-sticks. This intermediary idea is curiously\nlike some practices of the Roman Catholic church, or, rather, of\ncommunicants, who get the saints to carry their petitions to God.\n\n     [34] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 89.\n\nThe inao are peculiar, inasmuch as nothing exactly like them is known.\nThe feather prayer-plumes of some of the Western Indians are used for\nlike purposes, but these are offered directly to the Great Spirit, and\nnot to intermediaries. \"Inao, briefly described, are pieces of whittled\nwillow wood, having the shavings attached to the top.\"[35] Like the\nAleutians, when these people kill a bear or other wild animal, they\npropitiate its spirit by bestowing upon it the most fulsome compliments,\nand, like the religion of these Indians, the religion of the Ainus has\ndeveloped along natural lines, and shows certain phallic elements.\n\n     [35] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 87.\n\nWe see from the examples here given, that religious feeling had its\norigin in the idea of propitiation; in fact, that it was born in fear,\nand by fear was it fostered. We see, furthermore, that man was not\ncreated with religious feeling as a psychical trait, but that he\nacquired it later on. We see, finally, that religious feeling is based,\nprimarily and fundamentally, on one of the chief laws of\nnature--self-protection. The evolution and growth of Ethics demonstrate\nthis beyond peradventure.\n\nIt is not at all probable that man in the beginning, just after his\nevolution from his ape-like ancestor, had, at first, any belief whatever\nin supernatural agencies. In his struggle for existence, all of his\npowers were directed toward the procurement of his food and the\npreservation of life; the pithecoid man was only a degree higher than\nthe beasts in the scale of animal life. His psychic being, as yet,\nremained, as it were, _in ovo_, and a long period of time must have\nelapsed before he began to formulate and to recognize a system of\ntheogony. After years of experience, during which the laws of heredity\nand progressive evolution played prominent parts, he took precedence\nover other animals, and his struggle for existence became easier. He\nthen had time to study the wonderful and, to him, mysterious phenomena\nof nature. His limited knowledge could not explain the various natural\noperations by which he was surrounded, therefore he looked upon them as\nbeing mysterious and supernatural. His psychical being became active and\ninquiring, to satisfy which he created a system of gods which was\nfounded on natural phenomena. At first, the gods of primitive man were,\nprobably, few in number, and the chief god of all was the sun. Man early\nrecognized the sun's importance in the economy of nature; this beautiful\nstar, rising in the east in the morning, marching through the heavens\nduring the day, and sinking behind the western horizon in the evening,\nmust have been, to the awakening soul of man, a source of endless\nconjecture and debate. What was more natural than his making the sun the\ngreatest god in his system of theogony? Man recognized in him the source\nof all life, and, when he arrived at an age when he could use abstract\nideation in formulating his religion, he deified the life-giving\nfunction as he noticed it in himself; he began to worship the generative\nprinciple. Solar worship and its direct descendant, phallic worship, at\none time or another were the religions of almost every race on the face\nof the globe. Solar worship, owing to its material quality, has long\nsince been abandoned by civilized man; but phallic worship, the first\n_abstract_ religion evolved by man, has taken deeper root; its\nfundamental principles are still present, though they have their seat in\nour subliminal consciousness, and we are, therefore, not actively\nconscious of their existence. But before entering on the discussion of\nthis last point, let us turn for a time to a study of phallic worship.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nPHALLIC WORSHIP.\n\n\nPhallic worship, in some form or other, has been practiced by almost\nevery race under the sun. Indeed, among primitive peoples, those who do\nnot practice this cult are so few in number that they have, practically,\nno weight whatever in a discussion of this subject. Moreover, those\nprimitive peoples who do not worship the generative principle, either\ndirectly or indirectly, are without any religion whatsoever, and are the\nvery lowest of all mankind in point of intelligence. I have only to cite\nthe Tierra del Fuegians, the Bushmen, the Australians, and the Akka or\nTicki-Ticki, the Pygmies of Central Africa, to prove the truthfulness of\nthis assertion. There are other peoples who would serve as examples, but\nit would be a work of supererogation to enumerate them to even the\ncasual reader.\n\nD'Hancarville, in his magnificent work, has traced the progress of the\nworship of the generative principle over the entire world, while Knight,\nin his scholarly essay,[36] has brought out its psychological truths in\na manner which cannot be surpassed. It is not my purpose to enter into a\ndetailed account of this cult; I propose rather to discuss its probable\norigin in the beginning, and to give a brief outline of its history, as\nit is to be observed among living peoples. I wish to show, also, its\nconnection with certain religious ceremonies and festivals of Christian\npeoples, which had their origin, _ab initio_, in the worship of Priapus.\nAnd, before beginning the discussion of this subject, I beg to remind\nthe reader that a priest of Priapus regarded his sistrum as being just\nas sacred as a Catholic priest now considers any vessel or robe used in\nthe service of mass, and that the priests of Brahma look on the Lingam\nwith as much reverence and awe as did the Levites on the Ark of the\nCovenant and the Holy of Holies. Phallic worship is a religion, the\noldest _abstract_ religion in existence. Fundamentally the Creator--the\nLife Giver--is the phallic worshiper's god. Is he very far wrong in all\nthat is absolutely essential? \"Men think they know because they are sure\nthey feel, and are firmly convinced because strongly agitated. Hence\nproceed that haste and violence with which devout persons of all\nreligions condemn the rites and doctrines of others, and the furious\nzeal and bigotry with which they maintain their own, while, perhaps, if\nboth were equally understood, both would be found to have the same\nmeaning, and only to differ in the modes of conveying it.\"[37]\n\n     [36] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_.\n\n     [37] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 14.\n\nThe Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are worshipers of the generative\nprinciple, and, like most religious sects, have evolved some very\ncurious rites and ceremonies. The ancient temples of Venus or Aphrodite\nwere filled with _hetarae_, who were necessary adjuncts for the proper\nperformance of the mysteries of Priapus. These Indians, however, will\nnot allow women to enter into their sacred ceremonies, but, on the\ncontrary, emasculate men (by occasioning organic and functional\ndegeneration of the sexual organs), who serve as hetarae to the chiefs\nand shamans or priests.[I] These androgynes are called _mujerados_, a\nterm which aptly describes their sexual condition.\n\n     [I] The Aleutians, according to the testimony of unimpeachable\n     witnesses, make their neophytes pass through like physical\n     exercises in preparing them for their duties in celebrating Priapic\n     Rites.\n\n\"In order to cultivate a mujerado, a very powerful man is chosen, and he\nis made to masturbate excessively and ride constantly. Gradually such\nirritable weakness of the genital organs is engendered that, in riding,\ngreat loss of semen is induced. This condition of irritability passes\ninto paralytic impotence. Then the testicles and penis atrophy, the hair\nof the beard falls out, the voice loses its depth and compass, and\nphysical strength and energy decrease. Inclinations and disposition\nbecome feminine. The mujerado loses his position in society as a man. He\ntakes on feminine manners and customs, and associates with women; yet,\nfor religious reasons, he is held in high honor.\"[38] The phallic\nceremonies of the Pueblos take place in the spring, when the life\nprinciple is exceedingly active throughout all nature.\n\n     [38] Krafft-Ebing: _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 201; see also\n     Hammond: _Impotence in the Male_.\n\nIn all probability the \"botes\" of the Montana Indians and the \"burdachs\"\nof the Washington tribes serve as masculine hetarae to the chiefs and\nmedicine men, though this has not been definitely determined. Dr. Holder\ndescribed a typical \"bote\" of the Absaroke tribe in the New York Medical\nJournal, 1889. This androgyne, in many respects, resembled the mujerados\nof the Pueblo Indians, and probably served a like purpose in his tribe.\n\nAccording to Ross, a Konyaga woman, when she has a good-looking boy,\ndresses him in girl's clothes and brings him up as a female. When he\narrives at a suitable age he is sent to wait on the priests of the tribe\nand is introduced by them into the sacred mysteries of their cult; in\nfact, he becomes a masculine hetara.\n\nWhen we read of such things we feel pretty much as Herodotus felt when\nhe saw the naked women of Mendes submitting themselves openly {~GREEK\nSMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL\nLETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER\nIOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK\nSMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER\nIOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK\nSMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER\nRHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL\nLETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} [Transliteration: es epideixin\nanthropon] to the embraces of the sacred goat.[J] To the Greek historian\nthis act was simply horrible ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL\nLETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER\nALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} [Transliteration: teras]); and\nyet these Egyptians experienced no repugnance whatever. To them it\nrepresented the incarnation of the deity, and was, therefore, a sacred\nand holy action, just as masculine hetarism is regarded as a holy\nprofession among the Konyagas. Phallic hetarism is one of the sacraments\nof the Konyaga church, and, as such, it is held in all that reverence\nand awe with which the savage devotee endows the mysteries of his\nfaith.[K]\n\n     [J] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 46.\n\n     [K] Masculine hetarism is still in vogue among many primitive\n     peoples, and is distinctly a religious rite. \"The Kanats of New\n     Caledonia frequently assemble at night in a cabin to give\n     themselves up to this kind of debauchery.... In the whole of\n     America, from north to south, similar customs have existed or still\n     exist.\" Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 62. The same\n     author says: \"It was also a widely spread custom throughout\n     Polynesia, and even a special deity presided over it. The Southern\n     Californians did the same, and the Spanish missionaries, on their\n     arrival in the country, found men dressed as women and assuming\n     their part. They were trained to this from youth, and often\n     publicly married to the chiefs. Nero was evidently a mere\n     plagiarist. The existence of analogous customs has been proved\n     against the Guyacurus of La Plata, the natives of the Isthmus of\n     Darien, the tribes of Louisiana, and the ancient Illinois.\"\n\nThe ancient Hebrews, ancestors of one of the most ancient of the\ncivilized races of the earth, held it in high honor. Even wise King\nSolomon, in the days of his old age, turned from the abstractedly pure\nreligion of his father \"to Astoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and\nto Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.\"[39] He was guilty of\nconstructing a \"high place\" for Chemosh, \"the abomination of Moab.\"[40]\nAny good modern biblical encyclopedia will tell the reader about\nAstoreth and her worship, and what the \"high places\" and the \"groves\"\nwere.\n\n     [39] _I Kings_: chap xi, verse 5.\n\n     [40] _Ibid._, verse 7.\n\nEven the \"good kings,\" such as Asa, Amaziah, _et al._, did not remove\nthe high places and the groves, for we read that, notwithstanding the\nfact that these kings did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,\nthey did not remove the high places. In the case of Amaziah, it is\nwritten:\n\n\"And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like\nDavid, his father; he did according to all things as Joash, his father,\ndid.\n\n\"Howbeit, the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did\nsacrifice and burnt incense on the high places.\"[41] All of the\nso-called \"wicked kings\" were phallic worshipers, and both male and\nfemale hetarism flourished during their reigns. We read of Josiah, a\n\"good king,\" \"And he broke down the houses of the sodomites\n(_kedescheim_) that were by the house of the Lord.\"[42] Here, in\nunmistakable terms (_kedescheim_), the phallic act of the hetara is\nspecified.\n\n     [41] _II Kings_: chap. xiv, verses 3, 4.\n\n     [42] _Ibid._, chap. xxiii, verse 7.\n\nHerodotus wrote: \"Almost all mankind consort with women in their sacred\ntemples, except in Greece and Egypt.\"[43] This is a queer mistake for a\nGreek to make, yet this historian is noted for his unreliability, and we\nshould not feel surprised at this gross error. Concerning the Aphrodite\nof Abydos, what she was and what took place in her temples, is a matter\nof history. Indeed, this goddess was surnamed _Porne_! In Corinth,\ndelubral hetarism was openly practiced; also at Bubastis and Naucratis\nin Egypt. Royal princesses were pallacides in the temple of Ammon; in\nfact, they took pride in the title of _pallakis_![L] \"It is known what\nexcessive debauchery took place in the 'groves' and 'high places' of the\n'Great Goddess.' The custom was so deeply rooted that in the grotto of\nBethlehem what was done formerly in the name of Adonis is to-day in the\nname of the Virgin Mary by Christian pilgrims; and the Mussulman\n_hadjis_ do likewise in the sanctuaries of Mecca!\"[44][M]\n\n     [43] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 64.\n\n     [L] Strabo, when writing of the Armenians, who were phallic\n     worshipers, says: \"It is the custom of the most illustrious\n     personages to consecrate their virgin daughters to this goddess\n     (Anaitis). This in no way prevents them from finding husbands, even\n     after they have prostituted themselves for a long time in the\n     temples of Anaitis. No man feels on this account any repugnance to\n     take them as wives.\" Strabo: vol. xi., 14; quoted also by\n     Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 46.\n\n     [44] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 69; Sepp: _Heidenthum u.\n     Christenthum_.\n\n     [M] Brugsch Bey is of this same opinion.\n\nBut let us return to primitive peoples, from whose customs and beliefs\nwe can learn what our own ancestors must have believed before the besom\nof civilization swept aside the crudities of savagery.\n\nThe Khonds of India are phallic worshipers, and, in the practice of\ntheir religion, Priapus saves many a girl who would be, otherwise,\noffered up on the bloody altars of their divinities. The pregnant woman\nis sacred, hence, religious prostitution is exceedingly prevalent. But\nit frequently happens that some unfortunate creature, who is not\npleasing to the shamans, is seized, tied to the stake and butchered.[45]\nAs the blood flows down and deluges the ground, \"the divine spirit\nenters into the priest and inspires him.\"[46] This sacrifice is of\nitself a phallic rite; the blood-offering is supposed to be exceedingly\nacceptable to Earth, the mother of all things. Blood is the essence of\nthe life-giving principle; hence, the essence is returned to the great\nGiver, as a propitiatory offering.[N]\n\n     [45] Sherwill: _The Rajmahal Hills_.\n\n     [46] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 317.\n\n     [N] Among certain peoples the blood and the semen bore a close\n     relationship; by certain races they were considered analogous. The\n     Old Testament, the Vedas, the Sagas, and many references of Greek,\n     Latin, Egyptian, Hindu, and Persian mythology point to this as\n     being conclusive.\n\nIn point of fact, the worship of the generative principle is everywhere\nprevalent in India.[O] In the Lingam, or holy altar of the Brahmins, we\nsee a conjunction of the male and female sexual organs, while religious\nprostitution, in the shape of hetarism, crowds the inner courts and\ncorridors of almost every temple in the land with hierodules and\nbayaderes. The Vedas abound in references, either direct or indirect, to\nphallic worship. Indeed, according to some authorities, the Hindu Brahma\nis the same as the Greek Pan,[P] \"who is the creative spirit of the\ndeity transfused through matter.\"[47]\n\n     [O] Speaking of the ceremony of priestly prelibation as it was\n     practiced in the Kingdom of Malabar, Forbes writes as follows: \"The\n     ecclesiastic power took precedence of the civil on this particular\n     point, and the sovereign himself passed under the yoke. Like the\n     other women, the queen had to submit to the right of prelibation\n     exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the first three\n     nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his\n     trouble.\" Forbes: _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 446; quoted also\n     by Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 48. De Remusat says\n     that, in Cambodia, the daughters of poor parents retain their\n     virginity longer than their richer sisters simply because they have\n     not the money with which to pay the priest for defloration!\n\n     [P] \"The people have put the idol named _Coppal_ in a neighboring\n     house; there she is served by priests and _Devadichi_, or slaves of\n     the gods. These are prostitute girls, whose employment is to dance\n     and to ring little bells in cadence while singing infamous songs,\n     either in the pagoda or in the streets when the idol is carried out\n     in state,\" writes Letourneau in _The Evolution of Marriage_,\n     quoting from _Letters edifiantes_. _Coppal_ was and is a\n     Brahminical Venus, and her worship is wholly phallic in character.\n     The ancient Indo-Iranians worshiped a similar deity. The worship of\n     Coppal, both in ritual and in significance, is identical with that\n     of the Greek Aphrodite.\n\n     [47] Brugsch, Knight, Mueller, _et al._\n\nHundreds of pages have been written on snake-worship, in which a\nwonderful amount of metaphysical lore has been expended. Mr. Herbert\nSpencer devotes several pages to the snake, and the reason for its\nappearance in the religion of primitive peoples. He ascribes to savages\na psychical acuteness that I am by no means willing to allow them,\ninasmuch as he makes them give a psychical causation for their adoption\nof the serpent as a deity, such as no ignorant and uncultivated savage\ncould have possibly evolved. I am inclined to believe that, like all\ngreat students and thinkers, Mr. Spencer has a hobby, and that this\nhobby is animism or ancestor-worship. When he gives out, as a reason for\nthe snake's almost universal appearance in the religions of primitive\npeoples, that the latter consider it an animal which has assumed the\nreturning ghost, double, or soul of an ancestor,[48] I think that he is\nvery much in error. There are very few primitive folk, comparatively\nspeaking, who believe in metempsychosis. In all probability, when a\nrace, like the ancient Egyptians, for instance, had reached a high\ndegree of civilization, they idealized many of their religious beliefs\nand customs; hence, the serpent probably lost its initial and simple\nsymbolical meaning, and stood for something higher and more ethical\nduring the reign of the great Pharaohs, and the Golden Age of the Greeks\nand Latins. I am positive, however, that the snake's original\nsignificance was wholly phallic in character, and that its adoption as a\nsymbol was simple and material, as I explain elsewhere in this essay.[Q]\n\n     [48] Spencer: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i, p. 798.\n\n     [Q] The appearance of the erect male organ of generation is quite\n     sufficient to explain why the snake should be chosen as a symbol in\n     phallic rites.\n\nI am forced to this conclusion by its presence among phallic symbols in\nalmost every race that practiced or practices a worship of the\ngenerative principles. The Pueblo Indians, whom I have mentioned\nelsewhere in this treatise, regard the snake symbol with reverence; the\nMoqui Indians have their sacred snake dance, in which they worship the\nreptiles, handling the most vicious and poisonous rattlesnakes with\nseeming impunity; the Apaches hold that every rattlesnake is an emissary\nof the devil;[49] \"the Piutes of Nevada have a demon deity in the form\nof a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake;\"[50]\non the wall of an ancient Aztec ruin at Palenque there is a tablet, on\nwhich there is a cross standing on the head of a serpent, and surmounted\nby a bird. \"The cross is the symbol of the four winds; the bird and\nserpent the rebus of the rain-god, their ruler.\"[51] The Quiche god,\nHurakan, was called the \"Strong Serpent,\" and the sign of Tlaloc, the\nAztec rain-god, was a golden snake.[R] All of these tribes are or were\nworshipers of the generative principles, though, in most of them,\nphallic worship has or had lost much of its original significance.[52]\nIn Yucatan and elsewhere in South and Central America, notably among the\nruins of Chichen Itza, the serpent symbol is frequently in evidence.[53]\nThe Indians of the Tocantins in Brazil, as well as the Muras, Mundurucus\nand Cucamas, are mixed nature and devil worshipers;[S] as a sequence,\ncertain phallic rites are to be observed in their religious ceremonies.\n\n     [49] Bancroft: _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.\n\n     [50] _Ibid._\n\n     [51] Bancroft (Brinton): _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.\n\n     [R] In the celebrated calendar stone of the Aztecs, there have been\n     found certain hieroglyphics pointing to sun worship, coincidently,\n     to phallicism.\n\n     [52] _Ibid._, p. 134.\n\n     [53] Stephens: _Yucatan_.\n\n     [S] Consult Frantz Keller: _The Amazon and Madeira Rivers_.\n\nMany of the native tribes of North America perform phallic rites at\npuberty. James Owen Dorsey, who has made a study of the Siouan cults,\nwrites as follows:\n\n\"Every male Dakota sixteen years old and upward is a soldier, and is\nformally and mysteriously enlisted into the service of the war prophet.