{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_65293/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_65293","id":"gutenberg_65293","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65293","summary":null,"tags":["Birth control","Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Malthusianism"],"text":"MORAL PHYSIOLOGY\n\n                         BY RALPH GLOVER, M.D.\n\n\n[Illustration: Alas! that it ever should have been born.]\n\n\n\n\n                        OWEN\u2019S MORAL PHYSIOLOGY:\n                                  OR,\n                       A BRIEF AND PLAIN TREATISE\n                                 ON THE\n                          POPULATION QUESTION.\n\n                            SECOND EDITION,\n                    WITH ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS,\n\n\n                         BY RALPH GLOVER, M.D.\n\n  \u201cThe principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.\u201d\n                                  _Bentham on Morals and Legislation._\n\n                               NEW YORK:\n                   PUBLISHED BY R. GLOVER, 2 ANN-ST.\n                                 1846.\n\n\n\n\n                                ENTERED\n            According to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,\n                            BY RALPH GLOVER,\n      In the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court for the Southern\n                   District of the State of New York.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.\n EDITOR\u2019S PREFACE.\n PREFACE.\n INTRODUCTION.\n MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.\n CHAPTER II. STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.\n CHAPTER III. THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.\n CHAPTER IV. THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.\n CHAPTER V. THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.\n CHAPTER VI. THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNEXION WITH\n    PHYSIOLOGY.\n CHAPTER VII. ADDITIONAL REMARKS.\n CHAPTER VIII. TO THE MARRIED OF BOTH SEXES IN GENTEEL LIFE.\n CHAPTER IX. THE PURPOSES AND OBLIGATIONS OF MARRIAGE.\n CHAPTER X. CONCLUDING REMARKS.\n\n\n\n\n                      EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.\n\n\nThe frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor\nmother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the H\u00f4tel des Enfans\ntrouv\u00e9s, (Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting, from\nwhich this is a faithful copy, is by Vigneron, a French artist of\ncelebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand dollars for the\nGalerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French king.\n\nThe H\u00f4tel des Enfans trouv\u00e9s, than which a more humane institution was\nnever founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy, and,\nabove all, a beautiful tenderness of the feelings of those poor\ncreatures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their\noffspring, of the asylum it affords. No obtrusive observation is made,\nno unfeeling question asked: the infant charge is received in silence,\nand either trained and supported until maturity, or, if circumstances,\nat any subsequent period, enable the parents to claim their offspring,\nit is restored to their care.\n\nThere is surely no sect or creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it\ncan systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the\nbreasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The\nbenevolent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble\ninstitution, was a Jesuit! Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul\nremembered, long after the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow\nsectaries are forgotten!\n\nThe case selected is one of mild, of modified,\u2014I had almost said, of\n_favoured_ misfortune: an extreme case were too revolting for\nrepresentation. But even under these comparatively happy circumstances,\nwhen benevolence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the\nforsaken, who that regards for a moment the abandoned helplessness of\nthe deserted child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but\nwill join in the exclamation, \u201cAlas! that it should ever have been\nborn!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                           EDITOR\u2019S PREFACE.\n\n\nTen years have already elapsed since the publication of the last edition\nof Mr. Owen\u2019s book, and it is believed that such change of public\nsentiment has taken place, as will render a republication of the work,\nwith such additions and alterations as the discoveries and improvements\nin this department of physiology have brought to light, acceptable to\nthe author, his friends, and the public. Several years spent in a course\nof experimental investigation, have brought to the Editor\u2019s knowledge\nsome practical facts, which, taken in connexion with the author\u2019s candid\ninvestigation of the subject, would be sufficient apology (were any\nnecessary) for the publication of this little treatise, at the present\ntime. Moreover, a train of circumstances have developed themselves\nduring the last few years, which have done much to remove a bias from\nthe public mind, unfavourable to the subject matter herein discussed.\nThese circumstances will insure for it a more favourable reception at\nthis time. It is a self-evident fact, that every discovery in science\nwhich serves to make mankind happier and better beings, and at the same\ntime evidently tends to the prevention of crime and to the removal of\nmoral evil, deserves to be extensively made known.\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE.\n\n\nIt may be proper to state, in few words, the immediate circumstances\nwhich induced me, at the present time, to write and publish this\ntreatise.\n\nSome weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him two\npretty specimens of English typography. One represented a triumphal arch\nwith a statue of the late king, and was made up of 17,000 different\npieces of common printing type; the other, an altar piece, having the\nLord\u2019s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments, printed within it, and composed\nof about 13,000 separate pieces. The gentleman was requested by a\nBrighton printer who executed them, to present these, as specimens of\nEnglish typography, to some of his brethern craftsmen in America. He\npresented them to me. I admired the ingenuity displayed in the\nperformance; but thought they ought to have been presented rather to\nsome printers\u2019 society than to an individual. I therefore addressed them\nto our Typographical Society in New York, accompanied by a note simply\nrequesting the society\u2019s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in\nEngland.\n\nI thought no more of the matter, until I received, the other day, my\nspecimens back again, with a long and not a little angry letter, signed\nby three of the members, accusing Robert Dale Owen of principles\nsubversive of every virtue under heaven, and calculated to lead to the\ninfraction of every commandment in the decalogue: and, more especially,\naccusing him of having given his sanction to a work, as they expressed\nit, \u201cholding out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of\ntheir daughters, sisters, and wives.\u201d\n\nI subsequently learned, from one of the society, circumstances which\nsomewhat extenuate (albeit nothing can excuse) their childish\nincivility. A gentleman who busied himself last year in making out a\nnotable reply to the \u201cSociety for the Protection of Industry,\u201d got up,\nat a late Typographical meeting, and read to the Society several\ndetached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile, entitled\n\u201cEvery Woman\u2019s Book,\u201d which extracts he pronounced to be excessively\nindecent; and asked the Society whether they would receive any thing at\nthe hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a tendency so\ndreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society were (or\naffected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee to return\nto me the heretical specimens, which committee penned the letter to\nwhich I have alluded.\n\nProbably some members of the society really did believe the work to be\nof pernicious tendency. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read\nto me, I might possibly have utterly misconceived its tone and tendency,\nand its author\u2019s motives. But he must be blind indeed, who can read the\npamphlet through, and then (whether he approve it or not) can attribute\nother than good intentions to the individual who was bold enough to put\nit forth.\n\nAs to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing\nin Indiana, to publish it, and declined doing so. My chief reasons were,\nthat I doubted its physiological correctness; that I did not consider\nits style and tone in good taste; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the\nNew Harmony Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this\ncountry only \u201cto fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify\nthe curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into\nthe hands of the philanthropist, of the physiologist, and of every\nfather and mother of a family.