\nFrom him he receives the implements of war, carefully constructed after\nmodels furnished from the armory of the gods, painted after a divine\nprescription, and charged with a missive virtue--the tonwan--of the\ndivinities. To obtain these necessary articles the proud applicant is\nrequired for a time to abuse himself and serve him, while he goes\nthrough a series of painful and exhausting performances, which are\nnecessary on his part to enlist favorable notice of the gods. These\nperformances consist chiefly of vapor baths, fastings, chants, prayers,\nand nightly vigils. The spear and the tomahawk being prepared and\nconsecrated, the person who is to receive them approaches the wakan man\n(priest), and presents a pipe to him. He asks a favor, in substance as\nfollows: 'Pity thou me, poor and helpless, a _woman_, and confer on me\nthe ability to perform _manly_ deeds.'\"[54] According to Miss Fletcher,\nwhen an Oglala girl arrives at puberty, a great feast is prepared, and\nfavored guests invited thereto. \"A prominent feature in the feast is the\nfeeding of these privileged persons and the girl in whose honor the\nfeast is given, with choke cherries, as the choicest rarity to be had in\nthe winter.... In the ceremony, a few of the cherries are taken in a\nspoon and held over the sacred smoke and then fed to the girl.\"[55] This\nis considered one of the most sacred of their feasts.\n\n     [54] Dorsey: _Siouan Cults, An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 444.\n\n     [55] Fletcher: _Peabody Museum Report_, vol. iii, p. 260.\n\nWhile discussing the phallic observances of the North American races, I\nwill introduce the subject of tattooing, though it properly belongs\nelsewhere in this treatise.\n\nAt puberty, the Hudson Bay Eskimos invariably tattoo their boys and\ngirls. Lucien M. Turner writing of the latter, says:\n\n\"When a girl arrives at puberty she is taken to a secluded locality by\nsome old woman versed in the art of tattooing, and stripped of her\nclothing. A small quantity of half-charred lamp wick of moss is mixed\nwith oil from the lamp. A needle is used to prick the skin, and the\npasty substance is smeared over the wound. The blood mixes with it, and\nin a few days a dark-bluish spot is left. The operation continues four\ndays. When the girl returns to the tent it is known that she has begun\nto menstruate.\"[56] Both Eastern and Western Inoits celebrate puberty\nwith certain rites. It is rather difficult, however, to get them to say\nmuch about this matter, so I will not present the evidence, meager as it\nis, which has been gleaned from the works of various explorers. One can\nreadily see that much of it is conjecture, therefore of little\nscientific value.\n\n     [56] Turner: _An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 208.\n\nNot far from the Place of Gold, the magnificent temple in which the\nancient Peruvians worshiped the Life Giver, was another great edifice,\nstyled the \"House of the Virgins of the Sun.\" This was the domicile of\nthe pallacides or hetarae of the Chief Priest, the Inca. \"No one but the\nInca and the Coya, or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts....\nWoe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the stern\nlaws of the Incas she was buried alive, her lover strangled, and the\ntown or village to which he belonged was razed to the ground and sowed\nwith stones as if to efface every memorial of his existence. One is\nastonished to find so close a resemblance between the institutions of\nthe American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic.\nChastity and purity of life are virtues in woman that would seem to be\nof equal estimation with the barbarian and with the civilized--yet the\nultimate destination of the inmates of these religious houses (there\nwere hundreds of them), was materially different.... Though Virgins of\nthe Sun, they were the brides of the Inca.\"[57] The monarch had\nthousands of these hetarae in his various palaces. When he wished to\nlessen the number in his seraglios, he sent some of them to their own\nhomes, where they lived ever after respected and revered as holy\nbeings.[58] The religion of the Peruvians had reached a high degree of\ndevelopment, and many of the crudities of simple phallic worship had\neither been entirely abandoned or so idealized that they had been lost\nin the mists of ritual and ceremony. For \"the ritual of the Incas\ninvolved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as ever\ndistinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian.\"[59]\n\n     [57] Prescott: _Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 110 _et seq._\n\n     [58] _Ibid._, p. 112.\n\n     [59] _Ibid._, p. 103.\n\nNotwithstanding the fact that the descendants of the Incas have been\nunder the guardianship of the priests of the Catholic church for\nhundreds of years, a close, careful, painstaking, and accurate observer\ninforms me that he has repeatedly noticed unmistakable phallic rites\ninterwoven with their Christian ceremonials and beliefs. The same can be\nsaid of a kindred race and a kindred religion. Biart, writing of the\ndescendants of the Aztecs, says: \"In grottoes unexpectedly discovered, I\nhave frequently found myself in the presence of Mictlanteuctli, at the\nfoot of which a recent offering of food had been placed.\"[60] How\nexceedingly basic and fundamental the worship of the generative\nprinciple must be in Psychos itself, is indicated by these facts!\n\n     [60] Biart: _The Aztecs_, p. 139.\n\nIn the very beginnings of history we find that many races of people held\nthe worship of the generative principle in high honor. Not only has the\nknowledge of this fact come to us through the sculptured monuments of\nthe Egyptians and the tablets, cylinders, etc., of the Chaldeans, but it\nhas also been set before us by ancient historians. Speaking of the\nChaldeans Herodotus (1,199)[T] says, \"Every woman born in the country\nmust enter once during her lifetime the inclosure of the temple of\nAphrodite, must there sit down and unite herself to a stranger. Many who\nare wealthy are too proud to mix with the rest, and repair thither in\nclosed chariots, followed by a considerable train of slaves. The greater\nnumber seat themselves on the sacred pavement, with a cord twisted about\ntheir heads--and there is always a crowd there, coming and going; the\nwomen being divided by ropes into long lanes, down which strangers pass\nto make their choice. A woman who has once taken her place here cannot\nreturn home until a stranger has thrown into her lap a silver coin, and\nhas led her away with him beyond the limits of the sacred inclosure. As\nhe throws the money he pronounces these words: 'May the goddess Mylitta\nmake thee happy!' Now among the Assyrians, Aphrodite\" (_the goddess of\nlove, desire_) \"is called Mylitta. The woman follows the first man who\nthrows her the money, and repels no one. When once she has accompanied\nhim, and _has thereby satisfied the goddess_, she returns to her home,\nand from thenceforth, however large the sum offered to her, she will\nyield to no one.\" Maspero declares that \"this custom still existed in\nthe fifth century before our era, and the Greeks who visited Babylon\nabout that time found it still in force.\"[61]\n\n     [T] Herodotus: _Clio_; See also Cary's translation of Herodotus,\n     page 86 _et seq._\n\n     [61] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 640.\n\nHe also calls attention to the fact that \"we meet with a direct\nallusion to this same custom in the Bible, in the _Book of Baruch_: The\nwomen, also, with cords about them, sitting in the ways, burn bran for\nperfume; but if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with\nhim, she reproacheth her fellow, that she was not worthy of herself, nor\nher cord broken. Ch. VI, verse 43.\"\n\nPhallic rites and observances entered very largely into the religion of\nthe Assyrians, and can be traced back, in some form or other, even to\nthe religion of the ancient Sumerians, the root-stock from which the\nChaldeans had their origin.\n\nIn the third chapter of Hebrew history according to Moses (Genesis III),\nwe have an unmistakable allusion to phallic worship in the use of the\nserpent in the myth of man's temptation and fall. The serpent was an\nalmost universal symbol of priapic adoration throughout Egypt and\nAssyria; it achieved this distinction, in all probability, from its\nresemblance to the _instrumentum masculinum generationis_.[U] In a\nbeautiful bronze plaque, representing Nergal, the Chaldean god of Hades,\nthe _glans penis_ of the god is distinctly the head of the snake. A\nsplendid drawing of this plaque by Faucher-Gudin is given in Maspero's\n_Dawn of Civilization_.[62] It may be stated here that the uraeus, or\nasp, which was so prominently in evidence as one of the principle signs\nof Egyptian royalty, was also the symbol of the life-giving principle of\nRa, the sun-god.\n\n     [U] The author is fully aware of the fact that writers on phallic\n     worship ascribe other reasons for the adoption of the snake as one\n     of the chief symbols of the worship of the generative principle. He\n     believes, however, that the primitive originators of this cult\n     were, psychically, too immature to evolve any other than simple and\n     objective ideas in regard to this subject; hence he considers the\n     above as the true origin of this symbol. Furthermore, this belief\n     is strengthened by the appearance of the snake in the myths and\n     folklore tales of race-preservation in all peoples where the\n     serpent was a familiar object.\n\n     [62] _Op. cit._, p. 691.\n\nAbraham, in all probability, instituted the rite of circumcision in\nremembrance of the Chaldean genital worship.[V] This sexual fetichism\nwas eminently religious in character from its very inception among the\nancient Hebrews; yet Westermarck, in his _History of Human Marriage_,\nconsiders this custom as being of ornamental origin.[63] Now, it is\nknown beyond question of doubt that the Hebrews and Abyssinians, who\npracticed this rite, covered their nakedness, hence, it is folly to\nsuppose that they ornamented a portion of their bodies which always\nremained carefully hidden. Moreover, since it has been in use from very\nancient times \"among most of the tribes inhabiting the African West\nCoast, among all the Mohammedan peoples, among the Kaffirs, among nearly\nall the peoples of Eastern Africa, among the Christian Abyssinians,\nBogos, and Copts, throughout all the various tribes inhabiting\nMadagascar, and, in the heart of the Black Continent, among the Monbuttu\nand Akka; and since it is practiced very commonly in Australia, in many\nislands of Melanesia, in Polynesia, universally, in some parts of\nAmerica, in Yucatan, on the Orinoco, and among certain tribes in Rio\nBranco in Brazil;\"[64] and since most of these people wholly or\npartially hide their nakedness, it cannot, necessarily, have had its\norigin in the desire for ornamentation. Again, since the rite of\ncircumcision among these peoples always takes place at puberty, when\n_vita sexualis_ begins, and is always accompanied by other rites and\nceremonies of deeply religious significance, it must be a religious\nobservance and phallic in its nature. Girls, also, at puberty, among\nmany tribes of Africa, among certain races of the Malayan Archipelago\nand South America have an operation performed upon them. \"_Sunt autem\ngentes, quarum contrarius mos est, ut clitoris et labia minora non\nexsecentur, verum extendantur, et saepe longissime extendantur_.\"[65]\nSurely such a peculiar and uncalled-for performance has a deeper\nsignificance than mere ornamentation, and does not warrant the\nexpression \"_atque ista etiam deformatio insigne pulchritudinis\nexistimatur_.\"\n\n     [V] Abraham was a Chaldean, and, in instituting circumcision, was\n     undoubtedly influenced by the religious beliefs of his people.\n     Circumcision, however, was, with him, a new and special phallic\n     rite, and one not in vogue among the Chaldeans. _Vid._ Genesis,\n     18:10.\n\n     [63] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 202 _et seq._\n\n     [64] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 201 _et seq._\n     See, also, Wallace: _Travels on the Amazon_, p. 117 _et seq._\n\n     [65] Westermarck: _op. cit. ante._, p. 106.\n\nTattooing, among certain races, is a phallic rite, and in the Tahitians\nthe priapic origin of this procedure has been preserved in an\ninteresting myth. Hinaereeremonoi was the daughter of the god and goddess\nTaaroa and Apouvaru. \"As she grew up, in order to preserve her chasity,\nshe was made _pahio_, or kept in a kind of inclosure, and constantly\nattended by her mother. Intent on her seduction, her brothers invented\ntattooing, and marked each other with the figure called Taomaro. Thus\nornamented, they appeared before their sister, who admired the figures,\nand, in order to be tattooed herself, eluding the care of her mother,\nbroke the inclosure that had been erected for her preservation, was\ntattooed, and became, also, the victim to the designs of her brothers.\nTattooing thus originated among the gods, and was first practiced by the\nchildren of Taaroa, their principle deity. _In imitation of their\nexample, and for the accomplishment of the same purposes it was\npracticed among men._\"[W][66]\n\n     [W] After the ceremony of tattooing had been performed, the\n     candidates were admitted to a religious society called _Areois_,\n     which had for its object an \"unrestrained and public abandonment to\n     amorous pleasures.\" Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 61.\n\n     [66] Ellis: _Polynesian Researches_, vol. i, p. 262; quoted, also,\n     by Westermarck, _op. cit. ante._, p. 179.\n\nWith very few exceptions, primitive peoples, wherever found, have given\nor still give unmistakable evidence of a knowledge of phallic worship in\nsome form or other. Many of them still practice it, generally combined\nwith the religion from which it was evolved, _i. e._, sun worship. The\nAinu of Japan is a notable example of a race whose religion shows the\npresence of the elements of both worships. The religion of this\nremarkable people, notwithstanding the fact that it has become decidedly\nethical (they having arrived at a knowledge of the good and evil\nprinciples), shows its sun birth.[X] Until very recently the _couvade_\nexisted in full force and vigor. \"As soon as a child was born, the\nfather had to consider himself very ill, and had, therefore, to stay at\nhome, wrapped up, by the fire. But the wife, poor creature! had to stir\nabout as much and as quickly as possible. The idea seems to have been\nthat _life was passing from the father into his child_.\"[67]\n\n     [X] Herodotus gives an interesting instance of the evolution of\n     phallic worship from nature worship. See _Clio_, 131.\n\n     [67] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 44.\n\nAmong Slavonic races in early times, the worship of the generative\nprinciple was almost universal. This continued, in a measure, even after\nthe establishment of Christianity, and we find phallic rites\nmasquerading in the garb of Christian observances as late as the\nsixteenth century in parts of Russia and Hungary. Westermarck, in his\nchapter on the human rut season in primitive times, says: \"Writers of\nthe sixteenth century speak of the existence of certain festivals in\nRussia, at which great license prevailed. According to Pamphil, these\nannual gatherings took place, as a rule, at the end of June, the day\nbefore the festival of St. John the Baptist, which in pagan times was\nthat of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo, corresponding to the\nPriapus of the Greeks.\"[68] If my memory serves me correctly, Wappaeus\nsays that a like festival was in existence among the Hungarians two\nhundred years ago.[69] To this day certain religious sects of Russia and\nHungary are in the habit of holding orgies at which all the ceremonies\nof the ancient Liberalia, Floralia, and Saturnalia are duplicated. These\ndevotees claim that, when they have reached the acme of religious\nenthusiasm, the spirit of God directs them, hence their licentious and\nlustful acts cannot be immoral.\n\n     [68] Westermarck: _The History of Human Marriage_, p. 30.\n\n     [69] Wappaeus: _Allgem. Bevoelkerungsstatistik_.\n\nWhen Great Britain was invaded and conquered by northern savages, the\nlatter, unquestionably, introduced their own religious beliefs, which\nwere largely phallic in character. The Teutonic god Frea was the same as\nthe Latin Priapus; while Friga, from whom our Friday gets its name,\nbecause this day was sacred to her, was the Teutonic Venus. Frea is\ncalled Freyr in old Norse, and in old German, Fro.\n\nAmong the Swedes he was worshiped under the name of Fricco, and a statue\nof him at Upsala represented him in the characteristic attitude of the\ngod of procreation. \"_Tertius est Fricco, pacem voluptatemque largiens\nmortalibus, cujus etiam simulachrum fingunt ingenti priapo._\"[70] From\nthis god a vulgar word for copulation had its origin. This word is in\nuse to-day among the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, thus proving that\nthe worship of the generative principle was in vogue among our own\nimmediate ancestors.\n\n     [70] Bremens: _De Situ Daniae_, p. 23; quoted, also, by the author\n     of _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 126.\n\nStatuettes of Priapus, bronzes representing the sexual organs, and\npottery covered with phallic scenes have been found all over England.\nThese relics are remembrances of the Roman occupation when the worship\nof Priapus prevailed. In the parish of Adel, Yorkshire, was found an\naltar erected to Priapus, who seems to be called in this instance\nMentula. At this place were found many other priapic relics, such as\nlamps, bracelets, amulets, etc., etc.[71] Several images of the triple\nphallus, as well as the single phallus, have been brought to light in\nLondon; also phallic lamps, bracelets, etc.\n\n     [71] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 124.\n\nAll over England the Anglo-Saxon Frea, or Friga, has left remembrances\nof his or her worship in place-names. Fridaythorpe in Yorkshire, and\nFriston (Frea's stone), which occurs in several parts of England, are\nexamples. \"We seem justified in supposing that this and other names\ncommencing with the syllable Fri or Fry, are so many monuments of the\nexistence of phallic worship among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.\"[72]\nThere are other words in the English language which point directly to\nthis ancient religion; for instance, _fascinate_ and _fascination_.\nThese words were derivede directly from the Latin word _fascinum_, which\nwas one of the names of the male organ of generation. The fascinum was\nworn suspended from the necks of women, and was supposed to possess\nmagical powers; hence, to _fascinate_. Horace makes use of the word in\nPriapeia:\n\n     [72] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 127.\n\n    \"_Placet, Priape? Qui sunt arboris coma\n    Sotes, sacrum revinct pampino caput,\n    Ruber sedere cum rubente fascino._\"[73]\n\n     [73] Horace: _Priap. Carm._, lxxxiv.\n\nThat the worship of the fascinum was in vogue during the eighth\ncentury[Y] in Italy and in other countries under the religious\njurisdiction of the Pope, the following from the _Judicia Sacerdotalia\nCriminibus_, clearly indicates: \"If any one has performed incantation to\nthe _fascinum_, or any incantation whatever, except one who chaunts the\nCreed or the Lord's Prayer, let him do penance on bread and water during\nthree Lents.\"[74][Z]\n\n     [Y] A well informed Jesuit priest once told me that several laws\n     had been made about this time forbidding the worship of the female\n     sexual organ, under the name of _abricot_ or _apricot_. Rabelais\n     used the word _abricot fendu_ when speaking of the female genital\n     organs. See his works. Was this term derived from the Biblical\n     narrative of the genesis of the human race (the apple), or was it\n     taken from the phallic symbol, the pomegranate? Did Moses get it\n     from the Assyrians in the first place? I think he did.\n\n     [74] Martene and Durand: _Veterum Scriptorum Amplissima Collectio_,\n     tom. vii, p. 35. _Si quis praecantaverit ad fascinum, vel\n     qualescumque praecantationes excepto symbolum sanctum aut orationem\n     dominicam qui cantat et cui cantatur, tres quadrigesimas in pane et\n     aqua poeniteat._\n\n     [Z] As has been pointed out elsewhere in this work, ancient peoples\n     were essentially symbolical and materialistically symbolical at\n     that; they were very apt to typify nature, sexually, by some object\n     or objects which bore a resemblance real or fancied, to the sexual\n     organs. The red halves of the ripe apricot at the insertion of the\n     stem, look very much like the external genitalia of the human\n     female. The significance and importance of the pomegranate in the\n     mixed religion of the Ancient Hebrews are well brought out in rules\n     laid down for the ornamentations and embroidery of the robes of the\n     priests, etc., etc., _Vid. Old Testament_.\n\nDuring the ninth century the Council of Chalons promulgated a similar\nlaw, and in the twelfth century Buchardus repeats it, thus showing that\nthe worship of the generative principle was continuous throughout that\ntime.[75] That the worship of the fascinum was in vogue as late as 1247\nis proven by the statutes of the Synod of Mans, which declare that he\nwho worships the fascinum shall be seriously dealt with.[76]\n\n     [75] D. Burchardi: _Decretorum libri_, lib. x, c. 49.\n\n     Some of these clerical references are taken from the Worship of\n     Priapus, but, since this work is exceedingly rare and costly, and\n     is not apt to come under the notice of the general reader, I have\n     thought best to give the original authorities.\n\n     [76] Martene and Durand: _Veterum Scriptorum Collectio Amplissima_,\n     tom. vii, col. 1377.\n\nIn Scotland, as late as 1268, according to the Chronicles of Lanercroft,\nthe people were in the habit of rubbing two pieces of wood together\nuntil fire was produced. At the same time an image of the phallus was\nelevated, and certain prayers were said to Priapus. This was the famous\n\"need fire,\" and was obtained in this way in order that it might have\nthe power of saving the cattle from the plague. Need fire was produced\nin this manner in the Highlands as late as 1356, at which time a cattle\nplague ravaged the country side. In Inverkeithing, a Catholic priest\ngathered all the young girls of the village and made them dance around a\nstatue of Priapus. He himself led the dance, carrying a large wooden\nimage of the phallus, and excited these medieval bacchantes to\nlicentious movements and actions by his own actions and language.\n\nWhen called to account by his bishop, he excused his action by stating\nthat such performances were common in his parish. These phallic\nobservances occurred in Easter week, March 29-April 15, 1282.[77]\n\n     [77] _The Chronicles of Lanercroft._\n\nIn Ireland, the female sexual organs seem to have been the symbol of\nphallic worship most in use. In the arches over the doorways of\nchurches, a female figure, with the person fully exposed, was invariably\nso placed that the external organs of generation at once caught the eye.\nThese figures were called _Shela-na-gig_, which in Irish means \"Julian\nthe giddy.\" Sometimes these images were placed on the walls and used as\ncaryatides. From this symbol the horseshoe's power to ward off evil and\nbring good luck has been evolved. The people in olden times were in the\nhabit of painting, or sketching with charcoal, drawings of the female\ngenitalia over the doors of their houses to ward off bad luck. These\ndrawings were necessarily rude, and probably resembled a horseshoe more\nthan they did the object for which they were intended. In course of\ntime, when the symbol had lost its original significance, the horseshoe\nentirely took the place of the phallic image.\n\nHerodotus says that Sesostris, king of Egypt, was in the habit of\nerecting pillars in the countries conquered by his armies, on which he\nhad the female genitals engraved in order to show his contempt.[78] I\nthink that the historian misinterprets the meaning of the pillars; the\nEgyptians were phallic worshipers, and these obelisks were, in all\nprobability, altars to Priapus.\n\n     [78] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 102.\n\nThe beneficent influence of this particular phallic symbol has been well\nbrought out in several classical stories. When Ceres was wandering over\nthe world in her search after Proserpine, she came to the house of a\npeasant woman, Baubo by name. Baubo saw that the goddess was heart-sick\nand miserable, so she offered her a drink of cyceon ({~GREEK SMALL\nLETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER\nKAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK\nSMALL LETTER NU~} [Transliteration: kykeon]). The goddess refused the\nrefreshing mixture, and continued her lamentations. Fully believing in\nthe virtue and efficacy of the symbol, Baubo lifted her robe and showed\nCeres her genitals.[AA] The goddess burst into laughter and at once\ndrank the cyceon.[79] The same superstition appears in a celebrated book\nof the sixteenth century, _Le Moyen de Parvenir_. The author of the\n\"Worship of the Generative Powers\" gives the following instructive\nextract from this work:\n\n     [AA] For an analogous ceremony, see Herodotus, _Euterpe_, 60.\n\n     [79] Arnobius: _Adversus Gentes_, _lib._ v, c. 5.\n\n_Hermes. On nomme ainsi ceux qui n'ont point vu le con de leur femme ou\nde leur garce. Le pauvre valet de chez nous n'etoit donc pas coquebin;\nil eut beau le voir._\n\n_Varro. Quand?_\n\n_Hermes. Attendez, etant en fiancailles, il vouloit prendre le cas de sa\nfiancee; elle ne le vouloit pas: il faisoit le malade, et elle lui\ndemandoit: \"Qu'y a-t-il, mon ami?\" \"Helas, ma mie, je suis si malade,\nque je n'en puis plus; je mourrai si je ne vois ton cas.\" \"Vraiment\nvoire?\" dit-elle. \"Helas! oui, si je l'avois vu, je guerirois.\" Elle ne\nlui voulut point montrer; a la fin, ils furent maries. Il advint, trois\nou quatre mois apres, qu'il fut fort malade; et il envoya sa femme au\nmedicin pour porter de son eau. En allant, elle s'avisa de ce qu'il lui\navoit dit en fiancailles. Elle retourna vitement, et se vint mettre sur\nle lit; puis, levant cotte et chemise lui presenta son cela en belle\nvue, et lui disoit: \"Jean, regarde le con, et te gueris._\"[80]\n\n     [80] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 135.\n\nSir William Hamilton writes to Richard Payne Knight from Naples in the\nyear 1781, as follows:\n\n\"Having last year made a curious discovery, that in a province of this\nkingdom, not fifty miles from its capital, a sort of devotion is still\npaid to Priapus, the obscene divinity of the ancients (though under\nanother denomination), I have thought it a circumstance worth recording;\nparticularly as it offers a fresh proof of the similitude of the Popish\nand Pagan religion, so well observed by Dr. Middleton in his celebrated\nLetter from Rome; therefore I mean to deposit the authentic proofs of\nthis assertion in the British Museum when a proper opportunity shall\noffer.\" Sir William goes on to relate how he found many phallic amulets,\ncharms, etc., in the possession of the people, and then describes the\nvotive offerings laid upon the altar at a feast given in honor of Saints\nCosmus and Damianus, in a church called by their names. The offerings\nwere waxen images of the phallus. \"The vows are chiefly presented by the\nfemale sex,\" continues he, \"and they are seldom such as represent legs,\narms, etc., but most commonly the male parts of generation. A person who\nwas at this fete in the year 1780, told me that he heard a woman say, at\nthe time she presented a vow, '_Santo Cosimo benedetto, cosi lo\nvoglio._'\"[81]\n\n     [81] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, pp. 3-6,7.\n\nThis church was in Isernia, a little village about fifty miles from\nNaples, and away from the direct line of travel, hence its inhabitants\nsaw little of the world, and therefore kept to their old customs longer\nthan their more favored neighbors. Thus it happened that, even in the\nlatter half of the eighteenth century, Priapus had his votaries almost\nwithin the shadow of the Vatican! These phallic rites were finally\nabolished by episcopal command.\n\nOne of the most common amulets or charms against _jettitura_, or the\n\"evil eye,\" the _bete noire_ of every Italian, is a little coral hand.\nThe middle finger of this hand is extended, thus representing the penis,\nwhile the other fingers are closed on the palm, thus representing the\ntesticles. In ancient times, when a man extended his hand, closed in\nthis manner, it was a gesture of insult and anger; to-day this gesture\nis only made in derision and contempt. The hand closed in this way, or,\nrather, with the thumb projecting between the first and second fingers\n(another very common phallic symbol or sign), was called a \"fig\"; hence,\nthe old expression of contempt and indifference, \"a fico for you, sir,\"\nnow modernized into \"I don't care a fig.\"[AB]\n\n     [AB] A modification of this is seen in the derisive gesture of the\n     street Arab who closes all of his fingers, except the middle one,\n     on his palm. The middle finger he holds stiffly erect and the hand\n     is then extended towards the object of his contempt. This gesture,\n     once performed as a deeply religious rite, has now become the\n     contemptuous sign of a boy of the street!\n\nFrance, as well as Italy, had her phallic charms and her phallic saints.\nPriapus was a god to the ancients--to the people of the Middle Ages he\nwas a saint. According to M. Dulaure, in the south of France, Provence,\nLanguedoc, and the Lyonnais, he was worshiped under the name of St.\nFoutin. This name is derived from that of the first bishop of Lyons,\nFotinus, to whom the people had transferred (as they have done to many\nother sainted individuals) the distinguishing characteristics of a god;\nin this instance, Priapus. At Lyons there was an immense wooden\nphallus, and the women were in the habit of scraping this image, and\nthen steeping the wood-dust in water, which they drank as a remedy\nagainst barrenness. Sometimes they gave it to the men in order to\nstimulate sexuality or sensuality. At Varailles, in Provence, waxen\nimages of the male and female sexual organs were offered to St. Foutin,\nand, since these images were suspended from the ceiling and moved by\nevery vagrant current of air, the effect was sometimes very astonishing.\n\"_Temoin Saint Foutin de Varailles en Provence, auquel sont dediees les\nparties honteuses de l'un et de l' autre sexe, formees en cire; le\nplancher de la chapelle en est fort garni, et, quand le vent les fait\nentrebattre, cela debauche un peu les devotions a l'honneur de ce\nSaint._\"[82]\n\n     [82] L'Estoile: _Confession de Sancy_, pp. 383, 391.\n\nThis worship at Varailles was identical with that of Isernia; the\nvotive offerings were waxen images or models of the genital organs,\nwhile the saints differed only in name, not in character. At Embrun the\nworship of St. Foutin was a little different. The women at this last\nmentioned place poured wine on the phallus; this wine was collected in a\nbucket, and, when it became sour, it was used as a medicine for\nbarrenness.\n\nWhen Embrun was besieged and taken by the Protestants in 1585, this\nphallus was found among the other sacred relics, and its head \"was red\nwith the wine which had been poured upon it.\"[83] In the church of St.\nEutropius, at Orange, a large phallus covered with leather was seized\nand burnt by the Protestants in 1562. Dulaure says that the sexual\norgans were objects of worship at Porighy, Viviers, Vendre in the\nBourbonnais, Cives, Auxerre, Puy-en-Velay, and at hundreds of other\nplaces. Some of these phalli were recreated as fast as they were worn\naway by zealous devotees. They were so arranged in the walls of the\nchurches that, \"as the phallic end in front became shortened (by\nscrapings), a blow from a mallet from behind thrust it forward, so that\nit was restored to its original length.\"[84]\n\n     [83] _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 141.\n\n     [84] _Ibid._\n\nIn the public square of Batavia there was formerly kept a bronze cannon\nwhich had been captured from the natives. The touch-hole of this piece\nof ordnance was made in the shape of a phallic hand or \"fig,\" which I\nhave described elsewhere. The barren Malay women were in the habit of\nseating themselves on this hand in order that they might become\npregnant.[AC] An analogous custom was prevalent in France and elsewhere\nin Europe during the Middle Ages. This habit led to sexual abuses, and\nwas finally condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, the\nChurch inflicted severe penances on the women who were guilty of using\nphalli: \"_Mulier qualique molimine aut se ipsam aut cum altera fornicans\ntres annos poeniteat, unum ex his pane et aqua. Cum sanctimoniali per\nmachinam fornicans, annos septem poeniteat, duos ex his in pane et\naqua._\"[85] We see by this that nuns were more severely punished than\nwere other women.\n\n     [AC] According to Abel de Remusat (_Nouv. Mel. Asiatiques_, p.\n     116), the custom of _tchin-than_, or religious defloration, was\n     formerly in use in Cambodia and Malabar. This custom seems to be\n     analogous to the _jus primae noctis_, as practiced by many tribes,\n     where the woman, on her bridal night, has to yield herself up to\n     the male marriage guests--_jus primae noctis_, as thus practiced,\n     must not be confounded with the seignorial right, the right of the\n     lord, or ruler. The former right is regarded in the light of a\n     _quasi_ religious observance, while the latter is not. The former\n     was in vogue in ancient times in the Balearic Isles and among the\n     ancient Peruvians; recently among several aboriginal tribes of\n     India, in Burmah, in Cashmere, in Madagascar, in Arabia, and in New\n     Zealand. Vid. Teulon: _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 69.\n\n     [85] Martene et Durand: _Coll. Antiq. Can. Paenit._, iv, 52.\n\nThis use of the phallus is mentioned in the Bible, where it is bitterly\ncondemned by one of the prophets: \"Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels\nof my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to\nthyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them.\"[86]\nFinally, it was the custom of the young girls of France during the\nMiddle Ages (like the maidens of certain savage races), who were on the\neve of marriage, to offer up to St. Foutin their last maiden robes. From\nthe evidence here adduced, we see that phallic worship existed in some\nparts of Europe as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century,\nand that it was almost universal during the Middle Ages. According to\nBecan,[87] Golnitz,[88] and other historians, there were several other\nphallic saints besides St. Foutin who were worshiped in Belgium, Spain,\nGermany and other European countries; but, since their adoration was\nsimilar to that of St. Foutin, I do not think it necessary to give a\ndescription of it here. It has been shown conclusively that worship of\nthe generative principle was in vogue among the Latins, the Greeks, the\nancient Germans, the Saxons, the Danes, the Gauls, the Iberians, the\nPicts, the Celts and the Britons. It has been demonstrated, also, that\nvestiges of phallic worship existed in England, France, Italy, Spain and\nGermany during the Middle Ages. As late as the latter part of the\neighteenth century wax images of the phallus were used as votive\nofferings in the town of Isernia, not many miles from Naples; the\nberibboned Maypole of our Mayday festival is but the flower decked\nphallus of the Roman matrons; charms against _jettitura_, \"the evil\neye,\" little coral hands with the middle finger extended (in ancient\ndays one of the most common symbols of Priapus) can still be purchased\nin the streets of Rome.[AD] \"This worship\" (that of Priapus) \"which was\nbut part of that of the generative powers, appears to have been the most\nancient of the superstitions of the human race, and has prevailed more\nor less among all known peoples before the introduction of Christianity;\nand, singularly enough, _so deeply it seems to have been implanted in\nhuman nature_ that even the promulgation of the gospel did not abolish\nit, for it continued to exist, accepted and often encouraged by the\nmedieval clergy.\"[89]\n\n     [86] _Ezekiel_: chap, xiv[i], v. 17.\n\n     [i] Transcriber's Note - This has been corrected in handwriting to\n     'xvi'.\n\n     [87] Becan: _Origines Antwerpianae, lib_. i, pp. 26, 101.\n\n     [88] Golnitz: _Itinerarium Belgico-Gallicum_, p. 52.\n\n     [AD] The phallic hand in some form or other is frequently found in\n     the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The so-called _maison d'\n     joie_ found in one of the streets of Pompeii is considered by some\n     authorities to have been a minor temple to Venus where priapic\n     rites were celebrated. The stone phallus at the entrance as well as\n     the erotic frescoes on the wall, point to this as being true.\n\n     [89] Knight: _op. cit. ante._, p. 117.\n\nSo very ancient was the inception of the worship of the generative\nprinciple that we have some reason for believing that even the\ncave-dwellers practiced this cult. It was stated in the _Moniteur_,\nJanuary, 1865, that \"in the province of Venice, in Italy, excavations in\na bone-cave have brought to light, beneath ten feet of stalagmite, bones\nof animals, mostly post-tertiary, of the usual description found in such\nplaces, flint implements, with a needle of bone having an eye and point,\nand a plate of argillaceous compound, on which was scratched a rude\ndrawing of the phallus.\"[90] Thus we see that, possibly, from the time\nof the cave-dwellers to almost the beginning of the nineteenth century,\nphallic worship existed in Southern Europe! From the Sagas, folklore\ntales, and myths of the Norse we have every reason for believing that it\nexisted for almost as great a length of time in Northern Europe. That in\nWestern Europe, before and during the Middle Ages, it flourished in a\nvariety of forms, we have unimpeachable testimony.\n\n     [90] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, footnote p. 117.\n\nIn this brief outline of phallic worship I have endeavored to show that\nthe worship of the generative principle has been universal; that it is\nstill practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered\namong certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent\ntime. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it\nhad reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized\nworld, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation\nfrom Knight's strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: \"The ancient\ntheologists ... finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity,\nwere content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and\nefficient exertion of his power--attraction; whose agency is perceptible\nthrough all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately\ntraced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material\nworld, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is\nsustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and\nvaried. These were expressed by various titles and epithets in the\nmystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by\nvarious forms and characters of men and animals. The great\ncharacteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in\nthat state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due\nperformance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been\nfound among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets,\nwhich the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks\nand arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied\nby the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted\nherself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she\nwas ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in view, must\nkeep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind\nher of the gratitude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his\nservice, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed\nher as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial\npower. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the\ngenerative power of nature or matter, as the male's were of the\ngenerative powers of God.\"[91]\n\n     [91] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 27, _et seq._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE.\n\n\nThat there exists a relationship between the cultivated ethical emotion,\nreligious feeling, and the essentially natural physio-psychical\nfunction, sexual desire or _libido_, is a fact noticed and commented on\nby many thinkers and writers. The literature of the subject is, however,\nexceedingly fragmentary and disconnected, no author (as far as I have\nbeen able to determine) having devoted as much as one thousand words to\nthe consideration of this very interesting psychical phenomenon. Hence,\nmy data have been gathered from many sources, which are as diversified\nas they are numerous.\n\nBeyond a question of doubt, man becomes religiously enthused most\nfrequently either early in life, when pubescence is, or is about to be,\nestablished, or late in life, when sexual desire has become either\nentirely extinct or very much abated. Young boys and girls are\nexceedingly impressionable at, or just before, puberty, and are apt to\nembrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist\ndeclares that \"men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of\nGod after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts,\nseven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old.\"[92]\n\n     [92] B. Fay Mills, _Sermon to Young Men and Young Women_, at\n     Owensboro, Ky., May 20, 1894.\n\nThe Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore\nrequires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to\nits would-be communicants at, or before, the age of puberty.[AE]\n\n     [AE] This knowledge is not confined to the Catholic church alone;\n     in all denominations the pubescent human being is considered most\n     susceptible to religious influences. The cause or _raison d 'etre_\n     of this susceptibility is, by no means, generally recognized.\n\nOf all the insanities of the pubescent state, erotomania and religious\nmania are the most frequent and the most pronounced. Sometimes they go\nhand in hand, the most inordinate sensuality being coupled with abnormal\nreligious zeal. A young woman of my acquaintance, whose conduct has\ngiven rise to much scandal, is, at times, a reincarnate Messalina, while\nat other times she is the very embodiment of ethical and religious\npurity. Another young girl, in whom _vita sexualis_ was about to be\nestablished, became religiously insane and had delusions in which she\ndeclared that she was in heaven and sitting at the right hand of God.\nShe declared this over and over again, while shamelessly committing\nmanustrupation! Krafft-Ebing calls attention to this relation between\nreligious and sexual feeling in psycho-pathological states. \"It\nsuffices,\" says he, \"to recall how intense sensuality makes itself\nmanifest in the clinical history of many religious maniacs; the motley\nmixture of religious and sexual delusions that is so frequently observed\nin psychoses (_e. g._, in maniacal women who think they are or will be\nthe mother of God), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and\nfinally, the sexual, cruel self-punishment, injuries, self-castrations,\nand even self-crucifixions, resulting from abnormal religio-sexual\nfeeling.\"[93]\n\n     [93] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 8.\n\nAn example of the last mentioned self-immolation (self-crucifixion) is\ngiven by Berghierri, and is a remarkable instance of the\ninterchangeableness of religious emotion and sexual desire in\npsychopathic individuals. The man in question, who had been intensely\nsensual, manufactured a cross, nailed himself to it, and ingeniously\nmanaged to suspend himself and cross from the window of his sleeping\napartment.\n\n\"All through the history of insanity the student has occasion to observe\nthis close alliance of sexual and religious ideas; an alliance which may\nbe partly accounted for because of the prominence which sexual themes\nhave in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the phallus\nworship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the\nSaxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the\nKoran and several other books of the kind, and which is further\nillustrated in the performances which, to come down to a modern period,\ncharacterize the religious revival and camp-meeting as they tinctured\ntheir medieval model, the Muenster Anabaptist movement.\"[94]\n\n     [94] Spitzka: _Insanity_, p. 39.\n\nMen, owing to their greater freedom, soon learn the difference of the\nsexes and the delights of sexual congress; women, hedged in by\nconventionalities and deterred by their innate passivity, remain, for\nthe most part, in ignorance of sexual knowledge until their marriage.\nFor this reason it happens that very many more women than men experience\nreligious emotion. _Young married men and women, who are in perfect\nsexual health, and who have not experienced religion before marriage,\nseldom give this emotion a single thought until late in life, when both\nlibido and vita sexualis are on the wane or are extinct._ Voltaire\ncynically, though truthfully, observes that when woman is no longer\npleasing to man she then turns to God. A woman who has been disappointed\nin love almost invariably seeks consolation in religion. The virtuous\nunmarried woman, who has been unsuccessful in the pursuit of a husband,\ninvariably turns to God and religion with impassioned zeal and energy.\n\nUngratified, or, rather, _unsatisfied_, sensuality very frequently gives\nrise to great religio-sexual enthusiasm. The circumcised foreskin of\nChrist, where it was and what had become of it, was a source of\ncontinual worriment to the nun Blanbekin; in an ecstacy of ungratified\n_libido_, St. Catherine of Genoa would frequently cast herself on the\nhard floor of her cell, crying: \"Love! love! I can endure it no longer;\"\nSt. Armelle and St. Elizabeth were troubled with _libido_ for the child\nJesus;[95] an old prayer is quite significant: \"Oh, that I had found\nthee, Holy Emanuel; _Oh, that I had thee in my bed to bring delight to\nbody and soul!_ Come and be mine, and my heart shall be thy\nresting-place.