\u201d The circumstances I have just detailed\nmay afford proof, that my fears regarding the hands into which it might\nfall, were well founded.\n\nMy principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a\nduty to the cause of reform to step forward and vindicate them; and this\nthe rather, because, unless I give my own sentiments, I shall be\nunderstood as unqualifiedly endorsing Richard Carlile\u2019s. Now, no one\nmore admires than I do the courage and strength of mind which induced\nthat bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject; and to\nhim be the praise accorded, that he was _the first_ to venture it. But\nthe manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was\nrepulsive (I will not say revolting) to my feelings, on the first\nperusal; and though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first\nimpression was not attributable, in a great measure, to my prejudices,\nyet I cannot doubt that a similar, and even a more unfavourable\nimpression, will be made on the minds of others, and thus the interests\nof truth be jeopardized. Then again, I think the physiological portion\nof his pamphlet somewhat incorrect as to the facts, and therefore\ncalculated to mislead, where an error might be of fatal consequence.\n\nIt may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from\nsimilar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.\n\n                                                                R. D. O.\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThe reader, after having been taxed with the perusal of two prefaces\nbefore reaching the subject matter, may consider it a hardship to be\nfurther called upon to read a somewhat lengthy introduction, when the\ntitle of a book should be its best preface; but the Editor would ask\nyour indulgence while he briefly states the object and design of the\nfollowing pages.\n\nIt has often been held of questionable propriety, whether the public\nshould be furnished with medical readings, it being presumed that such\nliterature tended to thwart the very purposes it professed to encourage:\nthat, instead of affording an exposition of the ills of our nature,\nwhereby we might avoid or remove them, its effect necessarily, from the\nprobable absence of all preliminary medical knowledge on the part of the\nreader, was but to create confusion and alarm, and, even where\nunderstood, only to magnify the fear; and this latter notion is grounded\non the popular error, that even professional men, from the same cause,\nare least efficient when in attendance upon themselves. The doubt,\nhowever, may now be considered as removed if we but observe how of late\nyears the desire to possess general information on all matters relative\nto the functions of life, has manifested itself, by the public\nattendance at the various learned institutions, and how also it has been\nencouraged by men eminent for their talents and worth, devoting\nthemselves to the unfolding and simplification of the professional lore\nthey had been years in acquiring. Lectures have been given, and large\ncrowds of silent and anxious auditors have attended them\u2014edition after\nedition of popular works on similar subjects, by the same men, have been\ncalled for, and eagerly caught up\u2014the mysteries of physiology have been\nlaid open from the lowest to the highest scale of creation: the history\nof man has been displayed, and his several elements have been\ndemonstrated\u2014the phenomena of respiration, digestion, and the\ncirculation of the blood, have all had their share of attention, and\nmany of the most prevalent diseases of humanity have been discussed and\nexamined, their causes exposed, and the means of their avoidance\ndetailed. So far from the public suffering from this diffusion of\nmedical knowledge, immense advantages have accrued to all classes of\nmankind.\n\nAmong all the departments of anatomical research thus introduced, public\ndecorum has judiciously excluded popular enquiries into the\nphysiological laws of generation. I say judiciously, for the discussion\nof such topics, constituted as society is, could not be tolerated in\nlarge assemblies, and probably of both sexes, without the risk of\nengendering associations inimical to morality and virtue;[1] but no one\ncan be blind to the creeping progress there is daily being made, of\ntouching upon these subjects in popular journals and publications, and\nno one can deny at least the importance of obedience to the laws that\nabide over the procreation of a healthy or diseased population. In the\nabsence of information afforded through legitimate channels to the\npublic, and feeling sensible that many errors are committed through\nignorance, and endured through shame, this little work is tendered,\naccompanied with the hope that its usefulness may not be deteriorated by\nany misinterpretation of the writer\u2019s motives.\n\nThe philosopher, in asking himself the question, _what is love_, solves\nit by asking another question, _what is an animal_, or _what is man?_\n\nLooking at mankind, he finds them of two classes, male and female,\nvarying but little as to external form or internal character. He finds\nthat they possess the same passions, the same desires, that they live by\nthe same means, and with the difference of the female being the body\nqualified to breed the species, he sees them in every respect to be\nexactly alike.\n\nReproduction or accumulation of identities similar to self is a common\nlaw of animal and vegetable matter; and the disposition to reproduce in\nall well-formed and healthy subjects is as powerful as hunger, or\nthirst, or the desire of self-preservation. It is a passion not criminal\nin the indulgence, but criminality attaches where the indulgence is\nwithheld; because health, and even life, is endangered. It is not an\nartificial passion, such as a craving to exhibit the distinctions of\nsociety; but a natural passion, which we hold in common with every other\nanimal. It grows with our growth, and is strengthened with our strength.\n\nTo prove that genuine love is nothing but this passion, it is sufficient\nto refer to the period at which it comes on, and at which it leaves us.\nWe hear not of love in decaying age or in infancy; and the attachments\nof habit, of kindness, of gratitude, or of human, social, individual,\nparental, filial, or domestic affection, have no connexion with the\npassion of love. We talk of a love, of virtue, of friendship, of\nheroism, of character, of generosity; but this kind of love is a matter\nwholly distinct from the passion of love between the male and female.\nAll men are apt to feel the tender passion of love for a beautiful\nwoman: all women for a handsome and agreeable man: but this is nothing\nmore than a desire to associate ourselves with the most agreeable\nobjects for sexual commerce. The every day occurrences of mankind\nexplain this matter, and hence the many violences and intrigues\nconnected with the passion of love; hence seductions, adulteries, rapes\nand intercourses pronounced unlawful in different countries.\n\nThe present purpose of this work is, to explain the physiology of the\nreproductive organs, and the social bearing that a proper control of the\nreproductive instinct will have upon society, and its consequences when\nuncontrolled, and the benefits that must necessarily accrue when kept\nunder due restraint.\n\nChemical science and experimental investigation, aided by the recent\ndiscoveries in that department of literature, have enabled the Editor to\noffer to the suffering mother a safe and sure preventive of conception.\nThe expediency and moral propriety of its use he trusts will be\nsatisfactorily explained in the subsequent pages.\n\n\n\n\n                           MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.\n\n\nI sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me to abuse\nfrom the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from the hypocritical, and\nto reproach even from the honestly prejudiced. Some may refuse to read\nit; and many more will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed\nits publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the popular\nmind was better prepared to receive it; but the enemies of reform have\nalready foisted the subject, under an odious form, on the public: and I\nhave no choice left. If, therefore, I prematurely touch the honest\nprejudices of any, let them bear in mind, that the occasion is not of my\nseeking.\n\nThe subject I intend to discuss is strictly a physiological subject,\nalthough connected, like many other physiological subjects, with\npolitical economy, morals, and social science. In discussing it, I must\nspeak as plainly as physicians and physiologists do. What I mean, I must\nsay. Pseudo-civilized man, that anomalous creature who has been not\ninaptly defined \u201can animal ashamed of his own body,\u201d may take it ill\nthat I speak simply: I cannot help that.\n\nA foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become queen of Spain,\npassed through a little town of the peninsula, famous for its\nmanufactory of gloves and stockings. The magistrates of the place, eager\nto evince their loyalty towards their new queen, presented her, on her\narrival, with a sample of those commodities for which alone their town\nwas remarkable. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received the\ngloves very graciously; but when the stockings were presented, he flung\nthem away with great indignation, and severely reprimanded the\nmagistrates for this egregious piece of indecency. \u201cKnow,\u201d said he,\n\u201cthat a queen of Spain has no legs.\u201d[2]\n\nI never could sympathize with this major domo delicacy; and if you can,\nmy reader, you had better throw this book aside at once.\n\nIf you have travelled and observed much, you will already have learnt\nthe distinction between real and artificial propriety. If you have been\nin Constantinople, you probably know, that when the grand seignor\u2019s\nwives are ill, the physician is only allowed to see the wrist, which is\nthrust through an opening in the side of the room, because it is\nimproper even for a physician to look upon another man\u2019s wife; and it is\nthought better to sacrifice health than propriety.[3]\n\nIf you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know that\nthey consider a woman\u2019s virtue sacrificed for ever, if, before marriage,\nshe be seen to stop on the public road to speak to her lover:[4] and if\nyou have read Buckingham\u2019s travels, you may remember a very romantic\nstory, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited her\nreputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers, who were\ndetermined their sister should not survive her dishonor.\n\nPerhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you cannot be ignorant\nhow grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is, to enquire of a husband\nafter his wife\u2019s health; and probably you may know, that men have lost\ntheir lives to atone for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course,\nthat in Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her face;\nbut perhaps you may not know, unless your travels have extended to\nAbyssinia, that there the indecency consists in uncovering the feet.[5]\n\nIn Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in public, without\nthe slightest sense of impropriety; but you were doubtless told, that\nmen could not be permitted a similar liberty; seeing that modesty\nrequires they should perform their ablutions in private.\n\nIf my reader has seen all or any of these countries and customs, I doubt\nnot that he or she will read my little book understandingly, and\ninterpret it in the purity which springs from enlarged and enlightened\nviews; or, indeed, from common sense. If not\u2014if you who now peruse these\nlines have been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary\nline of your own nation\u2014perhaps of your own village\u2014if you have not\nlearnt that there are other proprieties besides those of your country;\nand that, after all, genuine modesty has its legitimate seat in the\nheart rather than in the outward form or sanctioned custom\u2014then, I fear\nme, you may chance to cast these pages from you, as the major domo did\nthe proffered stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in my\nsimple words, or the Spanish magistrates\u2019 honest offering, but in the\npruriently sensitive imagination that discovers impropriety in either.\nYet, even though inexperienced, if you be still young and pure-minded,\nyou may read this book through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in\nyour hearts, no odious misconstruction.\n\nYoung men and women! you who, if ignorant, are uncorrupted also; you in\nwhose minds honest and simple words call up none but honest and simple\nideas; you who think no evil; you who are still believers in human\nvirtue and human happiness; you who, like our fabled first parents in\ntheir paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical\nconventionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization; you, with\nwhom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the breast more\npowerful than that in the statue book; you whose feelings are still\nunblunted, and whose sympathies still warm and generous; you who belong\nto the better portion of your species, and who have formed your opinion\nof mankind from guileless spirits like your own\u2014young men and women! it\nis to your pure feelings I would fain speak: it is by your\nunsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise and my motives\njudged.\n\nLibertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You have nothing to\ndo with the subject of which it treats. Bringing to its discussion, as\nyou do, a distrust or contempt of the human race\u2014accustomed as you are\nto confound liberty with license, and pleasure with debauchery, it is\nnot for your palled feelings and brutalized senses to distinguish moral\ntruth in its purity and simplicity. I never discuss this subject with\nsuch as you.\n\nIt has been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman, as\nvehement pretensions to especial chastity; it is no less true, that the\nmost obtrusive and sensitive stickler for the etiquette of orthodox\nmorality is the heartless rake. The little intercourse I have had with\nmen of your stamp, warns me to avoid the serious discussion of any\nspecies of moral heresy with you. You approach the subject in a tone and\nspirit revolting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to\npre-suppose\u2014from your own experience, perhaps\u2014that the hearts of all\nmen, and more especially of all women, are deceitful above all things\nand desperately wicked; that violence and vice are inherent in human\nnature, and that nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from\nbecoming a vast slaughter-house, or an universal brothel. You judge your\nown sex and the other by the specimens you have met with in wretched\nhaunts of mercenary profligacy; and, with such a standard in you minds,\nI marvel not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue, but\nthat which is forced on the prudish hotbed of ceremonious orthodoxy. I\nwonder not that you will not trust the natural soil, watered from the\nfree skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun. How should you? you have\nnever seen it produce but weeds and poisons. Libertines and debauchees!\ncast my book aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious\ncuriosity; and, if you read it, you will probably only give me credit\nfor motives and impulses like your own.\n\nAnd you, prudes and hypocrites! you who strain at a gnat and swallow a\ncamel; you whom Jesus likened to whited sepulchres, which without indeed\nare beautiful, but within are full of all uncleanness; you who affect to\nblush if the ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or\ndisplayed in crossing a style, but will read indecencies enough, without\nscruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, asked to be helped to the\nbosom of a duck, lest by mention of the word breast, you call up\nimproper associations; you who have nothing but a head and feet and\nfingers; you who look demure by daylight, and make appointments only in\nthe dark\u2014you, prudes and hypocrites! I do not address. Even if honest in\nyour prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are too artificial and\nconfused to profit by the present discussion; if dishonest, I desire to\nhave no communication with you.\n\nReader! if you belong to the class of prudes or of libertines, I pray\nyou, follow my argument no farther. Stop here, and believe that my\nheresies will not suit you. As a prude, you would find them too honest;\nas a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you might call me a\nvery shocking person; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.\n\nBut if you be honest, upright, pure-minded\u2014if you be unconscious of\nunworthy motive or selfish passion\u2014if truth be your ambition, and the\nwelfare of our race your object\u2014then approach with me a subject the most\nimportant to man\u2019s well-being; and approach it as I do, in a spirit of\ndispassionate, disinterested free enquiry. Approach it, resolving to\nprove all things, and hold fast that which is good. The discussion is\none to which it is every man\u2019s and every woman\u2019s _duty_, (and ought to\nbe every one\u2019s _business_,) to attend. The welfare of the present\ngeneration, and\u2014yet far more\u2014of the next, requires it. Common sense\nsanctions it. And the national motto of my former country, \u201cHoni soit\nqui mal y pense,\u201d[6] may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,\nand in which it ought to be received.\n\nReader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I am, who now\naddresses you. Truth is truth, if it fall from Satan\u2019s lips; and error\nought to be rejected, though preached by an angel from heaven. Even as\nan anonymous work, therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and\ncandid examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I am ashamed\nof honestly discussing a subject so useful and important, I have given\nyou my name on the title page.