\"[96] Francis Parkman calls attention to the fact that the\nnuns sent over to America in colonization days were frequently seized\nwith religio-sexual frenzy. \"She heard,\" writes he of Marie de\nl'Incarnation, \"in a trance, a miraculous voice. It was that of Christ,\npromising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, full of\ntroubled hopes and fears, when again the voice sounded in her ear, with\nassurance that the promise was fulfilled, and that she was, indeed, his\nbride. Now ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among Roman\nCatholic female devotees, when unmarried, or married unhappily, and\n_which have their source in the necessities of a woman's nature_.\" (The\nitalics are my own.) \"To her excited thought, her divine spouse became a\nliving presence; and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is of\nintense passion. She went to prayer, agitated and tremulous, as if to a\nmeeting with an earthly lover: 'Oh, my Love,' she exclaimed, 'when shall\nI embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments that I suffer? Alas!\nalas! my Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain, you take\npleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you, and die in your sacred\narms!'\"[97] The historian remarks that the \"holy widow,\" as her\nbiographers call her, is an example, and a lamentable one, of the\ntendency of the erotic principle to ally itself with high religious\nexcitement and enthusiasm. Further along he says that \"some of the\npupils of Marie de l'Incarnation, also, had mystical marriages with\nChrist; and the impassioned rhapsodies of one of them being overheard,\nshe nearly lost her character, as it was thought that she was\napostrophizing an earthly lover.\"[98]\n\n     [95] Krafft-Ebing: _op. cit. ante._, p. 8, footnote.\n\n     [96] _Ibid._\n\n     [97] Francis Parkman: _The Jesuits in North America_, p. 175. \"_O\n     amour, quand vous embrasserai-je? N'avez vous point pitie de moi\n     dans le tourment que je souffre? Helas! mon amour, ma beaute, ma\n     vie! au lieu de me guerir, vous vous plaisez a mes maux. Venez donc\n     que je vous embrasse et je meure entre vos bras sacres._\" Journal\n     de Marie de l'Incarnation.\n\n     [98] Francis Parkman: _The Jesuits in North America_, p. 176.\n\nThe instances of religio-sexual outbursts in nuns and Roman Catholic\nfemale devotees who lead celibate lives are very numerous; I will,\nhowever, call attention to but one other: St. Veronica was so much in\nlove with the divine lion that she took a young lion to bed with her,\nfondled and kissed it, and allowed it to suck her breasts.[99]\nThroughout sacred literature, beginning with the Bible itself,\nreligio-sexual feeling is very much _en evidence_. Hosea married a\nprostitute because--so he declared--God commanded him so to do. If\nSolomon's beautiful song is typical of the Church and the Christ (as\nsome theologians teach), then it is an unmistakable instance of\nreligio-sexual feeling; religious emotion and sexual desire walk hand in\nhand through the measures of this impassioned verse. Circumcision, now\neminently a religious ceremony, was, unquestionably, a sexual fetich and\na phallic rite, which has been handed down from antiquity, when all the\nworld were phallic worshipers! The very pillars set up by the patriarchs\nin commemoration of certain events were but rude images of the phallus,\nwhile not a few of the mysteries of the Holy of Holies itself were but\nvestiges of Chaldean and Egyptian genital worship![AF]\n\n     [99] Friedreich: _Psychologie_, p. 389.\n\n     [AF] A recent writer, Dr. Lydston, expresses surprise that the\n     brothel should occupy such a prominent place in the ancient\n     chronicles. When the universality and high honor of phallic worship\n     is taken into consideration, the entertainment of the \"Captain of\n     the Host\" in a brothel ceases to be a matter or cause for surprise;\n     the prominence given such entertainment by the ancient historians\n     is perfectly natural and to be expected. _Compare_ Lydston: _The\n     Diseases of Society_, p. 305.\n\nThat a relationship between, and an interchangeableness of, these two\nwidely dissimilar psychical operations, _i.e._, religious emotion and\nsexual desire, does exist, there can be no doubt.[AG] Now, what is the\ncause of, the reason for, this relationship? Mantegazza, Maudsley,\nSchleiermacher, Krafft-Ebing, and many others have endeavored,\nincidentally, to assign reasons for this relationship, but have, in my\nopinion, signally failed. Spitzka has tentatively, and without\nelaborating his idea in the least, suggested a theory which, I believe,\nsolves the problem in every essential point. Says he in \"Insanity,\"\npage 39: This \"alliance\" (between religious emotion and _libido_) \"may\nbe partly accounted for because of the prominence which sexual themes\nhave in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the phallus\nworship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the\nSaxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the\nKoran and several other books of the kind, etc.\" Dr. Spitzka does not\nenter into any discussion of the matter; he simply asserts his belief in\nthe cause of the relationship, and then dismisses the subject without\nfurther comment.\n\n     [AG] The author believes that upon the correlation of religious\n     emotion and sexual desire depends, in a great measure, the\n     stability of sexual morality. Were it not for this correlation,\n     sexual promiscuity would be the rule throughout the world.\n\nNow, permit me, as briefly as possible, to designate the cause of the\nrelationship between, and the interchangeableness of, religious feeling\nand sexual desire, which, as I believe, is to be found in the once\nwidespread existence of phallic worship.\n\nSome ten or twelve years ago, in an article on Suicide, which was\npublished in the _American Practitioner and News_, I suggested (as a\npossible explanation for certain psychical phenomena) the existence in\nman of two consciousnesses, an active, vigilant consciousness and a\npseudo-dormant consciousness. Again, in the _American Naturalist_, in an\nessay entitled \"The Psychology of Hypnotism,\"[100] I reasserted this\ntheory and, to a certain extent, elaborated it. I placed man's active\nconsciousness in the cortical portion of the brain, and his\npseudo-dormant, _unconscious_ consciousness (arbitrarily, be it\nconfessed) in the basilar ganglia, and called this latter consciousness,\n\"ganglionic consciousness.\"\n\n     [100] _Loc. cit._, November, 1894.\n\nRecently, much has been written on the doctrine of duplex personality,\nnotably by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in a series of papers read before the\nSociety of Psychical Research. Professor Newbold has also written very\nentertainingly and instructively on this subject. While not fully\naccepting the theory of \"duplex personality,\" _i. e._, active\nconsciousness and _subliminal consciousness_ (Myers' name for the\npseudo-dormant consciousness), as having been proven, Newbold says: \"Of\nall the theories developed from the point of independence, Mr. Myers' is\nthe most comprehensive in its scope, is kept in most constant touch with\nwhat the author regards as facts, and displays the greatest philosophic\ninsight.\"[101] According to the theory of duplex personality, many\ninstincts, desires, and emotions have been crowded out of the active\nconsciousness and have been relegated to the pseudo-dormant\nconsciousness. This has been brought about by a \"process of selection\nout of an infinity of possible elements solely on the grounds of\nutility.\" Thus the _cause_ for our horror of incest is hidden away in\nour subliminal consciousness; yet we cannot but think, with\nWestermarck, that this instinct is but the result of natural\nselection,[102] the utility of the factor or factors occasioning it\nbeing no longer in evidence or required. Again, at certain seasons, man\nis seized with _waldliebe_ (forest-love) and longs to flee from the\nhaunts of men, and, with gun and rod, to revert, as far as possible, to\nthe state of his savage ancestors. The desire is safely hidden away in\nhis subliminal consciousness until favoring circumstances tempt it\nforth. It is not alone in \"sleep, dreams, hypnosis, trance, and ecstacy\nthat we see a temporary subsidence of the upper consciousness and the\nupheaval of a subliminal stratum\"; there are many other states and many\nother causes for this strange psychical phenomenon.\n\n     [101] Newbold: _Appleton's Popular Science Monthly_, February,\n     1897, p. 516.\n\n     [102] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 352.\n\nI have demonstrated in the preceding pages that the worship of the\ngenerative principle was almost, if not wholly, universal; I have also\nshown that the beliefs, rites, and ceremonies of this cult made a\nlasting impression upon the minds of every people among whom it gained a\nfoothold. Take the case of the ancient Hebrews. Notwithstanding the fact\nthat they were tried in the furnace of Javeh's awful wrath time and\nagain; notwithstanding the fact that famine, pestilence, war, and\nimprisonment destroyed them by thousands; and, notwithstanding the fact\nthat they were threatened with utter and absolute annihilation--all on\naccount of this cult--they would not wholly abandon it. The words of the\nprophets become almost pathetic as we read, over and over again, that,\nalthough the kings did that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord,\n\"the high places and the groves were not destroyed.\" Take the case of\nthe Aztecs. Crushed beneath the iron heels of Spain's hardy buccaneers,\nan utterly broken and conquered race, Cortez turned them over to the\nministering care of his zealous priests. The prison, agonizing torture,\nand the awful stake succeeded, at last, in Christianizing them; they\nbecame children of Holy Mother Church! And yet, hundreds of years after\nthis \"glorious victory of the cross,\" Biart finds the humble offerings\nof their descendants at the feet of Mictlanteuctli! The modern Christian\nIndian, in the deep shadows of the night, steals forth to offer up in\nsecrecy a prayer at the feet of one of the phallic trinity! What matters\nit to the modern Aztec that his petition is offered to the ruler of\nMictlan, the hell of his forefathers, instead of to the mighty\nIpalnemoani, the Life-Giver?[103] In his opinion, Mictlanteuctli\nrepresents the entire Aztec theogony, for has not his white priest kept\nthe name of _this_ god green in his memory? All the other gods have been\nforgotten; their personalities have been absorbed into that of the god\nof hell, for he has had advertisers in the shape of Catholic priests\never since the fall of the Aztec Empire! Take the case of the Peruvians.\nAlthough the Place of Gold and the beautiful Virgins of the Sun are not\neven memories to the descendants of the Incas, the religion which gave\nrise to them is not wholly forgotten; \"phallic rites and ceremonies are\nto be observed interwoven with their Christian ritual and belief!\" Take\nthe case of the Roman Catholic devotees of Isernia, of Varailles, of\nLyons, of hundreds of other places during the latter half of the\neighteenth century. Priapus died when the first Christian emperor took\nhis seat on the throne of Imperial Rome, and yet, hundreds and hundreds\nof years thereafter, we behold some of the mysteries of Eleusis almost\nwithin the shadow of St. Peter's!\n\n     [103] Biart: _The Aztecs_, p. 110.\n\nNow, why is this? There can be but one answer, and that is that these\npeople simply inherited a portion of the _psychos_ of their\nforefathers, which made the tenets of this religion natural and easy of\nbelief. I have demonstrated, I believe, that religious feeling was not a\npsychical trait in the beginning; like a number of other mental\nattributes, it was the result of evolution.[104] Mental abstraction,\nespecially as associated with religious feeling, was the result of\npsychical growth, of psychically inherited experiences.[AH] As _psychos_\ngrew beneath the fostering influence of ages of experience, the mind\nbecame able to formulate abstract thought. In the beginning, the process\nof ratiocination was, necessarily, very simple; but, simple as it was,\nit was able to recognize the source of life--first, in the sun, then, in\nthe second place, in man himself; and, finally and _abstractly_, in a\nsource outside of, but connected with, man. This abstract source, which\nsprung from sexuality, _ab initio_, they deified and worshiped. Thus we\nsee that, in the very beginning, the worship of the generative principle\nsprung from, and was a part of, man himself. Throughout thousands and\nthousands of years, religious feeling and sexual desire, the component\nparts of phallic adoration, were intimately associated; finally,\nreligio-sexuality became an instinct, just as a belief in the existence\nof a double or soul became an instinct.\n\n     [104] Huxley: _Essays_; Haeckel: _The History of Creation_;\n     Haeckel: _The Evolution of Man_; Peschel: _The Races of Man_; De\n     Quatrefages: _The Human Species_; Draper: _The Conflict Between\n     Religion and Science_; White: _History of the Warfare of Science\n     with Theology_; Romanes: _Mental Evolution in Man_; Wallace: _The\n     Malay Archipelago_ (_The Races of Man in the Malay Archipelago_, c.\n     xl); Darwin's _Works_; Maudsley: _The Physiology of Mind_; Tylor:\n     _Anthropology_; Spencer: _Synthetic Philosophy_--_Prin. Psych.,\n     Prin. Sociol._\n\n     [AH] The sense of familiarity implies previous perception now\n     dissociated, but subconsciously present and struggling up toward\n     the surface of the upper consciousness to gain recognition. Boris\n     Sidis: _Multiple Personality_, p. 51.\n\nBelief in the existence of a soul has never been repressed; its utility\nis still recognized; hence, it is present in our active consciousness.\nThe accumulated experiences of civilization have, however, declared the\ninutility of phallic worship, hence, it has been crowded out of our\nactive consciousness by a process of selection and has been relegated to\nthe innermost recesses of our subliminal consciousness, where also dwell\nmany other formerly active instincts of our savage ancestors. When\ncircumstances favoring their appearances occur, these pseudo-dormant\ninstincts always become evident; it is due to this fact that the\ncorrelation of religious emotion and sexual desire exists.\n\n\n\n\nVIRAGINITY AND EFFEMINATION.\n\n\nIn following up the chain of evolution in animal life from its inception\nin primordial protoplasm to its end, as we now find it, we discover that\nthe interlinking organisms are, in the beginning, either asexual or\nhermaphroditic. The moneron, the lowest form of animal life, simply\nmultiplies by division. The different elements through which propagation\nand generation are carried on, are undoubtedly present even in the\nmoneron, but are not differentiated. The moneron is an organless,\nstructureless organism, consequently asexual. The cell, on the contrary,\nis hermaphroditic, for it contains within itself the necessary elements\nfor reproducing itself. The am[oe]ba is the connecting link which\nconnects all terrene life with primitive bathybian protoplasm, and is,\nstrictly speaking, a true hermaphrodite. Ascending at once to the sixth\nstage in the ancestry of man, we come to the _acoelomi_, or worms\nwithout body cavity. These worms are phylogenetic, consequently\nhermaphroditic. I do not mean to say that these worms have the organs of\neach sex equally developed; therefore, in the use of the word\nhermaphrodite, I use it in its broadest sense. I simply mean that they\nare autogenetic. In the _rhabdocoela_ the sexual organs appear in their\nsimplest forms--a testis anterior to a single or double ovary. Other\ngliding worms have a more complex arrangement of the sexual organs, but\nmost of them are true hermaphrodites. Next in the chain of evolutionary\ndevelopment, and one step nearer man, we find the soft worms\n(_scolecidae_); from a branch of this family the parent group of\nvertebrates was developed. The immediate ancestor of the vertebrates was\neither the amphioxus (lancelet) or some other notochordate animal, whose\ntype is now extinct. Thus we have traced hermaphroditism from the\nam[oe]ba to the amphioxus, from the ancestor of the parent cell to the\nancestor of the vertebrates. We could carry it further, but it is\nunnecessary. Effemination and viraginity, are due directly to the\ninfluence of that strange law laid down by Darwin--the law of reversion\nto ancestral types. It is an effort of nature to return man to the old\nhermaphroditic form from which he was evolved. It is an effort on the\npart of nature to incorporate the individualities of the male and\nfemale, both physical and psychical, in one body. The phenomenon of\natavism is more apt to occur in feeble types than in strong, healthy and\nwell-developed types. Microcephalism, occurring, as it most frequently\ndoes, among ignorant, ill-nourished, and unhealthy people, is an\nexample. Dolichocephalism and a flattening of the cranial arch, with\ncorresponding loss of capacity in the skull--types that we see\neverywhere among the depraved and vicious--are other examples of this\ntendency of atavism to seize on weakened and unhealthy subjects.\nEffemination finds more victims among the wealthy and the educated than\namong the poor and uneducated. This phenomenon is a psychic rather than\na physical hermaphroditism, and is directly traceable to the enervation\nproduced by the habits of the wealthy and unemployed. Wealth begets\nluxury, luxury begets debauchery and consequent enervation. Periods of\nmoral decadence in the life of a nation are always coincident with\nperiods of luxury and great wealth, with consequent enervation and\neffemination; examples of this may be found in the histories of Rome,\nGreece, and France. During the reign of Louis XV., examples of\neffemination crowded into the court and vied with the royal fop in the\nsplendor of their raiment and effeminacy of their bearing. Psychic\nhermaphroditism does not occur _naturally_ in uncivilized or\nhalf-civilized races. The reason for this is patent. Atavism finds\namong them no weakened and enervated subjects on whom to perpetrate this\nstrange travesty on nature.\n\nLarge cities are the hotbeds and breeding-places of the various\nneuroses. There general paresis treads closely upon the heels of sexual\nneurasthenia, while the victims of hysteria and kindred ills are almost\ncountless in their number. What wonder, then, that the offspring of such\nparents should be weak and neurasthenic, and fall easy victims to the\nthousand and one erotic fancies which beset them! What wonder that here\natavism finds its richest field, and plays its strangest and most\nfearful pranks, sending men into the world with the tastes, desires, and\nhabits of women, and women with all the mental hibitudes of men! Juvenal\nwrote in scathing, searing sarcasm of the degeneracy of the Roman youth;\neffemination was very prevalent, and this bitter satirist wrote burning\nwords against their degrading and bestial practices. It seems to me\nthat we are beginning to need a Juvenal for this day and generation!\n\nPeople divide themselves into classes, and these classes are generally\nexceedingly clannish. It is not considered \"good form\" to marry out of\nthe class to which an individual may belong, consequently, no new types\nof individuals are added. Luxury and debauchery enervate the classes\nwhich indulge in them. The people of these classes intermarry among\nthemselves, no new blood is added, hence, in a very few generations,\ndegeneration sets in.\n\nEffemination and viraginity are common types of degeneration which\nalways follow in the wake of luxury and debauchery. Effemination makes\nits appearance early in life. The young boy likes the society of girls;\nhe plays with dolls, and, if permitted, will don female attire and dress\nhis hair like a girl. He learns to sew, to knit, to embroider, to do\n\"tatting.\" He becomes a connoisseur in female dress, and likes to\ndiscuss matters pertaining to the toilet of females. He does not care\nfor boyish sports, and when he grows older, takes no pleasure in the\namusements and pursuits of his masculine acquaintances. He prefers to\nspend his time with women and to engage in their employments and\namusements. As the change in his psychic being becomes more pronounced\nand more overpowering, he will endeavor to approach the female in gait,\nattitude, and style of dress.\n\nI have seen mothers guilty of incalculable harm by fostering such\ninclinations in their sons. They think (the thought is a natural one)\nthat such perversions of taste indicate gentleness and kindliness, and\ninduce their sons to continue in the practice of them, thus assisting\natavism in its baneful work.\n\nEffemination is a disease which, taken at its inception, can generally\nbe eradicated and cured. As soon as it is discovered, the boy's\nsurroundings should be changed; his mind should be directed into new\nchannels, and his dormant boy's nature aroused. Outdoor exercise and a\nfree intercourse with companions of his own sex should be made important\nfactors in the treatment of an incipient effeminant. He should be\ncarefully watched until _vita sexualis_ has been established; he should\nthen be taught the dangers of youthful follies and indiscretions.\n\nA dandified man is always ridiculous, but when he adds to his foppery,\neffemination, he then becomes contemptible.\n\nSeveral years ago I had the opportunity of studying a pronounced\neffeminant. He is one of the best known young men of a Southern city,\nand is a leader in society. He took me to his \"boudoir\" and showed me\nhis \"lingerie.\" The words quoted are his own. His nightgowns were\nmarvels of artistic needlework, as far as I was able to judge, and were\nmade by himself. His nightcaps were \"sweetly pretty,\" and one of them\nwas a \"perfect dream of beauty.\" On his dressing-table were all the\naccessories of a modern society woman's toilet, including rouge, powder,\na complete manicure set, and numerous bottles of perfumes and toilet\nwaters. In his wardrobe he had displayed on forms, some six or eight\ncorsets and chemisettes--\"corset-covers,\" as he designated them.\n\nThis man's voice and manner of speaking are decidedly feminine; all the\nlittle mannerisms and affectations of a society woman being faithfully\nreproduced. I understand from his associates that he is a splendid\nbusiness man, and that not a breath of scandal has ever tarnished his\ngood name. He was reared by his mother, and never associated with boys\nuntil his sixteenth year. I understood from him that she always treated\nhim as a girl, and consulted him in all things pertaining to her toilet.\nHe seemed utterly unconscious of his anomalous condition, and as his\nbusiness associates are gentlemen, and his intimate friends are ladies,\nhe may drift through life without a single jar to mar the serenity of\nhis existence.\n\nViraginity is, comparatively, an infrequent occurrence, but under its\ninfluence the unfortunate victims are guilty of startling vagaries. The\nrecent case of Alice Mitchell, who killed Miss Ward, at Memphis, Tenn.,\nis an example of pronounced viraginity. We see daily in the newspapers\naccounts of women who masquerade as men, and history abounds in like\ninstances. The celebrated writer Count Sandor V. was a woman who posed\nas a man, and who was in fact Sarolta (Charlotte), Countess V. \"Among\nmany foolish things that her father encouraged in her was the fact that\nhe brought her up as a boy, called her Sandor, allowed her to ride,\ndrive, and hunt, admiring her muscular energy.\" At the age of thirteen\nshe ran away from school, where she had been sent by her mother, and\nreturned home. \"Sarolta returned to her mother, who, however, could do\nnothing and was compelled to allow her daughter to again become Sandor,\nwear male clothes, and, at least once a year, to fall in love with\npersons of her own sex.\"\n\nMothers, early in life, though not from any sense of danger to their\ndaughters, begin to eradicate the tom-boy inclinations in their female\nchildren; hence the comparative infrequency of viraginity. The\ncongenital viragint will always remain somewhat masculine in her tastes\nand ideas, but her inclinations and desires having been turned toward\nfemininity early in life, she will escape the horrors of complete\nviraginity or gynandry. The victim of effemination, however, is saved by\nno such accidental forethought. The ignorant mother fosters feminine\ninclinations and desires in her effeminate son until his psychic being\nbecomes entirely changed, and not even the establishment of _vita\nsexualis_ will save him from effemination.\n\nAn only son, who is in the least degree neurasthenic, runs the risk of\nbecoming an effeminant under the tutelage of a loving but ignorant\nmother who encourages his feminine tastes and inclinations. A young man\nof my acquaintance, who is an only son, is so situated. This young man\ndevotes his entire attention to matters of the toilet. He paints his\ncheeks and powders his face; even his eyebrows and eyelashes are\nanointed with some dark-colored ointment or pomade.\n\nEffemination and viraginity are more prevalent in the Old World than in\nthe United States. The civilization and settlement of the United States\nare, comparatively speaking, new. The people are, as yet, a young,\nstrong, and vigorous nation. Years of luxury and debauchery have not yet\nbrought the penalty of enervation and neurasthenia to the _masses_,\nthough in certain circles of society, it is becoming painfully evident\nthat that penalty is being even now exacted.\n\nIn this article I have described only mild types of viraginity and\neffemination. In the more pronounced types of these singular examples of\natavism or reversion, the victims commit the most unheard of and the\nmost unnatural acts.\n\nAlmost every case of effemination or viraginity can be cured if\nrecognized and treated in its incipiency. The parents should be the\nphysicians. They should keep a watchful supervision over their\noffspring, and as soon as any evidences of effemination or viraginity\nbecome apparent, treatment, both physical and psychical, should at once\nbe instituted.\n\nEffemination has occasioned the downfall of many nations; let us guard\nagainst it with all our power. Let us train up our boys to be manly men,\nand our girls to be womanly women.\n\n\n\n\nBORDERLANDS AND CRANKDOM.\n\n\nWhen that bilious critic and merciless crucifier of human foibles,\nCarlyle, himself a degenerate, wrote that nine-tenths of the world were\nfools, he was much nearer truth than most men think. When we take an\nintrospective view of our sane personality, we shudder to see how near\nit is to the borderlands of insanity and the bizarre and eccentric world\nof crankdom. There hardly lives a man who does not possess some\neccentricity, or who does not cherish, hidden, perhaps, deep within\nhimself, some small delusion, which he is ashamed to acknowledge to the\noutside world. Social relations and the iron rules of custom hold in\nplace the balance-wheel of many a disordered mind. The mental equipoise\nis kept at the normal standard only by the powerful aid of the will,\nsupported and assisted by extraneous adjuvants, such as fear of\npunishment, fear of personal harm, and, above all, by the fear of\nridicule. Many a man hugs his delusions closely to his heart, indulges\nthem only in the secret recesses of his soul, and, their sole owner and\nacquaintance, carries them with him to his grave.\n\nAny man who has a retentive memory, and one capable of minute analysis,\ncan look back in his life and recall moments when his insane personality\ngot the better of his will, and ran riot in forbidden pathways. He may\nnot have committed an insane act; yet the thought, the impulse, the\ndelusion was there and only outside influences kept it from breaking\nforth. Who fails to remember certain times in his life when he has had\nan almost overpowering desire to cry out in church, or to laugh on some\nsad or solemn occasion; or, having a razor in his hand, has had an\nimpulse, sudden and intense, to draw it across his throat; or, being on\nsome high place, has been seized with the desire to hurl himself\ndownward? This shows how near indeed the healthy mind ever hovers on the\nborderlands of insanity.\n\nMan stands so close to the portals of insanity that he can look through\nthe gateway, when he takes an introspective view of his psychical being,\nand can see the phantoms and mental ghosts of his insane personality.\n\nWe have every reason to believe that, among civilized races, there is a\nvast amount of latent insanity. Taking the tables of our insane asylums,\nwe find a thousand and one causes given as the exciting factors in the\nmental overthrow. Love, religion, anger, disappointment, etc., down\nthrough the long list of psychic and aesthetic emotions, until it seems\nas though even a breath of wind would be sufficient to destroy the\nmental equipoise.\n\nAmong savage and uncivilized races, insanity is of infrequent\noccurrence. Only when a race begins to elevate itself and take on a\nhigher view of morality, when new rules and new laws, new customs and\ninnovations, tending to place individuals in a state of comparison,\narise, does insanity make its appearance. The untutored savage, living\nin a state of communism, is untroubled by the jealousies and\nheart-burnings of his civilized congener. He lives in the to-day and\nallows the to-morrow to take care of itself. Devoid of ambition, a mere\nanimal, sensual and indolent, he cares only for the gratification of his\nphysical desires. The mental attributes of a civilized being are, in\nhim, wanting.\n\nPsychos is the result of evolutionary development, and the chief reason\nwhy insanity is not as prevalent in the savage as in the civilized man,\nis because the brain of the savage lacks development. I do not wish to\nconvey the idea that insanity is purely psychical in its nature.\nInsanity is the result of a material change in the structure of the\nbrain produced by morbific action. The manifestations of insanity are\nmerely the symptoms of a disease that involves the brain. The savage has\nless development of psychical function, consequently he is less liable\nto mental lesion. I mean by psychical function that portion of the brain\nin which psychos has its origin. Alienists consider the habits of men as\nbeing the factor in the production of insanity. Habits and heredity are\nundoubted factors in the production of diseased minds, and, in fact, are\nthe chief agents. You cannot, however, expect to find a disordered\nfunction where that function is absent. Savages have paresis, apoplexy,\nand imbecility, seldom or never insanity. The reason is patent--they\nlack the psychic function, that peculiar element, whatever it may be,\nwhich raises civilized man so high above them. That this element can be\ndeveloped in savages I do not for one instant deny. The ploughshare of\nevolutionary civilization will bring it to the surface sooner or later,\nand when it does insanity follows. I have only to point to the American\nnegro to prove the truth of my proposition; even he is partially exempt,\nsimply because his civilization is of such recent date that his brain\nhas not yet acquired its full quota of the psychic element.\n\nI will venture to assert, so true is the fact that insanity is the\nproduct of civilization, that, if it were not for the combating\ninfluences of social laws, assisted not a little by scientific medical\naid, all North America could not contain the vast and enormous army that\nwould constitute the civilized world's array of lunatics.\n\nThere seems to be in the minds of men an instinctive awe of anything\nthat appertains to the insane. In olden times a disordered mind was\nconsidered of divine or diabolic origin as it evinced good or evil\ntendencies. This belief lasted even until the present century. Many old\nwomen who were the victims of senile dementia and kindred ills, were\naccused of witchcraft and intercourse with the devil, here in the United\nStates, not a century ago. Witches were executed in England and men\nburned at the stake in Spain, not two hundred years ago, for the crime\nof demoniacal possession. Even in this enlightened age men are\naccustomed to consider insanity rather from its psychical standpoint\nthan from its physical aspect. They do not take into consideration the\nfact that insanity is due to a physical lesion, and that its vagaries\nare but the symptoms of brain disease or brain deformity. The\ninhabitants of the borderlands are invested with a certain shadowy\nmystery which separates them from the rest of mankind, and which makes\nthem appear to us as denizens of another psychical world than ours.\n\nIn the Middle Ages, cranks, whose eccentricities took a religious turn,\nwere considered holy. St. Simon Stylites was a very pronounced crank,\nand a very holy man also, because he chose to live the greater portion\nof his life perched on a pillar seventy feet high. St. Anthony was\nanother holy crank who never, in all his life, washed his feet. Poor\nJoan of Arc was burned at the stake because she was \"possessed of a\nfalse and lying devil.\" She has been recently proposed for canonization\nby the same church that burned her, and thus, in a measure, had justice\ndone her. I do not think, however, that this is any recompense for the\nterrible agony inflicted on this unfortunate victim of hystero-epilepsy.\n\nSays Maudsley in \"Responsibility in Mental Disease\": \"Some of the\nprophets of the Old Testament presented symptoms which can hardly be\ninterpreted as other than the effects of madness; certainly if they were\nnot mad, they imitated very closely some of its most striking features.\"\nJeremiah takes a long journey to the river Euphrates and hides a linen\ngirdle in a hole of a rock. He then returns home and in a few days\nmakes the same journey, and finds the girdle rotten and good for\nnothing. Ezekiel digs a hole in the wall of his house, and through it\nremoves his household goods, instead of through the door. Hosea marries\na prostitute because he said he had been commanded by God so to do.\nIsaiah stripped himself naked and paraded up and down in sight of all\nthe people.\n\nSome of the greatest changes in the world's history have been effected\nby dwellers in the borderlands. Mahomet was an epileptic, and his first\nvision was the result on an epileptic convulsion or seizure. The\ncharacter of his visions was exactly like that of those visions which an\nepileptic sees and describes at the present time. Mahomet believed in\nhis visions, and, what is more, got more than half the world to believe\nin them also. Gautama was a dweller in the borderlands, yet his\nfollowers now number five hundred millions.\n\nThe novel mode in which an insane man regards things may be an\ninspiration which reflection could never attain, and it sometimes\nhappens that opinions which seem to the world to be the ravings of a\nmadman, have turned out to be true. The insane man has the world against\nhim, and though he may pose for a short time as a reformer, sooner or\nlater lands in the asylum.\n\nIt sometimes happens that the crank will succeed in getting converts. A\nnotable instance is Schweinfurth, or \"the Christ,\" as he calls himself.\nI am firmly convinced that this man believes in his delusions. One thing\nis certain, and that is, his disciples believe in him implicitly. This\nman is dangerous to society, inasmuch as he has caused the separation of\nseveral wives from their husbands; the wives abandoning their husbands\nto follow him to \"Heaven,\" as he calls his farm house.\n\nThe crank is, generally, a harmless individual, and is not anti-social\nunless his delusions take the form of homicidal impulse, pyromania,\nkleptomania, etc.\n\nHomicidal impulse is the most dangerous to society of the many mental\nvagaries and derangements which afflict the dwellers in the borderlands.\nIts invasion is sudden and its impulse is, generally, overpowering. A\nman may be walking the streets presumably in perfect health, and yet\nhave, all the while, a voice whispering in his ear \"kill, kill.\" His\ninsane desire at length reaches its acme, and he throws aside every\nmental restraint and kills the first individual he may chance to meet.\nAgain, he may desire to kill some particular individual, and will\ncarefully and systematically arrange his plans for the successful\nenactment of the homicide. The murderers of Garfield and Harrison\nprobably belong to this latter class, though in the case of Prendergast,\nthe slayer of Mayor Harrison, this opinion may be erroneous. There is\nsomething about his photograph that leads me to believe that he is a\nmoral imbecile, rather than an intellectual dyscrasiac.\n\nA clerk in a solicitor's office, at Alton, Hampshire, England, one\nafternoon took a walk outside the town, when he met some children. He\npersuaded one of these, a girl of nine, to go with him into a\nneighboring garden. A short while after, he was seen walking quietly\nhome; he was seen to wash himself in the river and then go back to his\noffice. The little girl did not return home, and, search having been\ninstituted, her dismembered body was found strewn about the garden. The\nclerk was arrested, and in his diary was found this entry, recently\nmade: \"Killed a little girl; it was fine and hot.\" This man was either a\nsadistic sexual pervert, or a victim of homicidal impulse. Maudsley\ngives this instance as an example of the latter, while Krafft-Ebing\ngives it as an example of the former. There is a great difference\nbetween these two mental derangements. The victim of homicidal impulse\nkills without any ulterior object, while the sadist kills in order to\ngratify his unnatural and perverted sexual appetite.\n\nThe victim of homicidal impulse is, to all outward appearances,\nperfectly sane otherwise. His impulse frequently leaves him for years\nand then returns with overpowering force.\n\nEpileptics who have just passed through violent convulsions, will\nfrequently attack bystanders with great fury. Some alienists declare\nthat homicidal mania is frequently only a masked epilepsy. All\nepileptics should be carefully watched; they may become dangerous to\nsociety at any moment. Numerous instances are recorded of murder\ncommitted by sufferers from _petit mal_, a form of epilepsy. I once saw\na negro walk up to a white man, who was a stranger and unknown by him,\nand fell him to the earth by striking him with a club. The negro was\narrested, and the next day swore that he was entirely unconscious of\nhaving struck anyone. It was proven at his trial that he was subject to\nmild epileptic attacks.\n\nI believe that all suicides are due to mental aberration. It may be the\nresult of a momentary and sudden loss of mental equipoise, or the final\nand fatal ending of a premeditated desire carried through days, weeks,\nmonths, and even years.\n\nWe see a man, blessed with everything that makes life enjoyable, genial,\ngay, with a ready smile and kindly word for everyone, suddenly, in a\nmoment, pass forever out into the unknown--self-killed, a victim of his\nown creation. We stand amazed! Why did he do it? We can find nothing in\nhis past or present condition to warrant such an action.\n\nHe was the victim of momentary aberration, or, perhaps, deep in his\nmind, buried and hidden even from himself, there dwelt a desire for\nself-slaughter, when a \"physical pain, an unexpected impression, a\nmoral affection, an indiscreet proposition\" uncovered this desire, and\nhe at once committed the deed!\n\nThere are epidemics of suicide. Let the papers chronicle some peculiar\nmethod of suicide selected by some unfortunate, and others will\nimmediately follow his example. Unconscious cerebration also hurls many\nsouls out of the world. I was called to see a gentleman who had\nattempted suicide by slashing the radial artery at the wrist. I found\nhim holding a compress on the severed vessel and greatly alarmed. He\nswore to me that he was totally unconscious how he had come to do the\ndeed, and that he did not know that he had cut himself until he felt the\npain and saw the blood flowing from the wound!\n\nViraginity and effemination, while not mental insanities, strictly\nspeaking, are, nevertheless, mental deformities, and their unfortunate\nvictims are dwellers in the borderlands. Mild forms of these types of\ndegeneration are very abundant. The effeminate, cigarette-smoking,\nsoda-drinking young man of the comic weeklies, and the loud, horsy,\nslang-using, vulgar, masculine young woman are seen everywhere.\n\nEffemination and viraginity are the results of the weakening effects of\nluxury and consequent debauchery. Nations, time and again, have felt the\ndire effects of effemination and have sunk beneath them. The Grecian,\nthe Roman, the Egyptian nations are familiar examples. The satirists of\nthe golden age of the Latin people dipped their _stili_, metaphorically,\nin gall and bitter wormwood and berated the effeminate nobility time and\nagain. One of them advised the Roman ladies to look for _men_ among the\ngladiators and the peasants! Anacreon's poems are filled with allusions\nto effemination and the delights of psychic hermaphroditism.\n\nIn the time of Louis XIV., of France, the royal palaces were filled to\nrepletion with effeminants, who vied with the women in the splendor of\ntheir robes and the salacious eccentricities of their conduct. The case\nof Alice Mitchell, who killed Freda Ward in Memphis not long ago, was\none of pronounced viraginity.\n\nFortunately, for the good of the community at large, there are,\ncomparatively speaking, few viragints. The careful mother restrains,\ntempers, and abolishes the hoydenish habits of her \"tom-boy\" girl early\nin life, and turns her thoughts toward feminine pursuits and desires.\nThe unfortunate effeminant, however, is encouraged in his feminine\ntastes and habits by his unwise mother, who likes her boy to sit beside\nher and sew and knit, if he so desires. She discusses matters of the\ntoilet with him, and, in fact, treats him as she would a daughter. In\nthe end, his psychic hermaphroditism becomes complete, and one more\nunfortunate goes out into the world to swell the ranks of crankdom!\n\nKleptomaniacs are greatly to be pitied, for they are generally women in\nwhom the moral sense is very much developed. The victim of kleptomania\nwill steal any and everything; they are like magpies in this respect. An\nacquaintance of mine, a most estimable lady, a devout Christian, and a\nmost exemplary wife and mother, is the most incorrigible thief I ever\nsaw. She has often picked my pockets while I was engaged about her\nsick-bed. The merchants of the city where she lives know her infirmity,\nwatch her while she is in their shops, and respectfully and kindly\nrelieve her of her pilferings when she starts to leave. She expresses\ngreat sorrow for her unfortunate insane impulse, and has often begged\nher husband to have her placed in an asylum. This he refuses to do, as\nshe is perfectly sane otherwise. The husband was called away for several\nweeks, and, on his return, took me to his house and showed me her room.\nIn the room were the objects stolen during his absence. It was the most\nmiscellaneous collection of valuables and trash I ever saw. She had\ngathered together everything from a darning-needle to a tombstone, a\nsmall specimen of the latter forming a unit of this heterogeneous whole.\nThis form of mental dyscrasia is much more frequent than people suppose,\nand the antecedents of shop-lifters and the like should be carefully\nexamined before a judgment on their criminality is passed.\n\n\"Eccentricity is certainly not always insanity, but there can be no\nquestion that it is often the outcome of insane temperament, and may\napproach very near to, or actually pass into, insanity.\" Alienists rely\non the eccentric and peculiar changes which take place in the characters\nof their patients, who either present themselves or are brought to them\nfor treatment, to establish their diagnosis. If a modest and truthful\nman suddenly becomes a braggart and a liar; or, if a humane man becomes\ncruel, or a neat man slovenly, there is reason to suspect brain trouble.\nThe intellect may appear intact, so also the reasoning powers, but these\neccentricities indicate a deviation which may lead to mental\ndestruction. The last faculty to develop in the mind of man is the moral\nfaculty; this faculty is the one first lost by diseased brains. If a\nman, who suddenly becomes dissolute and licentious (who, heretofore, has\nled a virtuous, moral life), be examined, in nine cases in ten his brain\nwill be found to be diseased. The little cloud, which at first is no\nlarger than a man's hand, grows ever larger and larger, and in the end\noverspreads the entire mental sky!\n\n\n\n\nGENIUS AND DEGENERATION.\n\n\nThat the psychical function or intellectuality is frequently developed\nat the expense of the physical organism is well known, and that genius\nis seldom or never unaccompanied by physical and mental degeneration is\na fact that can be no longer denied. I use the word degeneration in its\nbroadest sense, and intend it to include all kinds of abnormalities. The\nfacts noted above are by no means recent knowledge, but were vaguely\nrecognized and commented on centuries and decades of centuries ago by\nthe Hebrews and kindred races of people. The Hebrew word _nabi_ means\neither madman or prophet, and it is now admitted that most of the\nprophets gave evidences of insanity as well as genius. The Greeks and\nthe Romans recognized this kinship, and we read in the Bible of a\ncertain Festus, who, when confronted by a man of genius, and being\nunable to answer his arguments, said to him, \"Paul, much learning hath\nmade thee mad!\" Lauvergne, when speaking of the oxycephalic (sugarloaf)\nskull, an unquestionable example of degeneration, wrote many years ago,\n\"This head announces the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty\nof man, genius, with the most pronounced impulses to rape, murder, and\ntheft.\"\n\nThe purpose of this paper is to show that wherever genius is observed,\nwe find it accompanied by degeneration, which is evinced by physical\nabnormalties or mental eccentricities. It is a strange fact, however,\nand one not noticed by Lombroso, or any other writer, as far as I know,\nthat mechanical geniuses, or those who, for the most part, deal with\nmaterial facts, do not, as a rule, show any signs of degeneration. I\nhave only to instance Darwin, Galileo, Edison, Watts, Rumsey, Howe, and\nMorse to prove the truth of this assertion. It is only the genius of\naestheticism, the genius of the emotion, that is generally accompanied\nby unmistakable signs of degeneration.\n\nSaul, the first king of Israel, was a man of genius and, at times, a\nmadman. We read that, before his coronation, he was seized with an\nattack of madness and joined a company of kindred eccentrics. His\nfriends and acquaintances were naturally surprised and exclaimed: \"Is\nSaul among the prophets?\" _i. e._, \"Has Saul become insane?