\n\nNeither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or has been. No\nman of sense or modesty unnecessarily obtrudes personalities that regard\nhimself on the public. And, most assuredly, it is neither to gratify\nyour curiosity or my vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and\nspeak a few words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can,\nprejudice of her sting; and thus to obtain the ears, even of the\nprejudiced; and also to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing on\nsuch a subject as this, with one, whom circumstance and education have\nhappily preserved from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.\n\nAll those who have intimately known the life and private habits of the\nwriter of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that what he now\nstates is true, to the letter. He was indebted to his parents for habits\nof the strictest temperance\u2014some would call it abstemiousness\u2014in _all_\nthings. He never, at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or\nstrong drink of any kind: latterly, he has not even used animal food. He\nnever chanced to enter a brothel in his life; nor to associate, even for\nan evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom the brutal, yet\ntolerated vices of man, and sometimes their own unsuspicious or\nungoverned feelings, betray to misery and degradation. He never sought\nthe company but of the intellectual and self-respecting of the other\nsex, and has no associations connected with the name of woman, but those\nof esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even girlishly\nsensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which young men think it\nwitty to indulge at the expense of a sex they cannot appreciate. The\nconfidence with which women may have honored him, he has never selfishly\nabused; and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which to\nreproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the equal of man in\nall essentials of character, and his superior in generous\ndisinterestedness and moral worth.\n\nI check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken the confidence of\nthose whose confidence I value; and enough, assuredly, to excite the\nridicule, or the sneer, of him who walks through life wrapped up in the\ncloak of conformity, and laughs among his private boon companions, at\nthe scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard\ndebauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited amusements.\n\nAnd now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your attention, and\nenlisting in this enquiry your reason and your better feelings, approach\nwith me a subject the most interesting and important to you\u2014to me\u2014to all\nour fellow-creatures. Reader! if you be a woman, forget that I am a man:\nif a man, listen to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not\nas men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common interests,\ninstincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it be possible,\nwithout prejudice and without passion. Reader! whatever be your sex,\nsect, rank, or party, to you I would now, ere I commence, address the\npoet\u2019s exhortation\u2014here, far more strictly applicable, than in the\ninvestigation to which he applied it:\u2014\n\n          \u201cRetire! the world shut out: thy thoughts call home.\n          Imagination\u2019s airy wing repress.\n          Lock up thy senses; let no passion stir;\n          Wake all to reason; let her reign alone.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                       STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.\n\n\nAmong the human instincts which contribute to man\u2019s preservation and\nwell-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a distinguished rank. It\npeoples the earth; it perpetuates the species. Controlled by reason, and\nchastened by good feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its\ncharm and zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is\nprolific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely directed,\nits influence is that of a master principle, that colours, brightly or\ndarkly, much of the destiny of man.\n\nIt is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity; and the\nShakers call it a \u201ccarnal and sensual passion.\u201d[7] I see nothing in the\ninstinct itself that merits such epithets. Like other instincts, it may\nassume a selfish, mercenary, or brutal character. But in itself, it\nappears to me the most social and least selfish of all our instincts. It\nfits us to give, even while receiving, pleasure; and, among cultivated\nbeings, the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter. Not\none of our instincts, perhaps, affords larger scope for the exercise of\ndisinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral feelings of our\nrace. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle, more humanizing and\nendearing; not one lies more immediately at the root of the kindliest\ncharities and most generous impulses that honor and bless human nature.\nIts very power, indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations; even as\nthe waters of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their\nbed, flood and ruin the country: but the gentle flow and fertilizing\ninfluence of the stream are the fit emblems of the instinct, when\nsuffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to follow its own quiet\nchannel.\n\nThat such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as a low, selfish\npropensity, and, as such, that the discussion of its nature and\nconsequences should be almost interdicted in what is called decent\nsociety, is to me a proof of the profligacy of the age, and the impurity\nof the pseudo-civilized mind. I imagine that if all men and women were\ngluttons and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to speak\nof diet or of temperance.\n\nWere I an optimist, and, as such, had I accustomed myself to judge and\nto admire the arrangements of nature, I should be inclined to put\nforward, as one of the most admirable, the arrangement according to\nwhich the temperate fulfilling of the dictates of this, as well as of\nalmost all other instincts, confers pleasure. The desire of offspring\nwould probably induce us to perpetuate the species, though no\ngratification were connected with the act. In the language of the\noptimist, then, \u201cpleasure is gratuitously super-added.\u201d But instead of\npausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the great whole of which\nhuman reason seems little fitted to appreciate or comprehend, I content\nmyself with remarking, that this very circumstance (in itself surely a\nfortunate one, inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human\nhappiness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a blessing, has\nbeen perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to excess, and sometimes\nto tyranny and barbarous injustice.\n\nWere the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure of any kind,\nit would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of abuse. As it is, the\ninstinct is susceptible of either; just as wisdom or ignorance governs\nhuman laws, habits, and customs. It behooves us, therefore, to be\nespecially careful in its regulation; else what is a great good may\nbecome for us a great evil.\n\nThis instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light; _first_, as\ngiving the power of reproduction: _secondly_, as affording pleasure.\n\nAnd here, before I proceed, let me recall to the reader\u2019s mind, that it\nis the province of rational beings to bear UTILITY strictly in view.\nReason recognizes as little the romantic and unearthly reveries of\nStoicism, as she does the doctrines of health-destroying and\nmind-debasing debauchery. She reprobates equally a contemning and an\nabusing of pleasure. She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and\nexcess on the other. In all our enquiries, then, let reason guide us,\nand let UTILITY be our polar star.\n\nI have often had long arguments with my friends, the Shakers,[8]\ntouching the two-fold light in which the reproductive instinct may be\nregarded. They commonly stand out stoutly against the propriety of\nconsidering it, except as a means of perpetuating the species; and,\napart from that, they deny that it may be regarded as a legitimate\nsource of enjoyment. In this I totally dissent from them. It is a much\nmore noble, because less purely selfish, instinct, than hunger or\nthirst. It is an instinct that entwines itself around the warmest\nfeelings and best affections of the heart; and though it differ from\nhunger and thirst in this, that it may remain ungratified without\ncausing death. I have yet to learn, that because it is _possible_, it is\ntherefore also _desirable_, to mortify and repress it. I admit, to the\nShakers, that in the world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it,\nthis instinct is the source of infinite misery; perhaps even, on the\nwhole, of a _balance_ of unhappiness: and I always freely admit to them,\nthat if I had to choose between the life of the profligate man of the\nworld and that of the ascetic Shaker, I should not hesitate a moment to\nprefer the latter. But for admitting that the most social and kindly of\nhuman instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think\nits influence moral, humanizing, polishing, beneficent; and that the\nsocial education of no man or woman is fully completed without it. Its\nmortification (though far less injurious than its excess) is yet very\nmischievous. If it do not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or\nincipient disease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always\nfreezes and stiffens the character, by checking the flow of its\nkindliest emotions; and not unfrequently gives to it a solitary,\nanti-social, selfish stamp.\n\nI deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the instinct is\njustifiable (if, indeed, it be at all) only as necessary to the\nreproduction of the species. It is justifiable, in my view, just in as\nfar as it makes a man happier and a better being. It is justifiable,\nboth as a source of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the\nsexes can mutually polish and improve each other.\n\nIf a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot reconcile his\nmind to this idea, he may as well shut it at once. I found all my\narguments on the position, that the pleasure derived from this instinct,\nindependent of, and totally distinct from, its ultimate object, the\nreproduction of our race, is good, proper, worth securing and enjoying.\nI maintain, that its temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself\nand in its influence on human character.\n\nUpon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold character,\nhinges the chief point in the present discussion. It sometimes happens,\nnay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey its impulses, not\nfrom any calculation of consequences, but simply from animal impulse.\nThus many children that are brought into the world owe their existence,\nnot to deliberate conviction in their parents that their birth was\nreally desirable, but simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in\nthe mass, have not learnt either to resist or control.\n\nIt is a serious question\u2014and surely an exceedingly proper and important\none\u2014whether man can obtain, and whether he is benefitted by obtaining,\ncontrol over this instinct. IS IT DESIRABLE, THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE\nGRATIFIED WITHOUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION? OR, IS IT DESIRABLE, THAT\nIN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHETHER OFFSPRING SHALL BE\nTHE RESULT OR NOT?\n\nTo answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be necessary to\nsubstantiate, that such control may be obtained without the slightest\ninjury to the physical health, or violence to the moral feelings; and\nalso, that it should be obtained without any real sacrifice of\nenjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as little as possible.\n\nThus have I plainly stated the subject. It resolves itself, as my\nreaders may observe, into two distinct heads; first, the _desirability_\nof such control; and, secondly, its _possibility_.\n\nIn discussing its desirability, I enter a wide field\u2014a field often\ntraversed by political economists, by moralists, and by philosophers,\nthough generally, it will be confessed, to little purpose. This may be,\nin a great measure, attributed rather to their fear than their\nignorance. The world would not permit them to say what they knew. I\nintend that my readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for I\nhave long since ceased to ask the world\u2019s leave to say what I think, and\nwhat I believe to be useful to the public.\n\nI propose to begin by considering the question in the abstract, and then\nto examine it in its political and social bearings.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                 THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.\n\n\nIs it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over the\ninstinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its gratification\nshall produce offspring, and when it shall not?\n\nBut that common sense is so scarce an article, and that the various\nsuperstitions of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the\nenquiries, even of after life\u2014but for this, the very statement of the\nquestion might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every rational\nbeing. Nothing so elevates man above the brute creation, as the power he\nobtains over his instincts. The lower animal follows them blindly,\nunreflectingly. The serpent gorges himself; the bull fights, even to\ndeath, with his rival of the pasture; the dog makes deadly war for a\nbone. They know nothing of progressive improvement. The elephant or the\nbeaver of the nineteenth century, are just as wise, and no wiser, than\nthe elephant or the beaver of two thousand years ago. Man alone has the\npower to improve, cultivate, elevate his nature, from generation to\ngeneration. He alone can control his instincts by reflection of\nconsequences, and regulate his passions by the precepts of wisdom.\n\nIt is strange, that even at this period of the world, we should have to\nremind each other, that _all_ knowledge of facts is useful; or, at the\nleast, cannot be injurious. The knowledge of some facts may be\nunimportant; the knowledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a\npuppet\u2014a slave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue.\nNor shall we know where to stop, if we follow up this principle. Shall\nwe give our sons lessons in mechanics? but they may thereby learn to\npick locks. Shall we teach them to read? but they may thus obtain access\nto falsehood and folly. Shall we instruct them in writing? but they may\nbecome forgers.\n\nSuch, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark ages. When Walter\nScott puts in the mouth of Lord Douglas, on the discovery of Marmion\u2019s\ntreachery the following exclamation, it is strictly in accordance with\nthe spirit and prevailing opinions of the times:\n\n                \u201cA letter forged! Saint Jude to speed!\n                Did ever knight so foul a deed!\n                At first in heart it liked me ill,\n                When the king praised his clerkly skill.\n                Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,\n                Save Gawain, ne\u2019er could pen a line:\n                So swore I, and so swear I still,\n                Let my boy bishop fret his fill.\u201d\n\nBut the days are gone by when ignorance may be the safeguard of virtue.\nThe _only_ rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge. There is _no_ fact,\nin physics or in morals, that ought to be concealed from the enquiring\nmind. Let that parent, who thinks to secure his sons\u2019 honesty or his\ndaughters\u2019 innocence, by keeping back from them facts\u2014let that parent\nknow, that he is building up their morality on a sandy foundation. The\nrains and the floods of the world\u2019s influence shall beat upon that\nvirtue, and great shall be the fall thereof.\n\nIf man, then, can obtain control over this most important of instincts,\nit is, _in principle_, right that he should know it. If men, after\nobtaining such knowledge, think fit not to use it; if they deem it\nnobler and more virtuous, to follow each animal impulse, like the beasts\nof the field and the fowls of the air, without a thought of its\nconsequences, or an enquiry into its nature\u2014then let them do so. The\nknowledge that they have the power to act more like rational beings,\nwill not injure, if it fail to benefit them. They are at perfect liberty\nto set it aside, to neglect it, to forget it, if they can. Only let them\nshow common sense enough to permit that others, who are more slow to\nincur sacred responsibilities, and more willing to give reason the\ncontrol of instinct, should obtain the requisite knowledge, and follow\nout their prudent resolutions.\n\nIf this little book were in the hands of every adult in the United\nStates, not one need profit by it, unless he sees fit. Nor will any man\nadmit that he can possibly be injured by it. Oh no. _His_ virtue can\nbear any quantity of light. But then, his neighbour\u2019s, or his son\u2019s, or\nhis daughter\u2019s!\n\nThis would lead me to discuss the _social bearings_ of the question.\nBut, as conceiving it more in order, I shall first speak of it in\nconnexion with political economy.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n         THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.\n\n\nThe population question, as it is called, has of late years occupied\nmuch attention, especially in Great Britain. It was first prominently\nbrought forward and discussed, through two large volumes, by Malthus, an\nEnglish clergyman. Godwin, Ricardo, Thompson, Place, Mill, and other\ncelebrated cotemporary writers, have all discussed it, with more or less\nreserve, and at greater or less length.\n\nMalthus\u2019 work has become the text book of a large politico-economist\nparty in England. His doctrine is, that \u201c_population unrestrained, will\nadvance beyond the means of subsistence_.