\" Again, we\nare told that he was suddenly seized with an attack of homicidal\nimpulse, and tried to kill David. Before this time he had had repeated\nattacks of madness, which only the harp of David could control and\nsubdue. David himself was a man whose mental equilibrium was not well\nestablished, as his history clearly indicates. He forsook his God,\nindulged in licentious practices, and was, withal, a very, immoral man\nat times. At his time, the Hebrews had reached a high degree of\ncivilization. Abstract ethics had become very much developed, and any\nexample of great immorality occurring during this epoch is proof\npositive of atavism or degeneration.\n\nAs I have intimated before, many of the ancient Hebrew prophets, who\nwere unquestionably men of genius, gave evidences of insanity; notably\nJeremiah, who made a long journey to the River Euphrates, where he hid a\nlinen girdle. He returned home, and in a few days made the same journey\nand found the girdle rotten and good for nothing; Ezekiel, who dug a\nhole in the wall of his house, through which he removed his household\ngoods, instead of through the door; Hosea, who married a prostitute,\nbecause God, so he declared, had told him so to do; and Isaiah, who\nstripped himself naked and paraded up and down in sight of all the\npeople. King Solomon, a man of pre-eminent genius, was mentally\nunbalanced. The \"Song of Solomon\" shows very clearly that he was a\nvictim of some psychical disorder, sexual in its character and origin.\nThe poems of Anacreon are lascivious, lustful, and essentially carnal,\nand history informs us that he was a sexual pervert.\n\nSwinburne's poems show clearly the mental bias of their author, who is\ndescribed as being peculiar and eccentric. Many of the men of genius who\nhave assisted in making the history of the world have been the victims\nof epilepsy. Julius Caesar, military leader, statesman, politician, and\nauthor, was an epileptic. Twice on the field of battle he was stricken\ndown by this disorder. On one occasion, while seated at the tribune, he\nwas unable to rise when the senators, consuls, and praetors paid him a\nvisit of ceremony and honor. They were offended at his seeming lack of\nrespect, and retired, showing signs of anger. Caesar returned home,\nstripped off his clothes, and offered his throat to be cut by anyone. He\nthen explained his conduct to the senate, saying that he was the victim\nof a malady which, at times, rendered him incapable of standing. During\nthe attacks of this disorder \"he felt shocks in his limbs, became giddy,\nand at last lost consciousness.\" Moliere was the victim of epilepsy; so\nalso was Petrarch, Flaubert, Charles V., Handel, St. Paul, Peter the\nGreat, and Dostoieffsky; Paganini, Mozart, Schiller, Alfieri, Pascal,\nRichelieu, Newton, and Swift were the victims of diseases epileptoid in\ncharacter.\n\nMany men of genius have suffered from spasmodic and choreic movements,\nnotably Lenau, Montesquieu, Buffon, Dr. Johnson, Santeuil, Crebillon,\nLombardini, Thomas Campbell, Carducci, Napoleon, and Socrates.\n\nSuicide, essentially a symptom of mental disorder, has hurried many a\nman of genius out into the unknown. The list begins with such eminent\nmen as Zeno, Cleanthes, Dionysius, Lucan, and Stilpo, and contains the\nnames of such immortals as Chatterton, Blount, Haydon, Clive, and David.\n\nAlcoholism and morphinism, or an uncontrollable desire for alcohol or\nopium in some form or other, are now recognized as evidences of\ndegeneration. Men of genius, both in the Old World and in the New, have\nshown this form of degeneration. Says Lombroso: \"Alexander died after\nhaving emptied ten times the goblet of Hercules, and it was, without\ndoubt, in an alcoholic attack, while pursuing naked the infamous Thais,\nthat he killed his dearest friend. Caesar was often carried home\nintoxicated on the shoulders of his soldiers. Neither Socrates, nor\nSeneca, nor Alcibiades, nor Cato, nor Peter the Great (nor his wife\nCatherine, nor his daughter Elizabeth) were remarkable for their\nabstinence. One recalls Horace's line, '_Narratur et prisci Cantonis\nsaepe mero caluisse virtus._' Tiberius Nero was called by the Romans\nBiberius Mero. Septimius Severus and Mahomet II. succumbed to\ndrunkenness or _delirium tremens_.\"\n\nAmong the men and women of genius of the Old World who abused the use of\nalcohol and opium, were Coleridge, James Thomson, Carew, Sheridan,\nSteele, Addison, Hoffman, Charles Lamb, Madame de Stael, Burns, Savage,\nAlfred de Musset, Kleist, Caracci, Jan Steen, Morland Turner (the\npainter), Gerard de Nerval, Hartley Coleridge, Dussek, Handel, Glueck,\nPraga, Rovani, and the poet Somerville. This list is by no means\ncomplete, as the well-informed reader may see at a glance; it serves to\nshow, however, how very often this form of degeneration makes its\nappearance in men of genius.\n\nIn men of genius the moral sense is sometimes obtunded, if not\naltogether absent. Sallust, Seneca, and Bacon were suspected felons.\nRousseau, Byron, Foscolo, and Caresa were grossly immoral, while\nCasanova, the gifted mathematician, was a common swindler. Murat,\nRousseau, Clement, Diderot, Praga, and Oscar Wilde were sexual perverts.\n\nGenius, like insanity, lives in a world of its own, hence we find few,\nif any, evidences of human affection in men of genius. Says Lombroso: \"I\nhave been able to observe men of genius when they had scarce reached the\nage of puberty; they did not manifest the deep aversions of moral\ninsanity, but I have noticed among all a strange apathy for everything\nwhich does not concern them; as though, plunged in the hypnotic\ncondition, they did not perceive the troubles of others, or even the\nmost pressing needs of those who were dearest to them; if they observed\nthem, they grew tender, at once hastening to attend them; but it was a\nfire of straw, soon extinguished, and it gave place to indifference and\nweariness.\"\n\nThis emotional anaesthesia is indicative of psychical atavism, and is an\nunmistakable evidence of degeneration. Lombroso gives a long list of the\nmen of genius who were celibates. I will mention a few of those with\nwhom the English-speaking world is most familiar: Kant, Newton, Pitt,\nFox, Beethoven, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Gray,\nDalton, Hume, Gibbon, Macaulay, Lamb, Bentham, Leonardo da Vinci,\nCopernicus, Reynolds, Handel, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Schopenhauer,\nCamoens, and Voltaire. La Bruyere says of men of genius: \"These men have\nneither ancestors nor descendants; they themselves form their entire\nposterity.\"\n\nThere is a form of mental obliquity which the French term _folie du\ndoute_. It is characterized by an incertitude in thought cooerdination,\nand often leads its victims into the perpetration of nonsensical and\nuseless acts. Men of genius are very frequently afflicted with this form\nof mental disorder. Dr. Johnson, who was a sufferer from _folie du\ndoute_, had to touch every post he passed. If he missed one he had to\nretrace his steps and touch it. Again, if he started out of a door on\nthe wrong foot he would return and make another attempt, starting out on\nthe foot which he considered the correct one to use. Napoleon counted\nand added up the rows of windows in every street through which he\npassed. A celebrated statesman, who is a personal friend of the writer,\ncan never bear to place his feet on a crack in the pavement or floor.\nWhen walking he will carefully step over and beyond all cracks or\ncrevices. This idiosyncracy annoys him greatly, but the impulse is\nimperative, and he can not resist it.\n\nThose who have been intimately associated with men of genius have\nnoticed that they are very frequently amnesic or \"absent-minded.\" Newton\nonce tried to stuff his niece's finger into the bowl of his lighted\npipe, and Rovelle would lecture on some subject for hours at a time and\nthen conclude by saying: \"But this is one of my arcana, which I tell to\nno one.\" One of his students would then whisper what he had just said\ninto his ear, and Rovelle would believe that his pupil \"had discovered\nthe arcanum by his own sagacity, and would beg him not to divulge what\nhe himself had just told to two hundred persons.\"\n\nLombroso has combed history, as it were, with a fine-tooth comb, and\nvery few geniuses have escaped his notice. This paper, so far, is hardly\nmore than a review of his extraordinarily comprehensive work; therefore,\nI will conclude this portion of it with a list of men of genius, their\nprofessions, and their evidences of degeneration, as gathered from his\nbook:\n\nCarlo Dolce, painter, _religious monomania_.\n\nBacon, philosopher, _megalomania_, _moral anaesthesia_.\n\nBalzac, writer, _masked epilepsy_, _megalomania_.\n\nCaesar, soldier, writer, _epilepsy_.\n\nBeethoven, musician, _amnesia_, _melancholia_.\n\nCowper, writer, _melancholia_.\n\nChateaubriand, writer, _chorea_.\n\nAlexander the Great, soldier, _alcoholism_.\n\nMoliere, dramatist, _epilepsy_, _phthisis pulmonalis_.\n\nLamb, writer, _alcoholism_, _melancholia_, _acute mania_.\n\nMozart, musician, _epilepsy_, _hallucinations_.\n\nHeine, writer, _melancholia_, _spinal disease_.\n\nDr. Johnson, writer, _chorea_, _folie du doute_.\n\nMalibran, _epilepsy_.\n\nNewton, philosopher, _amnesia_.\n\nCavour, statesman, philosopher, _suicidal impulse_.\n\nAmpere, mathematician, _amnesia_.\n\nThomas Campbell, writer, _chorea_.\n\nBlake, painter, _hallucinations_.\n\nChopin, musician, _melancholia_.\n\nColeridge, writer, _alcoholism_, _morphinism_.\n\nDonizetti, musician, _moral anaesthesia_.\n\nLenau, writer, _melancholia_.\n\nMahomet, theologian, _epilepsy_.\n\nManzoni, statesman, _folie du doute_.\n\nHaller, writer, _hallucinations_.\n\nDupuytren, surgeon, _suicidal impulse_.\n\nPaganini, musician, _epilepsy_.\n\nHandel, musician, _epilepsy_.\n\nSchiller, writer, _epilepsy_.\n\nRichelieu, statesman, _epilepsy_.\n\nPraga, writer, _alcoholism_, _sexual perversion_.\n\nTasso, writer, _alcoholism_, _melancholia_.\n\nSavonarola, theologian, _hallucinations_.\n\nLuther, theologian, _hallucinations_.\n\nSchopenhauer, philosopher, _melancholia_, _omniphobia_.\n\nGogol, writer, _melancholia_, _tabes dorsalis_.\n\nLazaretti, theologian, _hallucinations_.\n\nMallarme, writer, _suicidal impulse_.\n\nDostoieffsky, writer, _epilepsy_.\n\nNapoleon, soldier, statesman, _folie du doute_, _epilepsy_.\n\nComte, philosopher, _hallucinations_.\n\nPascal, philosopher, _epilepsy_.\n\nPoushkin, writer, _megalomania_.\n\nRenan, philosopher, _folie du doute_.\n\nSwift, writer, _paresis_.\n\nSocrates, philosopher, _chorea_.\n\nSchumann, musician, _paresis_.\n\nShelley, writer, _hallucinations_.\n\nBunyan, writer, _hallucinations_.\n\nSwedenborg, theologian, _hallucinations_.\n\nLoyola, theologian, _hallucinations_.\n\nJ. S. Mill, writer, _suicidal impulse_.\n\nLinnaeus, botanist, _paresis_.\n\nThe reader will observe that I have made use of the comprehensive word,\nwriter, to designate all kinds of literary work except theology and\nphilosophy. The above list is by no means complete, and only contains\nthe names of those geniuses with whom the world is well acquainted.\n\nWhen we come to the geniuses of the New World, we find that, though few\nin number, they, nevertheless, show erraticism and degeneration. Poe was\nundoubtedly a man of great genius, and his degeneration was indicated by\nhis excessive use of alcohol. Aaron Burr was the victim of moral\nanaesthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic.\nRandolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was,\nmorally, anaesthetic. Daniel Webster was addicted to an over-indulgence\nin alcohol, likewise Thomas Marshall and the elder Booth. Booth also had\nattacks of acute mania. His son Edwin had paresis; so also had John\nMcCullough, John T. Raymond, and Bartley Campbell. A distinguished\nstatesman and politician, and a man who stands high in the councils of\nthe nation, has, for a number of years, given evidence of mental\nobliquity by his uncontrollable desire for alcohol. No power, outside of\nbodily restraint, can control him and keep him from indulging his\nappetite for alcohol when this desire seizes him. One of the most noted\npoets of to-day, whose verses stir the heart with their pathos and bring\nsmiles to the gravest countenances with their humor, was, for a number\nof years (and still is, so I have been told), an inordinate user of\nalcohol.\n\nRobert Ingersoll was undoubtedly a man of genius and of considerable\noriginality, and a close study of his writings shows conclusively his\nmental eccentricity. Judging wholly from his printed utterances, Mr.\nIngersoll was only a superficial scientist and mediocre scholar. His\npower lay in his wonderful word imagery, and his intricately constructed\nverbal arabesques. He was a verbal symbolist. Symbolism, wherever\nfound, and in whatever art, if carried to any extent, must necessarily\nbe an evidence of atavism, consequently of degeneration.\n\nThomas Paine gave evidences of a lack of mental equipoise. We find\nscattered throughout his works the most brilliant, irrefutable, and\nlogical truths side by side with the most inane, illogical, and stolid\ncrudities. Among other men of genius who showed signs of degeneration we\nmay include Alexander Stevens, Joel Hart, Adams, Train, Breckenridge,\nWebster, Blaine, Van Buren, Houston, Grant, Hawthorne, Bartholow, Walt\nWhitman. We must not confound genius and talent--the two are widely\ndifferent. Genius is essentially original and spontaneous, while talent\nis to some extent acquired. Genius is a _quasi_ abnormality, and one for\nwhich the world should be devoutly grateful. _Psychos_, in the case of\ngenius, is not uniformly developed, one part, being more favored than\nthe others, absorbs and uses more than its share of that element,\nwhatsoever it be, which goes to make up intellectuality, hence the less\nfavored or less acquisitive parts show degeneration.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EFFECT OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE ON POSTERITY.\n\n     _The greatest, best, and highest law of higher civilization is that\n     which declares that man should strive to benefit, not himself\n     alone, but his posterity._\n\n\nI. THE ORIGIN OF THE MATRIARCHATE.\n\nIn the very beginning woman was, by function, a mother; by virtue of her\nsurroundings, a housewife. Man was then, as now, the active, dominant\nfactor in those affairs outside the immediate pale of the fireside. Life\nwas collective; \"communal was the habitation, and communal the wives\nwith the children; the men pursued the same prey, and devoured it\ntogether after the manner of wolves; all felt, all thought, all acted in\nconcert.\" Primitive men were like their simian ancestors, which never\npaired, and which roamed through the forest in bands and troops. This\ncollectivism is plainly noticeable in certain races of primitive folks\nwhich are yet in existence, notably the autochthons of the Aleutian\nIslands. Huddled together in their communal _kachims_, naked, without\nany thought of immodesty, men, women, and children share the same fire\nand eat from the same pot. They recognize no immorality in the fact of\nthe father cohabiting with his daughter--one of them naively remarking\nto Langsdorf, who reproached him for having committed this crime: \"Why\nnot? the otters do it!\" Later in life the men and women mate; but even\nthen there is no sanctity in the marriage tie, for the Aleutian will\nfreely offer his wife to the stranger within his gates, and will\nconsider it an insult if he refuses to enjoy her company. \"As with many\nsavages and half-civilized people, the man who would not offer his guest\nthe hospitality of the conjugal couch, or the company of his\nbest-looking daughter, would be considered an ill-bred person.\"\n\nThis laxity in sexual relations was, at first, common to all races of\nprimitive men, but, after a time, there arose certain influences which\nmodified, to a certain extent, this free and indiscriminate intercourse.\nFrequent wars must have occurred between hostile tribes of primitive\nmen, during which, some of them (physically or numerically weaker than\ntheir opponents) must have been repeatedly vanquished, and many of their\nfemales captured, for, in those old days (like those of more recent\ntimes, for that matter) the women were the prizes for which the men\nfought.\n\nUnder circumstances like these, the few remaining women must have served\nas wives for all the men of the tribe; and, in this manner polyandry had\nits inception. Polyandry gives women certain privileges which monandry\ndenies, and she is not slow to seize on these prerogatives, and to use\nthem in the furtherance of her own welfare. Polyandry, originating from\nany cause whatever, will always end in the establishment of a\nmatriarchate, in which the women are either directly or indirectly at\nthe head of the government.\n\nThere are several matriarchates still extant in the world, and one of\nthe best known, as well as the most advanced, as far as civilization and\nculture are concerned, is that of the Nairs, a people of India\ninhabiting that portion of the country lying between Cape Comorin and\nMangalore, and the Ghats and the Indian Ocean.\n\nThe Nairs are described as being the handsomest people in the world; the\nmen being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are\nslender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is\ncarefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say,\nfourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is\nselected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as\nthe groom ties the _tali_, or marriage cord, about her neck, he is\nfeasted and is then dismissed; the wife must never again speak to, or\neven look at, her husband. Once safely wedded, the girl becomes\nemancipated, and can receive the attentions of as many men as she may\nelect, though, I am informed, it is not considered fashionable, at\npresent, to have more than seven husbands, one for each day of the week.\n\nOf no importance heretofore, after her farcical marriage the Nair woman\nat once becomes a power in the councils of the nation; as a matter of\ncourse, the higher her lovers the higher her rank becomes and the\ngreater her influence. Here is female suffrage in its primitive form,\nbrought about, it is true, by environment, and not by elective\nfranchise.\n\nAs far as the children are concerned, the power of the mother is\nabsolute; for they know no father, the maternal uncle standing in his\nstead. Property, both personal and real, is vested in the woman; she is\nthe mistress and the ruler. \"The mother reigns and governs; she has her\neldest daughter for prime minister in her household, through whom all\norders are transmitted to her little world. Formerly, in grand\nceremonials, the reigning prince himself yielded precedence to his\neldest daughter, and, of course, recognized still more humbly the\npriority of his mother, before whom he did not venture to seat himself\nuntil she had given him permission. Such was the rule from the palace to\nthe humblest dwelling of a Nair.\"\n\nDuring the past fifty years, these people have made rapid strides toward\ncivilization, monandry and monogamy taking the places of polyandry and\npolygamy, and fifty or a hundred years hence, this matriarchate will, in\nall probability, entirely disappear.\n\nI have demonstrated, I think, clearly and distinctly, that matriarchy,\nor female government, is neither new nor advanced thought, but that it\nis as old, almost, as the human race; that the \"New Woman\" was born many\nthousands of years ago, and that her autotype, in some respects, is to\nbe found to-day in Mangalore! A return to matriarchy at the present time\nwould be distinctly and emphatically and essentially retrograde in every\nparticular. The right to vote carries with it the right to hold office,\nand if women are granted the privilege of suffrage, they must also be\ngiven the right to govern. Now let us see if we cannot find a reason for\nthis atavistic desire (matriarchy) in the physical and psychical\nhistories of its foremost advocates. I will discuss this question in\nPart II of this paper.\n\n\nII. THE VIRAGINT.\n\nThere are two kinds of genius. The first is progressive genius, which\nalways enunciates new and original matter of material benefit to the\nhuman race, and which is, consequently, non-atavistic; the second is\natavistic or retrogressive genius, which is imitative and which always\nenunciates dead and obsolete matter long since abandoned and thrown\naside as being utterly useless. The doctrines of communism and of\nnihilism are the products of retrogressive genius and are clearly\natavistic, inasmuch as they are a reversion to the mental habitudes of\nour savage ancestors. The doctrines of the matriarchate are likewise\ndegenerate beliefs, and, if held by any civilized being of to-day, are\nevidences of psychic atavism.\n\nAtavism invariably attacks the weak; and individuals of neurasthenic\ntype are more frequently its victims than are any other class of people.\nEspecially is this true in the case of those who suffer from psychical\natavism.\n\nThe woman of to-day who believes in and inculcates the doctrines of\nmatriarchy, doctrines which have been, as far as the civilized world is\nconcerned, thrown aside and abandoned these many hundred years, is as\nmuch the victim of psychic atavism as was Alice Mitchell, who slew Freda\nWard in Memphis several years ago, and who was justly declared a\nviragint by the court that tried her.\n\nWithout entering into the truthfulness or falseness of the theory\nadvanced by me elsewhere in this book, in regard to the primal cause of\npsychic hermaphroditism, which I attributed and do still attribute to\npsychic atavism, I think that I am perfectly safe in asserting that\nevery woman who has been at all prominent in advancing the cause of\nequal rights in its entirety, has either given evidences or\nmasculo-femininity (viraginity), or has shown, conclusively, that she\nwas the victim of psycho-sexual aberrancy. Moreover, the history of\nevery viragint of any note in the history of the world shows that they\nwere either physically or psychically degenerate, or both.\n\nJeanne d'Arc was the victim of hystero-epilepsy, while Catharine the\nGreat was a dipsomaniac, and a creature of unbounded and inordinate\nsensuality. Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius, a woman of\nmasculine type, whose very form embodied and shadowed forth the regnant\nidea of her mind--absolute and utter rulership--was a woman of such\ngross carnality, that her lecherous conduct shocked even the depraved\ncourtiers of her lewd and salacious court. The side-lights of history,\nas Douglas Campbell has so cleverly pointed out in his \"Puritan in\nHolland, England, and America,\" declare that there is every reason to\nbelieve that the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth of England, was not such a pure\nand unspotted virgin as her admirers make her out to be. Sir Robert\nCecil says of her that \"she was more man than woman,\" while history\nshows conclusively that she was a pronounced viragint, with a slight\ntendency toward megalomania. In a recent letter to me, Mr. George H.\nYeaman, ex-Minister to Denmark, writes as follows: \"Whether it be the\nrelation of cause and effect, or only what logicians call a \"mere\ncoincidence,\" the fact remains that in Rome, Russia, France, and\nEngland, political corruption, cruelty of government, sexual\nimmorality--nay, downright, impudent, open, boastful indecency--have\nculminated, for the most part, in the eras of the influence of viragints\non government or over governors.