\u201d He asserts, that in most\ncountries population at this moment presses against the means of\nsubsistence; and that in all countries, it has a tendency so to do. He\nrecommends, as a preventive of the growing evil, celibacy till a late\nage, say thirty years; and he asserts, that unless this \u201cmoral\nrestraint\u201d is exerted, vice, poverty and misery, will and must become\nthe checks to population. His book, in my opinion, has done infinite\nmischief. I have heard his disciples openly declare, that they\nconsidered the crimes and wretchedness of society to be _necessary_\u2014to\nbe the express ordainings of Providence, intended to prevent the earth\nfrom being over-peopled. I have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth\nand influence, that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of\nmorality and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to the\nend of the world; that he who attempts to remove them fights against God\nand nature; and, if he partially succeed, will but afford the human race\nan opportunity to increase, until the earth shall no longer suffice to\ncontain them, and they shall be compelled to prey on each other. It must\nbe confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler: it\nis a healing salve to the luxurious conscience; an opiate to drown the\nstill small voice of truth and humanity, which calls to every man to be\nup and do his part towards the alleviation of the human suffering that\nevery where stares him in the face.\n\nIt is vain to argue with these defenders of the evils that be, that the\nday of overstocking is afar off. They tell you, it must come at last;\nand that the more you do to remove vice and misery\u2014those destroyers of\npopulation\u2014the sooner it will come. And what reply can one make to the\nargument in the abstract? I believe it to be proved, that population,\nunrestrained,[9] will double itself on an average every twenty-five to\nfifty years. If so, it is evident to a demonstration, that, if\npopulation be not restrained, morally or immorally, the earth will _at\nlast_ furnish no foothold for the human beings that will cover it.\n\nTake a medium calculation as to the natural rate of increase, and say,\nthat population, unrestrained, will double itself every _thirty-three\nand a third_ years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the increase\nfrom emigration,) in many parts of this continent, is certain.\n\nThen, if we suppose the present numerous checks to population, viz.\nwant, war, vice, and misery, removed by national reform, and if we\nassume the present population of the world at one thousand millions, we\nshall find the rate of increase as follows:\n\n         At the end of 100 years, there will be 8,000 millions.\n         ------------- 200 ------------------- 64,000 ---------\n         ------------- 300 ------------------ 512,000 ---------\n         ------------- 400 ---------------- 4,096,000 ---------\n         ------------- 500 --------------- 32,768,000 ---------\n\nAnd so on, multiplying by 8 for every additional hundred years. So that,\nin 500 years, there would be more than _thirty thousand_ times as many\nas at present: and in 1000 years, upwards of _a thousand million_ times\nas many human beings as at this moment: consequently, _one single pair_,\nif suffered to increase without check, _would, in 1000 years, increase\nto more than double the present population of the globe_.\n\nIt appears evident, then, to a demonstration, that population CANNOT be\nsuffered to increase unrestrained for more than a very few hundred\nyears. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, _sooner_ or\n_later_, some restraint or other to population _must_ be employed; and\ncompelled to admit to his aristocratic disciples, that if no other\nbetter restraint than vice and misery can be found, then _vice and\nmisery must be_; they are the lot of man, from generation to generation.\n\nLet me repeat it: it is no question\u2014never can be a question\u2014whether\nthere shall be a restraint to population or not. There MUST be; unless\nindeed we find the means of visiting other planets, so as to people\nthem. In the nature of things, there must be a check, of some kind, at\nsome time. The _only_ question is, what that check shall be\u2014whether, as\nheretofore, the check of war, want, profligacy, misery; or a \u201cmoral\nrestraint,\u201d sanctioned by reason and suggested by experience.\n\nLet those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, be told, that\nthough they may postpone the question, no human power can evade it. It\nmust come up. Had the friends of reform been left to choose their own\ntime, it might, perhaps with advantage, have been postponed. And it is\nan imaginable case, that prejudice might delay it until a general famine\nor a universal civil war became the frightful checks. But will any man\nof common sense argue the propriety of suffering such a crisis to\napproach?\n\nMalthus saw this. He saw that some check must exist; and, whatever some\nof his disciples might permit themselves to say, he did not choose to be\nconsidered the apologist of vice and misery. His theory, indeed,\nsupplied specious arguments to those who asserted, with the ingenious\nauthor of the Fable of the Bees,[10] that \u201cprivate vices are public\nbenefits;\u201d and in consequence, its tendency appears to be essentially\naristocratic and _demoralizing_, as tending to produce supine\ncontentment with a vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus\nhimself declares the only proper check to be, the general practice of\ncelibacy to a late age. He employs all his eloquence to persuade men and\nwomen that they ought not to marry till they are twenty-eight or thirty;\nand that if they do, they are contributing to the misery of the\nworld.[11]\n\nNow, Mr. Malthus may preach for ever on this subject. Individuals may\nindeed be found, who will look to distant consequences, and sacrifice\npresent enjoyment; even as individuals are found to become and remain\nShaking Quakers: but to believe that the mass of mankind will abjure,\nthrough the ten fairest years of life, the nearest and dearest of social\nrelations; and during the very holiday of existence, will live the life\nof monks and nuns\u2014all to avert a catastrophe which is confessedly some\nhundreds of years distant\u2014to believe this, requires a faith which no\naccurate observer of mankind possesses.\n\nThis weak point the aristocratic expounders of Malthus\u2019 doctrines were\nnot slow to discover. They broadly asserted, that such \u201cmoral restraint\u201d\nwould never be generally practiced. They asked, whether a young woman,\nto whom a comfortable home and a pleasant companion were offered, would\nrefuse to accept them, on this theory of population; whether a young man\nwho had a fair (or even but a very indifferent) prospect of maintaining\na family, would doom himself to celibacy lest the world should be\nover-peopled. And they put it to the advocates of late marriages,\nwhether, in one sex at least, the recommendation, if even nominally\nfollowed, would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess and\ndegrading associations; thus resolving the check into vice and misery at\nlast. If experience answered these questions in the negative, was it not\nclear, (they would exultingly ask,) that vice and misery are the natural\nlot of man; and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague ourselves\nabout them, or to attempt, by their suppression, to controvert the\ndecrees of God?\n\nIt was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so heartless an\nargument. It was easy to ask, whether even the apparent hopelessness of\nthe case formed any legitimate apology for supine indifference; or\nwhether, where we cannot cure, we are absolved from the duty of\nalleviating. But it was not very easy fully and fairly to meet the\nquestion. It was idle to deny that preaching would not put off marriage\nfor ten years: and if no other species of moral restraint than ten years\nShakerism could be proposed, it did appear evident enough, that moral\nrestraint would be by the mass neglected, and that the physical checks\nof vice and misery must come into play at last.\n\nI pray my readers, then, distinctly, to observe how the matter stands.\nPopulation, unrestrained, _must_ increase beyond the possibility of the\nearth and its produce to support. At present it is restrained by vice\nand misery. The only remedy which the orthodoxy of the English clergyman\npermits him to propose, is, late marriages. The most enlightened\nobservers of mankind are agreed, that nothing contributes so positively\nand immediately to demoralize a nation, as when its youth refrain, until\na late period, from forming disinterested connections with those of the\nother sex. The frightful increase of prostitutes, the destruction of\nhealth, the rapid spread of intemperance, the ruin of moral feelings,\nare to the mass, the _certain_ consequences. Individuals there are who\nescape the contagion; individuals whose better feelings revolt, under\n_any_ temptation, from the mercenary embrace, or the Circean cup of\nintoxication; but these are exceptions only. The mass must have their\npleasures; the pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought\naffection, and of good taste and good feeling, if they can; but if they\ncannot, then such pleasure (alas! that language should be perverted to\nentitle them to the name!) as the sacrifice of money and the ruin of\nbody and mind can purchase.