\"\n\nViraginity has many phases. We see a mild form of it in the tom-boy\nwho abandons her dolls and female companions for the marbles and\nmasculine sports of her boy acquaintances. In the loud-talking,\nlong-stepping, slang-using young woman we see another form; while\nthe square-shouldered, stolid, cold, unemotional, unfeminine android\n(for she has the normal human form, without the normal human _psychos_)\nis yet another. The most aggravated form of viraginity is that known as\nhomo-sexuality; with this form, however, this paper has nothing to do.\n\nAnother form of viraginity is technically known as gynandry, and may be\ndefined as follows: A victim of gynandry not only has the feelings and\ndesires of a man, but also the skeletal form, features, voice, etc., so\nthat the individual approaches the opposite sex anthropologically, and\nin more than a psycho-sexual way (Krafft-Ebing).\n\nAs it is probable that this form of viraginity is sometimes acquired to\na certain extent, and that, too, very quickly, when a woman is placed\namong the proper surroundings, I shall give the case of Sarolta,\nCountess V., one of the most remarkable instances of gynandry on record.\nIf this woman, when a child, had been treated as a girl, she would in\nall probability have gone through life as a woman, for she was born a\nfemale in every sense of the word. At a very early age, however, her\nfather, who was an exceedingly eccentric nobleman, dressed her in boy's\nclothing, called her Sandor, and taught her boyish games and sports.\n\n\"Sarolta-Sandor remained under her father's influence till her twelfth\nyear, and then came under the care of her maternal grandmother, in\nDresden, by whom, when the masculine play became too obvious, she was\nplaced in an institute and made to wear female attire. At thirteen she\nhad a love relation with an English girl, to whom she represented\nherself as a boy, and ran away with her. She was finally returned to her\nmother, who could do nothing with her, and was forced to allow her to\nresume the name of Sandor and to put on boy's clothes. She accompanied\nher father on long journeys, always as a young gentleman; she became a\n_roue_, frequenting brothels and _cafes_ and often becoming intoxicated.\nAll of her sports were masculine; so were her tastes and so were her\ndesires. She had many love affairs with women, always skillfully hiding\nthe fact that she herself was a woman. She even carried her masquerade\nso far as to enter into matrimony with the daughter of a distinguished\nofficial and to live with her for some time before the imposition was\ndiscovered.\" The woman whom Sandor married is described as being \"a girl\nof incredible simplicity and innocence;\" in sooth, she must have been!\n\nNotwithstanding this woman's passion for those of her own sex, she\ndistinctly states that in her thirteenth year she experienced normal\nsexual desire. Her environments, however, had been those of a male\ninstead of a female, consequently her psychical weakness, occasioned by\ndegeneration inherited from an eccentric father, turned her into the\ngulf of viraginity, from which she at last emerged, a victim of complete\ngynandry. I have given this instance more prominence than it really\ndeserves, simply because I wish to call attention to the fact that\nenvironment is one of the great factors in evolutionary development.\n\nMany women of to-day who are in favor of female suffrage are influenced\nby a single idea; they have some great reform in view, such as the\nestablishment of universal temperance, or the elevation of social\nmorals. Suffrage in its entirety, that suffrage which will give them a\nshare in the government, is not desired by them; they do not belong to\nthe class of viragints, unsexed individuals, whose main object is the\nestablishment of a matriarchate.\n\nWoman is a creature of the emotions, of impulses, of sentiment, and of\nfeeling; in her the logical faculty is subordinate. She is influenced by\nthe object immediately in view, and does not hesitate to form a judgment\nwhich is based on no other grounds save those of intuition. Logical men\nlook beyond the immediate effects of an action and predicate its\nresults on posterity. The percepts and recepts which form the concept of\nequal rights also embody an eject which, though conjectural, is yet\ncapable of logical demonstration, and which declares that the final and\nultimate effect of female suffrage on posterity would be exceedingly\nharmful.\n\nWe have seen that the pronounced advocates and chief promoters of equal\nrights are probably viragints--individuals who plainly show that they\nare psychically abnormal; furthermore, we have seen that the abnormality\nis occasioned by degeneration, either acquired or inherent, in the\nindividual. Now let us see, if the right of female suffrage were\nallowed, what effect it would produce on the present environment of the\nwoman of to-day, and, if any, what effect this changed environment would\nhave on the psychical habitudes of the woman of the future. This portion\nof the subject will be discussed in Part III of this paper.\n\n\nIII. THE DECADENCE.\n\nIt is conceded that man completed his cycle of physical development many\nthousands of years ago. Since his evolution from his pithecoid ancestor\nthe forces of nature have been at work evolving man's psychical being.\nNow, man's psychical being is intimately connected with, and dependent\nupon, his physical being; therefore it follows that degeneration of his\nphysical organism will necessarily engender psychical degeneration also.\nHence, if I can prove that woman, by leading a life in which her present\nenvironments are changed, produces physical degeneration, it will\nnaturally follow that psychical degeneration will also accrue; and,\nsince one of the invariable results of degeneration, both physical and\npsychical, is atavism, the phenomenon of a social revolution in which\nthe present form of government will be overthrown and a matriarchate\nestablished in its stead, will be not a possibility of the future, but a\nprobability.\n\nThat the leaders of this movement in favor of equal rights look for such\na result, I have not the slightest doubt; for, not many days ago, Susan\nB. Anthony stood beside the chair of a circuit judge in one of our\ncourthouses and, before taking her seat, remarked that there were those\nin her audience who doubtless thought \"that she was guilty of\npresumption and usurpation\" (in taking the judge's chair), but that\nthere would come a day when they would no longer think so!\n\nStatistics show clearly and conclusively that there is an alarming\nincrease of suicide and insanity among women, and I attribute this\nwholly to the already changed environment of our women. As the matter\nstands they have already too much liberty. The restraining influences\nwhich formerly made woman peculiarly a housewife have been, in a\nmeasure, removed, and woman mixes freely with the world. Any new duty\nadded to woman as a member of society would modify her environment to\nsome extent and call for increased nervous activity. When a duty like\nsuffrage is added the change in her environment must necessarily be\nmarked and radical, with great demands for an increased activity. The\nright of suffrage would, unquestionably, very materially change the\nenvironment of woman at the present time, and would entail new and\nadditional desires and emotions which would be other and most exhausting\ndraughts on her nervous organism.\n\nThe effects of degeneration are slow in making their appearance, yet\nthey are exceedingly certain. The longer woman lived amid surroundings\ncalling for increased nervous expenditure, the greater would be the\neffects of the accruing degeneration on her posterity. \"Periods of\nmoral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with\ntimes of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only\nbe conceived as occurring with increased demands on the nervous system,\nwhich must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of\nnervousness there is increase of sensuality, and since this leads to\nexcess among the masses it undermines the foundations of society--the\nmorality and purity of family life\" (Krafft-Ebing).\n\nThe inherited psychical habitudes, handed down through hundreds and\nthousands of years, would prevent the immediate destruction of that\nethical purity for which woman is noted, and in the possession of which\nshe stands so far above man. I do not think that this ethical purity\nwould be lost in a day or a year, or a hundred years, for that matter;\nyet there would come a time when the morality of to-day would be\nutterly lost, and society would sink into some such state of existence\nas we now find _en evidence_ among the Nairs. In support of this\nproposition I have only to instance the doctrines promulgated by some of\nthe most advanced advocates of equal rights. The \"free love\" of some\nadvanced women, I take it, is but the free choice doctrine in vogue\namong the Nairs and kindred races of people.\n\nJohn Noyes, of the Oneida Community, where equal rights were observed,\npreached the same doctrines. It is true that the people who advocate\nsuch unethical principles are degenerate individuals, psychical\natavists, yet they faithfully foreshadow in their own persons that which\nwould be common to all men and women at some time in the future, if\nequal rights were allowed, and carried out in their entirety.\n\nThis is an era of luxury, and it is a universally acknowledged fact that\nluxury is one of the prime factors in the production of degeneration.\nWe see forms and phases of degeneration thickly scattered throughout all\ncircles of society, in the plays which we see performed in our theaters,\nand in the books and papers published daily throughout the land. The\ngreater portion of the _clientele_ of the alienist and neurologist is\nmade up of women who are suffering with neurotic troubles, generally of\na psychopathic nature. The number of viragints, gynandrists, androgynes,\nand other psycho-sexual aberrants of the feminine gender is very large\nindeed.\n\nIt is folly to deny the fact that the right of female suffrage will make\nno change in the environment of woman. The New Woman glories in the\nfact, that the era which she hopes to inaugurate will introduce her into\na new world. Not satisfied with the liberty she now enjoys, and which is\nproving to be exceedingly harmful to her in more ways than one, she\nlongs for more freedom, a broader field of action. If nature provided\nmen and women with an inexhaustible supply of nervous energy, they might\nset aside physical laws, and burn the candle at both ends without any\nfear of its being burned up. Nature furnishes each individual with just\nso much nervous force and no more; moreover, she holds every one\nstrictly accountable for every portion of nervous energy which he or she\nmay squander; therefore, it behooves us to build our causeway with\nexceeding care, otherwise we will leave a chasm which will engulf\nposterity.\n\nThe baneful effects resulting from female suffrage will not be seen\nto-morrow, or next week, or week after next, or next month, or next\nyear, or a hundred years hence, perhaps. It is not a question of our day\nand generation; it is a matter involving posterity. The simple right to\nvote carries with it no immediate danger, the danger comes afterward;\nprobably many years after the establishment of female suffrage, when\nwoman, owing to her increased degeneration, gives free rein to her\natavistic tendencies, and hurries ever backward toward the savage state\nof her barbarian ancestors. I see, in the establishment of equal rights,\nthe first step toward that abyss of immoral horrors so repugnant to our\ncultivated ethical tastes--the matriarchate. Sunk as low as this,\ncivilized man will sink still lower--to the communal _kachims_ of the\nAleutian Islanders.\n\n\n\n\nIS IT THE BEGINNING OF THE END?\n\n\nWhen we come to examine the history of the world we find evidence that\ncertain nations have, at times, reached a high state of prosperity, and\nhave then degenerated to such a degree that they have either passed\nentirely out of existence, or have lapsed into a state of\nsemi-barbarity. This has generally been brought about by conquest, but\nthe races conquered had first become enfeebled by their habitudes of\nthought and manner of living. It is a well-established fact that luxury\nbrings debauchery, and that debauchery occasions degeneration. All\nnations that have, heretofore, reached the zenith of their prosperity,\nhave been engulfed, at some time or other, in the maelstrom of luxurious\nhabits, and have fallen under the lethal influence of a degeneration\noccasioned solely by debauchery; for the luxury and debauchery of one\nclass brought increased poverty on, as well as excess in, other classes,\nand poverty and excess are prominent factors in the production of\ndegeneration, as we shall see further on in this paper. Says the\nbrilliant author of \"Psychopathia Sexualis,\" Krafft-Ebing: \"Periods of\nmoral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with\ntimes of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only\nbe conceived as occurring with increased demands upon the nervous\nsystem, which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of\nnervousness, there is increase of sensuality, and, since this leads to\nexcesses among the masses, it undermines the foundations of society--the\nmorality and purity of family life. When this is destroyed by excesses,\nunfaithfulness, and luxury, then the destruction of the state is\ninevitably compassed in material, moral, and political ruin.\"\n\nSuch was the condition of the Latin race when the fierce and hardy\nVandals overran the Roman peninsula; such was the condition of the\nAssyrians when Babylon fell beneath the onslaughts of the great\nMacedonian; such was the condition of the Egyptians when the northern\nmyriads swept down upon the fertile valley of the Nile, and destroyed\nforever the once powerful and all-conquering kingdom of the Pharaohs;\nand such, too, was the condition of the French nation in 1794, when\nAnarchy unfurled its red banner at the head of the most gigantic social\nrevolution the world has ever known.\n\nAt the present time, community of interests, as well as higher\ncivilization, would utterly forbid the total subjugation of one\ncivilized nation by another, such as occurred in the olden times; hence\nno nation need fear annihilation from such a source. The danger comes\nfrom another point, and consists in the almost certain uprising, at some\ntime in the future, of degenerate individuals in open warfare and\nrebellion against society.\n\nThe question whether the world is growing better or worse is often\ndebated, and can be answered affirmatively on both sides. Better,\nbecause superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism have given way, to a great\nextent, to the tolerance and freedom of higher civilization and purer\nethics in normal, healthy man; worse, because crime (and I mean by crime\n_all_ anti-social acts) has greatly increased on account of the\npernicious influence of degeneration.\n\nThat superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism are on the wane, and that they\nwill, sooner or later, be entombed in that depository of obsolete savage\nmental habitudes--absolute and utter oblivion--a glance at the success\nthat science has achieved in the warfare waged against it by the Church,\nwill at once declare. (Throughout this article I use the word Church to\nexpress priests of any and every denomination, whether Jew, Gentile, or\nPagan, Protestant or Catholic.) A short incursion into this subject, _i.\ne._, the Church's warfare on science, is absolutely necessary. For the\ntriumph of science over its enemies--superstition, bigotry, and\ndogmatism, coincidently, ignorance and illiterateness--shows that the\ncivilized world, at the present time, is markedly different in some\nrespects from the world of ancient, medieval, and even comparatively\nrecent times; and, in summing up, this changed condition will be a\nweighty factor in making up an answer to the question which heads this\npaper.\n\nWhen Olympus first faded away from the enlightened eyesight of the\nGreeks, and changed into space besprinkled with stars; when Zeus no\nlonger held his divine court on its mystic summit; when oracles became\nmute and the fabled wonders of the \"Odyssey\" either vanished, or\nresolved themselves into prosaic commonplaces under the investigations\nof the skeptic or the accidental discoverer, the Church made a most\nstrenuous protest against the destruction of its traditions.\n\nMany of these early seekers after truth were even killed and their goods\nconfiscated. The Church issued its edict against heresy (and any\ndoctrine that taught a belief antagonistic to the accepted tenets of\npagan mythology and theogony was heresy), and hurled its anathemas\nagainst the heretic. Olympus, in the eyes of the Church, still existed,\nand Zeus, the man-god, still quaffed the sacred ambrosia in its shady\ngroves. The Sirens still sang their entrancing songs, while Scylla and\nCharybdis were ever stretching out eager arms toward unwary mariners.\nGigantic one-eyed Cyclops, with Polyphemus as their leader, still\npatrolled the shores of Sicily, and kept their \"ever-watchful eyes\"\nturned toward the open sea.\n\nThe hardy Greek sailor landed on the Cyclopean island, and discovered\nthat Polyphemus, and Arges, and Brontes, and Steropes, and all the\nother one-eyed monsters were nothing but sea-wrack, bowlders, and weeds.\nHe sailed farther, past Scylla and Charybdis, and discovered no greater\ndangers than sharp rocks and whirlpools. Yet farther he sailed out into\nthe unknown sea, and the only Siren's song he heard was the whistling of\nthe wind through the cordage of his vessel.\n\nIn vain the Church thundered against the daring investigator. Neither\nfire, nor sword, nor imprisonment, nor death itself could check the\nmarch of truth. Mythology and pagan theogony had received their\ndeath-blows; superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism were elbowed aside and\ngave place to dawning science. The Church held that that which had been\nbelieved by pious men for untold ages must necessarily be true. Science,\nin the garb of philosophy, with cold, dispassionate criticism, proved\nthat these hitherto accepted truths were arrant fallacies. The poets\nand writers then took up the subject, and finally the people fell into\nline, so superstitious, bigoted, dogmatic mythology died,\nintellectuality took its place, and higher civilization took a step\nforward.\n\nThomas H. Huxley writes, in his preface to \"Science and Christian\nTradition,\" as follows: \"I have never 'gone out of my way' to attack the\nBible or anything else; it was the dominant, ecclesiasticism of my early\ndays, which, as I believe, without any warrant from the Bible itself,\nthrust the book in my way.\n\n\"I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of\nexploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's\nbreadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue; and\nyet I found that, whatever route I took, before long I came to a tall\nand formidable looking fence. Confident as I might be in the existence\nof an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood the thorny\nbarrier with its comminatory notice-board--'NO THOROUGHFARE. By order.\nMOSES.' There seemed no way over; nor did the prospect of creeping\nround, as I saw some do attract me.... The only alternatives were either\nto give up my journey--which I was not minded to do--or to break the\nfence down and go through it.\"\n\nHuxley found that this Mosaic fence, as erected by dogmatic theologians\nand scholasticists, was but a flimsy structure at best, and one that was\neasily overthrown and destroyed.\n\nDogmatic theology teaches that man was created from the dust of the\nearth, and that he at once fell heir to an estate of physical and\npsychical habitudes which were God-like in character; scientific\ninvestigation, on the contrary, demonstrated the fact that man's\ninception begins in bathybian protoplasm and culminates, as far as his\ngeneral physical organism is concerned, in the last link of an\nevolutionary chain that reaches back and back, through countless eons of\nages, to the very beginnings of life.\n\nThe History of Life written upon the rocky frame-work of this gray and\nhoary old world, declares that man's physical being is but the result of\nthe laws of evolution. He did not spring into being, like the sea-born\nVenus, a creature of physical grace, and strength, and beauty; nor did\nthe sacred flame of an inborn intelligence at once illumine his\ncountenance. For thousands of years, the forbears of the present\ncivilized _homo sapiens_ were but slightly above the _Alalus_ (ape-like\nman) of Haeckel in point of personal pulchritude; and for thousands of\nyears, the ancestors of the civilized man of to-day were savages, with\nall the psychical traits of primitive peoples.\n\nSocial ethics are as much the result of evolutionary growth as is man\nhimself. Civilization, which is but another name for ethical culture,\nis the outcome of the inherited experiences of thousands of years. These\nexperiences were the results of law, and that law can be embraced in one\ncomprehensive word--evolution.\n\nNow, one of the most noticeable facts in biological history is the\ntendency that animal structures or organisms, under certain\ncircumstances, have toward atavism or reversion to ancestral types. Not\nonly is this to be observed in the physical organisms of animals, but\nalso in their psychical beings as well.\n\nAtavism is invariably the result of degeneration, as I will endeavor to\ndemonstrate later on in this paper.\n\nI believe that we are rapidly hurrying toward a social cataclysm, beside\nwhich the downfall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of ancient\nEgyptian and Babylonian civilizations, and the bloody days of the French\nRevolution will sink into utter insignificance. I believe, also, and\nthink that I can demonstrate the truthfulness of my belief, that the\ninciting cause of this social revolution will not be found in those\ncitizens of the United States of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic parentage, but\nthat it will be observed among our Slavonic, Teutonic, and Latinic\ncitizens. But, in order to furnish a parallel (from which you may draw\nyour own conclusions), before I enter fully into the discussion of this\npart of my subject, I wish to review, very briefly, certain historical\nepochs.\n\nWhen the first conquerors of Egypt, about whom history can tell us so\nlittle, first occupied the fertile valley of the Nile, the country, in\nall probability, was inhabited by negroes. The conquering race drove out\nor enslaved the native population and founded the ancient kingdom of\nEgypt. This kingdom waxed strong and mighty until, at the time of\nRameses the Great, more than three thousand two hundred years ago, it\nwas the most powerful monarchy in the whole world. The mighty son of\nRa, Meiamoun Ra, or Rameses, as he is most generally styled, was a\nwarrior and a statesman. He led his victorious troops north, east, and\nwest, conquering nations as he went, until he dominated and brought into\na state of vassalage over two-thirds of the then known world.\n\nWealth flowed into his kingdom from all the surrounding countries,\nconsequently, luxury, with its never-failing associate, debauchery, made\nits appearance, and the decadence of this mighty kingdom set in.\n\nIt is true that many Pharaohs reigned after Rameses, and that the\nmonarchy maintained its greatness for a long period of time, but luxury\nhad taken hold on the Egyptians at the time of their greatest prosperity\nand had sown the seeds of degeneration, which flourished and grew apace,\nuntil the emasculated and effeminate people yielded up their\nindependence to the conquerors, and passed out of existence as a nation\nforever.\n\nThe Roman people, under the leadership of their ancient heroes, was a\nnation of hardy warriors and husbandmen. That preeminent military\ngenius, Julius Caesar, had carefully fostered this warlike spirit in the\nbosoms of his compatriots, and, by a series of brilliant campaigns, had\nmade the Roman nation the most powerful on the face of the globe. The\nRoman legions were not only victorious on land, extending their\nconquests into Iberia, farther Gaul, and still farther Britain, but the\nRoman triremes also swept the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of\nHercules to the shores of Syria and Egypt. Wealth poured into the\ncountry from all sides, and the people reveled in a boundless\nprosperity.\n\nLuxury had already begun to enervate the hardy soldiery at the time of\nCaesar's assassination, yet not enough to show the full effects of\ndegeneration and demoralization. The empire under the first emperors\nsteadily grew richer and more powerful, and the luxury of the rich more\nunlimited and licentious. At length a change can be noticed. The Roman\nlegions, hitherto victorious over every foe, are now frequently\nvanquished; conquered tribes uprear the standard of revolt and refuse to\npay tribute; the territorial boundaries of the empire materially shrink,\nand its once conquered provinces pass out of its dominion forever.\n\nThe gradual degeneration of this nation is faithfully mirrored in the\ncharacter of the emperors who governed it. Nero, Caligula, Tiberius,\nCaracalla, and Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius and the daughter\nof Domitia Lepida, herself a licentious and libidinous woman, were but\naccentuated types of the luxurious and debauched nobility. Not only did\nthe nobility become victims of degeneration, but the poorer classes also\nlost their virility, until at last we find the stability of the nation\npreserved through the instrumentality of foreign mercenaries. The\ngreatness of this once widespread empire dwindled away (the freedom of\nits institutions contracting along with its shrinking boundaries), until\nwe find it lapsed into a state of barbarian despotism under the son of\nAurelius; and, had it not been for outside influences, it would have\neventually fallen into a state of utter and complete savagery.\n\nNow let us turn to a recent civilization. At the time of Louis XVI., the\nFrench nation was thoroughly under the influence of degeneration\nconsequent to a luxury and licentiousness that had had a cumulative\naction for several hundred years. The peasantry and the inhabitants of\nthe faubourgs, owing to their extreme poverty, itself a powerful factor\nin the production of degeneration, had lapsed into a state closely akin\nto that of their savage ancestors. The nobility were weak and\neffeminate, the majority of them either sexual perverts or monsters of\nsensuality and lechery.\n\nThe middle class, as ever the true conservators of society, seeing this\nmiserable state of affairs, attempted to remedy it. Not fully\nunderstanding the danger of such a procedure, they allowed the\ndegenerate element to share in their deliberations. Their moderate and\nsensible counsels were quickly overruled by their savage associates, who\nbrought about a Reign of Terror (with such psychical atavists as Marat,\nDanton, and Robespierre at its head), the like of which the world had\nnever seen before, nor has ever experienced since.\n\nI have demonstrated, in the three instances of history just cited, that\ndegeneration has invariably followed luxury, and that a social and\npolitical cataclysm has been, invariably, the result of this\ndegeneration. That certain classes of the Old World, and of the New\nWorld, also, are living in inordinate luxury; and that certain other\nclasses are, even now, struggling in the very depths of poverty, is a\nwell-known fact. That this state of affairs is rapidly increasing the\npercentage of degenerates, such as sexual perverts, insane individuals,\nand congenital criminals, is not generally known; yet it is a woeful\ntruth.\n\nThe factors in the production of degeneration are as multitudinous as\nthey are varied, and I can find space for only a few of them. The\nartificiality of many peoples' lives, wherein night is turned into day,\nis a prominent factor in the production of degeneration. Now, the long\ncontinued influence of artificial light exerts a very deleterious effect\non the nervous system; hence it is not to be wondered at that so many\nmen and women of society are neurasthenic. Not only are those\nindividuals who, voluntarily and preferably, spend the greater portions\nof their lives in artificial light, rendered nervously irritable, but\nthose, also, who are driven by force of circumstances to turn night\ninto day are likewise afflicted. Several years ago, I met a\ndistinguished editor at Waukesha, who was suffering greatly from nervous\nexhaustion. He told me that he was so situated that he did all of his\nwork at night, often writing until three o'clock in the morning. I\nadvised him to quit this and to do his editorial work during daylight.\nNot long after, he wrote me that he had followed my advice, and that he\nwas a new man in point of health.\n\nThe loss of nervous vitality makes itself evident by a feeling either of\nexhaustion or irritability. The fashionable devotee, in order to\ncounteract this, either stimulates the system with alcohol, or exorcises\nthe \"fidgets\" by the use of sedatives, such as chloral or morphia. The\nbaneful effects of such medication are not at once appreciable, but, if\ncontinued for any length of time, they will eventually result in a total\ndemoralization of the nervous system. Time and again have I seen\nfashionable men and women, at the close of the season, veritable nervous\nwrecks.\n\nWhat necessarily would be the effect of physical and psychical lesions\nlike these on a child begotten by such parents? The inevitable result\nwould be degeneration in some form or other.\n\nAgain, many men and women stand the drain of a fashionable season on\ntheir nervous systems without attempting to recoup through the agency of\ndrugs, and at the end find themselves physically and psychically\nexhausted. They go to the seaside or some other resort, and, in a\nmeasure, recover their nervous vitality, only to lose it again during\nthe next season. This continues for season after season, the nervous\nsystem all the time becoming weaker, until some day there is a collapse,\nending in hysteria, paresis, or some other of the hundred forms of\nneurotic disorder. What will be the effect on the progeny resulting from\nthe union of such individuals? Again the answer must necessarily\nbe--degeneration.\n\nThe long and continued intercourse of the sexes in the ball-room, where\nthe women are dressed so _decollete_ that they excite sensuality in the\nmen, very frequently without the men being conscious of the fact, must\nnecessarily exert a deleterious effect on the nervous system.\n\nContact of the sexes in the dance is only pleasurable because of that\ncontact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and\ndenied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim\nthat no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. I know\nfrom personal experiences that they are honest in this declaration, yet,\nfrom a psychical standpoint, they are woefully in error. Aestheticism\nand carnality are by no means as dissociate as the aesthete would have us\nbelieve. _All pleasurable emotions that have their inception in the\nsenses are, fundamentally, of carnal origin._ The waltz is aesthetic,\nyet all of its pleasure is based on an emotion closely akin to\nsensuality. Men derive no pleasure from waltzing with one another, nor\ndo women under like circumstances.\n\nNature demands in the interest of health a certain amount of exercise.\nThe luxurious society man or woman utterly disregards this demand of\nnature, consequently indigestion, with all of its associated ills, steps\nin, and becomes an additional factor in the production of nervous\nexhaustion. To tempt the appetite, highly seasoned foods, many of which\nare deleterious and injurious, are prepared and taken into the torpid\nand crippled stomach. Finally nature rebels and the unfortunate\ndyspeptic is forced to go through life on a diet of oatmeal, or,\nweakened by lack of healthy sustenance, the brain gives way, and the\nvictim passes the remainder of his or her life in a lunatic asylum.\nChildren begotten by miserable invalids like these, beyond a\nperadventure, must necessarily be degenerate.\n\nIndigestion is not the only ill that nature inflicts for any disregard\nof her laws. She is a rough nurse but a safe one, consequently she\nforbids the rearing of her hardiest creation, man, in hot houses, as\nthough he were a tender exotic. The luxurious individual pampers his\nbody, following the dictates of his own selfish desires and utterly\ndisregarding the laws of nature, and before he reaches middle age,\ndiscovers that he has become an old, old man, weak in body, but still\nweaker in mind.\n\nThe children resulting from the union of the various neurasthenics\ndescribed above are necessarily degenerate. As they grow up, they show\nthis degeneration by engaging in all kinds of licentious debauchery, and\nunnatural and perverted indulgences of appetite. In nine cases out of\nten, they will spend the fortunes inherited from their parents in\nriotous debauchery, and will eventually sink, if death does not\novertake them, to the level of their fellow degenerates--those who have\nbeen brought into existence by poverty and debauchery, and who await\nthem at the foot of the social ladder. Among such degenerate beings, the\ndoctrines of socialism, of communism, of nihilism, and of anarchy have\ntheir origin.\n\nNow let us turn our attention to the evidences of luxury and debauchery,\nand the consequent evidences of degeneration, which obtrude themselves\non all sides. The reckless extravagance of the nobility of the Old World\nis well known. Vice and licentiousness even penetrate to royal\nhouseholds, and princes of the blood pose as roues and debauchees. As I\nhave demonstrated elsewhere, degeneration in the wealthy classes of\nsociety generally makes itself evident by the appearance of\npsycho-sexual disorders. The horrible abominations of the English\nnobility, as portrayed in the revelations of Mr. Stead, are well known.\nCharcot, Segalas, Fere, and Bouvier give clear and succinct accounts of\nthe vast amount of sexual perversion existing among the French, while\nKrafft-Ebing informs us that the German empire is cursed by the presence\nof thousands of these unfortunates. When we come to examine this phase\nof degeneration in our own country, we find that it is very prevalent.\nThis is especially noticeable in the larger cities, though we find\nexamples of it scattered broadcast throughout the land.\n\nThe editor of one of our leading magazines, in a remarkable series of\nletters, has shown that the wealthy New Yorkers revel in a luxuriousness\nthat is absolutely startling in its license. Thousands are expended on a\nsingle banquet, while the flower bills for a single year of some of\nthese modern Luculli would support a family of five people for three or\nfour years! Bacchanalian orgies that dim even those of the depraved,\ncorrupt, and degenerate Nero are of nightly occurrence.[AI] Drunkenness,\nlechery, and gambling are the sports and pastimes of these ultra rich\nmen, and it is even whispered that milady is not much behind milord in\nthe pursuit of forbidden pleasures.\n\n     [AI] I know from personal observation that \"Seeley Dinners\" are of\n     frequent occurrence in New York, as well as in other large cities.\n     J. W., Jr.\n\nPsycho-sexual disorders are not the only evidences of degeneration in\nthe wealthy, by any means. Many a congenital criminal is born in the\npurple, who shows his moral imbecility in many ways. Sometimes he sinks\nat once to the level of a common thief, but generally his education\nkeeps him within the pale of the law. Always, however, his sensuality is\nunbounded, and he will hesitate at nothing in order to gratify his\ndesires. This unbridled license has already had its effect elsewhere. We\nsee that it has even corrupted the guardians and conservators of the\npublic peace. The recent investigation of the police board of New York\nshows a degree of corruption that is simply overwhelming, and that the\nsame state of affairs exists in Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and\nother large cities, I have every reason to believe.\n\nThere are yet other evidences of degeneration; witness the eroticism\nthat is to be found in our literature. Unless a book appeals to the\ndegenerate tastes of its readers it might just as well never have been\npublished. This is not cynicism; it is plain, unvarnished truth. Again,\nturn to the stage, and we find the same thing. The tragedies and\ncomedies of Shakespeare are shelved, while immoral \"society plays\" and\n\"living pictures\" and \"problem plays\" hold the boards. Salacity, with\nonly sufficient and that is, degeneration. That which happened centuries\nago will happen again, for covering to hide downright lewdness, is\neverywhere apparent. Now what is the result of this? There can be but\none answer, man is governed by the same laws of nature now as he was\nthen.\n\nStatistics show that insanity is markedly on the increase. This is not\nto be wondered at when we take into consideration the fact that\ndebauchery is the rule, and not the exception, among certain classes of\npeople. Syphilis, one of the most productive causes of degeneration, is\nexceedingly active throughout the whole civilized world. Blashko states\nthat one out of every ten men in the city of Berlin is tainted with this\nterrible malady. This is wholly attributable to the unbounded sensuality\nof the people. Crime of every description is rearing its hydra-head, and\nclasping in its destroying embrace an alarming proportion of human\nbeings.\n\nI have shown elsewhere, that the congenital criminal is the result of\ndegeneration, and that he comes from all classes of society. He is,\nhowever, most frequently the product of the lower classes, and lives\nand dies among his congeners. I have shown, also, that the anarchist,\nthe nihilist, and the socialist belong to the same category of\ndegenerate beings. Poverty, brought on by high taxation, by war, and by\novercrowding, has been, during the last millenary period, very fertile\nin the production of degenerates in the Old World. Lack of food and\nsanitation, the usual adjuncts of poverty, are powerful factors in the\nproduction of degenerate individuals. The Old World has gotten rid of\nthese people as rapidly as possible by unloading them on our shores.\nYear after year, practically without restriction, thousands of these\nanti-social men and women have swarmed into our country, until we,\ncomparatively speaking, a nation just born, contain as many of these\nundesirable citizens as any of the older nations. They still continue to\nenter our gates, and we ourselves are adding to their number, as I have\nshown, by our own production.\n\nSome day--and I greatly fear that day is not very far distant--some\nprofessional anarchist (for there are professional anarchists as well as\nprofessional thieves) will consider the time ripe for rebellion, and,\nraising the fraudulent cry of \"Labor against Capital!\" instead of his\nlegitimate cry of \"Rapine! Murder! Booty!\" will lead this army of\ndegenerates, composed of anarchists, nihilists, sexual perverts, and\ncongenital criminals, against society. And who will bear the brunt of\nthis savage irruption? The ultra-rich? By no means! The great \"middle\nclass\"--the true conservators of society and civilization--will fight\nthis battle. It will be a fight between civilization and degeneration,\nand civilization will carry the day. There would have been no French\nrevolution had the middle class been as wise then as it is to-day. It\nwas taken by surprise at that savage, bloody time, but as soon as it\nrecovered, how quickly it brought order out of chaos!\n\nEducation is the bulwark of civilization, and the great middle class,\nfreed of dogmatism, bigotry, and superstition, is welcoming education\nwith outstretched hands. It is gaining recruits, and is strengthening\nits defenses, so that when the time comes its enemies may find it fully\nprepared.\n\nFrom the signs of the times and the evidence before me, I have no\nhesitation in declaring that I believe that the beginning of the end is\nat hand! This social cataclysm may not occur for many years, yet the\nagencies through which it will finally be evolved are even now at work,\nand are bringing the culmination of their labors ever nearer and nearer\nas time passes!\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY.\n\n\nARNOBIUS: _Adversus Gentes_.\n\nBALBOA: _History of Peru_.\n\nBANCROFT: _Native Races of the Pacific States of North America_.\n\nBATES: _The Naturalist on the River Amazon_.\n\nBATCHELOR: _The Ainu of Japan_.\n\nBECAN: _Origines Antwerpianae_.\n\nBIART: _The Aztecs_.\n\nBIRD: _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan_.\n\nBOSMAN: _Africa_.\n\nBREMEN: _De Situ Daniae_.\n\nBROWLOW: _Travels_.\n\nBUCHARDI: _Decretorum Libri_.\n\nCARY: _Translations of Herodotus_.\n\nCHAILLE-LONG: _Naked Truths of Naked People_.\n\nDARWIN: _Works_.\n\nDALL: _Alaska and its Resources_.\n\nDE REMUSAT: _Lettres Edifiantes_.\n\nDE REMUSAT: _Nouv. Mel. Asiatiques_.\n\nDRAPER: _The Conflict between Religion and Science_.\n\nDE QUATREFAGES: _The Human Species_.\n\nDE QUATREFAGES: _Hommes Fossiles_.\n\nDORSEY: _Siouan Cults; An. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1889-90_.\n\nDU CHAILLU: _Equatorial Africa_.\n\nEDEN: _The Fifth Continent_.\n\nELLIS: _Polynesian Researches_.\n\nFORBES: _Oriental Memoirs_.\n\nFLETCHER: _Peabody Museum Report_. Vol. iii.\n\nFRIEDREICH: _Psychologie_.\n\nGARCILASSO: _The Royal Commentaries of the Incas_.\n\nGOLNITZ: _Itinerarium Belgico-Gallicum_.\n\nGREGORY: _The Great Rift Valley_.\n\nHAECKEL: _The History of Creation_.\n\nHAMMOND: _Impotence in the Male_.\n\nHAECKEL: _The Evolution of Man_.\n\nHERODOTUS: _Euterpe, Clio, Etc._\n\nHORACE: _Priap. Carm., Lxxxiv_.\n\nJOHNSTON: _The Kilima-Njaro Expedition_.\n\nKELLER: _The Amazon and Madeira Rivers_.\n\nKNIGHT: _The Worship of Priapus_.\n\nKRAFFT-EBING: _Psychopathia Sexualis_.\n\nLANERCROFT: _The Chronicles of_.\n\nLETOURNEAU: _Evolution of Marriage_.\n\nL'ESTOILE: _Confession de Sancy_.\n\nLYDSTON: _Diseases of Society_.\n\nLUMHOLTZ: _Among Cannibals_.\n\nMARTENE AND DURAND: _Scrip. Ampliss. Collect._\n\nMASPERO: _The Dawn of Civilization_.\n\nMARTENE ET DURAND: _Coll. Antiq. Poenit._\n\nMASPERO: _Egypt. Ant. Etud._\n\nMAUDSLEY: _The Physiology of Mind_.\n\nNEWBOLD: _Appleton's Pop. Sci. Month._, Feb. 1897.\n\nPARKMAN: _The Jesuits in North America_.\n\nPESCHEL: _The Races of Man_.\n\nPRESCOTT: _The Conquest of Peru_.\n\nRABELAIS: _Works_.\n\nROMANES: _Mental Evolution in Animals_.\n\nRECLUS: _Primitive Folk_.\n\nROMANES: _Mental Evolution in Man_.\n\nSEPP: _Heidenthum u. Christenthum_.\n\nSIDIS: _Multiple Personality_.\n\nSHERWILL: _The Rajmahal Hills_.\n\nSPENCER: _Principles of Sociology_.\n\nSPITZKA: _Insanity_.\n\nSTANLEY: _In Darkest Africa_.\n\nSTEPHENS: _Yucatan_.\n\nSTUHLMAN: _Mit Emin Pasha_.\n\nSTRABO: _Works_.\n\nTEULON: _Orig. de la Famille_.\n\nTYLOR: _Anthropology_.\n\nVIGNOLI: _Myth and Science_.\n\nVOGT: _Lectures on Man_.\n\nWAPPAUS: _Allgem. Bevoelkerungsstatistik_.\n\nWALLACE: _Travels on the Amazon_.\n\nWESTERMARCK: _Human Marriage_.\n\nWHITE: _History of the Warfare of Science with Theology_.\n\nWALLACE: _The Malay Archipelago_.\n\nWEIR: _Dawn of Reason_.\n\n\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n  |                Transcriber's Notes and Errata                |\n  |                                                              |\n  | There are two series of footnotes in this book. Footnotes    |\n  | with Arabic numbers are references to external sources.      |\n  | Footnotes with uppercase English letters are the author's    |\n  | notes. There is one hand-written correction in the book      |\n  | which has been marked with a third type of footnote, one     |\n  | with a lowercase roman number.                               |\n  |                                                              |\n  | The trasliteration of a few Grek phrases has been inserted   |\n  | in the text in square brackets immediately after the text.   |\n  |                                                              |\n  | The following words are found in both hyphenated and         |\n  | unhyphenated form. The number of each instance is given in   |\n  | parentheses.                                                 |\n  |                                                              |\n  |                |foot-note (1) |footnote (2) |                |\n  |                                                              |\n  | The following words were found in the text with acented and  |\n  | unaccented letters, with ligatures and separated letters.    |\n  | The number of each instance is given in parentheses.         |\n  |                                                              |\n  |              |anaesthesia (2) |anaesthesia (2) |              |\n  |              |haematuria (1)  |haematuria (3)  |              |\n  |              |hetarae (1)     |hetarae (4)     |              |\n  |              |Martene (2)     |Martene (3)    |              |\n  |              |poeniteat (2)   |poeniteat (1)  |              |\n  |              |Remusat (2)     |Remusat (2)    |              |\n  |              |saepe (1)       |saepe (1)       |              |\n  |              |Wappaus (1)     |Wappaeus (2)    |              |\n  |                                                              |\n  | The following typographic errors have been corrected.        |\n  |                                                              |\n  |                |Error        |Correction   |                 |\n  |                |sancity      |sanctity     |                 |\n  |                |phophylactic |prophylactic |                 |\n  |                |Pharoahs     |Pharaohs     |                 |\n  |                |hun-hundreds |hundreds     |                 |\n  |                |errotic      |erotic       |                 |\n  |                |Voltair      |Voltaire     |                 |\n  |                |enverated    |enervated    |                 |\n  |                |considerd    |considered   |                 |\n  |                |Kraft-Ebing  |Krafft-Ebing |                 |\n  |                |neuroloogist |neurologist  |                 |\n  |                |Brittain     |Britain      |                 |\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+","title":"Religion and Lust: or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":35177}