[12]\n\nBut this is not all. Not only is Malthus\u2019 proposition fraught with\nimmorality, in that it discountenances to a late age those disinterested\nsexual connexions which can alone save youth from vice; but it is\n_impracticable_. Men and women will scarcely pause to calculate the\nchances they have of affording support to their children ere they become\nparents: how, then, should they stop to calculate the chances of the\nworld\u2019s being over-peopled? Malthus may say what he pleases, they never\nwill make any such calculation; and it is folly to expect they should.\n\nLet us observe, then: _unless some less ascetic and more practicable\nspecies of \u201cmoral restraint\u201d be introduced_, vice and misery will\n_ultimately_ become the inevitable lot of man upon earth. He can no more\nescape them, than he can the light of the sun, or the stroke of death.\n\nWhat an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our enquiry! Here is a\nprinciple set up, which is all but an apology for the apathy that\nprevails among the rich and the powerful\u2014among governors and\nlegislators\u2014in regard to human improvement. How important, how essential\nfor the interests of virtue, that it should be refuted! How beneficent\nthat knowledge, which discloses to us some moral, practicable check to\npopulation, and relieves us from the despairing conclusion, that the\nirrevocable doom of man is misery, without remedy and without end! In\nthe absence of such knowledge, truly the prospects of the world were\ndark and cheerless. The modern doctrine of population has weighed like a\nspell on the exertions of benevolence, and chilled, almost to inaction,\neven the warm heart of charity. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she\nbegins to fear that all her exertions are to result in hopeless\ndisappointment. And yet\u2014such is this world\u2014even the ablest opponents of\nMalthus stop short when they come to the question, and leave an argument\nunanswered, which a dozen pages might suffice for ever to set at rest.\n\nLet one of the most intelligent of these opponents, a man of splendid\nand sterling talent\u2014let MILL, the celebrated political economist and\ntalented author of \u201cBritish India,\u201d speak for himself.\n\nI extract from the article \u201cColony,\u201d in the supplement to the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, and which is from the pen of Mill, the\nfollowing paragraph:\n\n\n\u201cWhat are the best means of checking the progress of population, when it\ncannot go on unrestrained without producing one or other of two most\nundesirable effects, either drawing an undue portion of the population\nto the mere raising of food, or producing poverty and wretchedness, it\nis not now the time to enquire. _It is, indeed, the most important\npractical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and the moralist\ncan be applied._ It has, till this time, been miserably evaded by all\nthose who have meddled with the subject, as well as by those who were\ncalled upon by their situation to find a remedy for the evils to which\nit relates. And yet, _if the superstitions of the nursery were\ndisregarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in view_, a\nsolution might not be very difficult to be found; and the means of\ndrying up one of the most copious sources of human evil\u2014a source which\n_if all other sources were taken away, might alone suffice to retain the\ngreat mass of human beings in misery_, might be seen to be neither\ndoubtful nor difficult to be applied.\u201d\n\n\nLet my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen of one of the\nmost justly admired writers of the present day; a man celebrated\nthroughout all Europe, for his works on political economy, and whose\nwritings are not unknown even on this side the Atlantic. He considers\nthe question now under discussion to involve \u201cthe most important problem\nto which the wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.\u201d This\nquestion, he admits, has ever been \u201cmiserably evaded.\u201d Yet even a man so\ninfluential and enlightened as Mill, must himself yield to the weakness\nhe reprobates; must speak in parables, as the Nazarene reformer did\nbefore him; and, even while commenting on the \u201cmiserable evasion\u201d of a\nsubject so engrossingly important, must imitate the very evasion he\ndespises.\n\nI will not imitate it. I am more independently situated than the English\neconomist; and I see, as clearly as he does, the extreme importance of\nthe subject. What he saw and declared _ought_ to be said, I will say.\n\nBefore concluding this chapter, let me state distinctly, that I by no\nmeans agree with Malthus and other political economists in believing,\nthat, at this moment, there is an actual excess of population in any\ncountry (China perhaps excepted) in the known world. I believe that\nthere is more than enough land in every country of Europe to support, in\nperfect comfort, all its present inhabitants. That they _are_ not\nsupported in comfort, is, in my opinion, attributable, not to\noverpopulation, but to mal-government. Monopolies favour the rich, taxes\noppress the poor, commercial rivalry grinds its victims to the dust. To\nsuch causes as these, and not to overpopulation, _at the time being_, is\nthe mass of distress (felt more or less over the civilized world) to be\nattributed. Thus, if the enemies of reform would but let us alone, we\nmight long postpone to other and more important discussions, this\npopulation question. But they will not. They _force_ it upon us. And\nthough it might have evinced want of judgment to obtrude it\nunnecessarily or prematurely on the public, it would betray cowardice to\nevade it now, when thrust upon us.\n\nBesides, though it be undeniable that iniquitous laws and a vicious\norder of things often produce the result that is falsely attributed to\noverpopulation, it is yet equally undeniable, that the most perfect\nsystem of laws in the world could not _ultimately_ prevent the evils of\na superabundant population. And it is no less certain, that, in the\nmeantime, the pressure of a large family on the labouring man greatly\naugments the evil, and often deprives him of that very leisure which he\nmight employ in devising constitutional means to better his condition,\ninstead of leaving public business in the hands of political gamblers.\nThus an answer to the population question is offered as an _alleviation_\nof existing evils, not as a _cure_ for them. Population might be but\nhalf what it is, and unjust legislation and vicious customs would still\ngive birth, as they now do, to luxury and want. The laws and customs\nought to be, _must_ be changed; but while the grass is growing, let us\nprevent the horse from starving, if we can.\n\nEnough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to determine the\nquestion, whether it is, or is not, _desirable_, in a political point of\nview, that some check to population be sought and disclosed\u2014some \u201cmoral\nrestraint\u201d that shall not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor,\nlike late marriages, be ascetic and impracticable.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n            THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.\n\n\nThis is by far the most important branch of the question. The evils\ncaused by an overstocking of the world, if even inevitable, are distant;\nand an abstract view of the subject, however unanswerable, does not come\nhome to the mind with the force of detailed reality.\n\nWhat would be the probable effect, in social life, if mankind obtained\nand exercised a control over the instinct of reproduction?\n\nMy settled conviction is\u2014and I am prepared to defend it\u2014that the effect\nwould be salutary, moral, civilizing; that it would prevent many crimes\nand more unhappiness; that it would lessen intemperance and profligacy;\nthat it would polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it\nwould relieve the burden of the poor, and the cares of the rich; that it\nwould most essentially benefit the rising generation, by enabling\nparents generally more careful to educate, and more comfortable to\nprovide for, their offspring. I proceed to substantiate as I may these\npositions.\n\nAnd first, let us look solely to the situation of married persons. Is it\nnot notorious, that the families of the married often increase beyond\nwhat a regard for the young beings coming into the world, or the\nhappiness of those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many\ninstances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother,\nof a poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at the\noar of incessant labour, toiling to live, and living only to die; when,\nif their offspring had been limited to two or three only, they might\nhave enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence! How often is the health\nof the mother, giving birth every year to an infant\u2014happy, if it be not\ntwins!\u2014and compelled to toil on, even at those times when nature\nimperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery\u2014how often is the\nmother\u2019s comfort, health, nay, her life, thus sacrificed! Or, if care\nand toil have weighed down the spirit, and at last broken the health of\nthe father, how often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous\nintentions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming degraded\nobjects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice!\n\nFathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and your\nnursery-maids, and who leave your children at home, to frequent the\ncrowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball-room; but you by the labour\nof whose hands your children are to live, and who, as you count their\nrising numbers, sigh to think how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen\nthose wages which are now but just sufficient to afford them\nbread\u2014fathers and mothers in humble life! to you my argument comes home,\nwith the force of reality. Others may impugn\u2014may ridicule it. By bitter\nexperience you know and feel its truth.\n\nIt will be said, that government ought to provide for the support and\neducation of all the children of the land. No one is less inclined to\ndeny the position than I. But it _does_ not support and educate them.\nAnd, if it did, a period must come at last, when even such an act of\njustice would be no relief from the evils of overpopulation.\n\nYet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are many woman so\nconstituted that they cannot give birth to healthy\u2014sometimes not to\n_living_ children. Is it desirable\u2014is it _moral_, that such women should\nbecome pregnant? Yet this is continually the case, the warnings of\nphysicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought\nnever to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to\ntheir offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that worst of\ndiseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life of celibacy. They\nmarry. They become parents, and the world suffers by it. That a human\nbeing should give birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it\nhereditary disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly\nto expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the lives of\nShakers. Nor is it necessary: all that duty requires of them is, to\nrefrain from becoming parents. Who can estimate the beneficial effect\nwhich rational moral restraint may thus have, on the health, beauty, and\nphysical improvement of our race, throughout future generations?\n\nBut, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most plainly,\nclearly, incontrovertibly _desirable_, that parents _should have the\npower_[13] to limit their offspring, whether they choose to exercise it\nor not? Who _can_ lose by their having this power? and how many _may_\ngain! may gain competency for themselves, and the opportunity carefully\nto educate and provide for their children! How many _may_ escape the\njarrings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an overgrown\nfamily too often causes in the domestic circle?\n\nIt sometimes happens, that individual instances come home to the\nfeelings with greater force than any general reasoning. I shall, in this\nplace, adduce one which came immediately under my cognizance.\n\nIn June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of the first\nrespectability, occupying a public situation in one of the western\nstates, a letter, requesting to know whether I could afford any\ninformation or advice in a case which greatly interested him, and which\nregarded a young woman for whom he had ever experienced the sentiments\nof a father. In explanation of the circumstances to which he alluded, he\nenclosed me a copy of a letter which she had just written to him and\nwhich I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from its\nsimplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate situation\nin which not one, but thousands, in married life, find themselves\nplaced, I have never read.\n\n                                            L***, KENTUCKY, MAY 3, 1829.\n\n DEAR SIR,\n\nThe friendship which has existed between you and my father, ever since I\ncan remember; the unaffected kindness you used to express towards me,\nwhen you resided in our neighbourhood, during my childhood; the lively\nsolicitude you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your\nbenevolence and liberal character, induce me to lay before you, in a few\nwords, my critical situation, and ask you for your kind advice.\n\nIt is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic of industrious\nhabits, good dispositions, pleasing manners, and agreeable features,\nexcessively fond of our children and of me; in short, eminently well\nqualified to render himself and family and all around him happy, were it\nnot for the besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or\nfour weeks, if he meet, either accidentally or purposely, with some of\nhis friends, of whom, either real or pretended, his good nature and\nliberality procure him many, he is sure to get intoxicated, so as to\nlose his reason; and, when thus beside himself, he trades and makes\nfoolish bargains, so much to his disadvantage, that he has almost\nreduced himself and family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a\nshop of his own, but obliged to work journey work.\n\nWe have not been married quite four years, and have already given being\nto three dear little ones. Under present circumstances, what can I\nexpect will be their fate and mine? I shudder at the prospect before me.\nWith my excellent constitution and industry, and the labour of my\nhusband, I feel able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency,\nwere I to have no more: but when I seriously consider my situation, I\ncan see no other alternative left for me, than to tear myself away from\nthe man who, though addicted to occasional intoxication, would sacrifice\nhis life for my sake; and for whom, contrary to my father\u2019s will, I\nsuccessively refused the hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher;\nor continue to witness his degradation, and bring into existence, in all\nprobability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, who,\non account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance,\nand consequent vice and misery.\n\nThe dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father for my\ndisobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for advice or any thing\nelse. My husband being somewhat sceptical, my father attributes his\nintemperance to his infidelity; though my brother, as you know, being a\nmember of the same church with my father, is nevertheless, though he\ndoes not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my husband, and\nranks among the faithful. You will therefore plainly see, that for these\nand other reasons, I stand the more in need of your friendly advice; and\nI do hope and believe, you will give me such advice and counsel as you\nwould to your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that I\nam. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude of your\nfriend,\n\n                                                                   M. W.\n\nNeed I add one word of comment on such a case as this? Every feeling\nmind must be touched by the amiable feeling and good sense that pervade\nthe letter. Every rational being, surely, must admit, that the power of\npreventing, without injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under\nsuch circumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.\n\nWill it be asserted\u2014and I know no other even plausible reply to these\nfacts and arguments\u2014will it be asserted, that the thing is, in itself,\nimmoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point to the population of France,\nin justification of my denial. Where will you find, on the face of the\nglobe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one\nmore punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You\nwill find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb.\nYet, as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked, there\nis scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper classes, (and seldom\neven among the working classes,) such a thing as a large family; very\nseldom more than three or four children, A French lady of the utmost\ndelicacy and respectability will, in common conversation, say as\nsimply\u2014(ay, and as _innocently_, whatever the self-righteous prude may\naver to the contrary)\u2014as she would proffer any common remark about the\nweather: \u201cI have three children; my husband and I think that is as many\nas we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have any more.\u201d[14]\n\nI have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who has visited\nParis, and seen any thing of the domestic life of its inhabitants, will\nattempt to deny. However heterodox, then, my view of the subject may be\nin this country, I am supported in it by the opinion and the practice of\nthe most refined and most socially cultivated nation in the world.\n\nWill it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is immoral?\nAgain I appeal to France. I appeal to the details of the late glorious\nrevolution\u2014to the innumerable instances of moderation, of courage, of\nhonesty, of disinterestedness, of generosity, of magnanimity, displayed\non the memorable \u201cthree days,\u201d and ever since; and I challenge\ncomparison between the national character of France for virtue, as well\nas politeness, and that of any other nation under heaven.\n\nIt is evident, then, that to married persons, the power of limiting\ntheir offspring to their circumstances is most desirable. It may often\npromote the harmony, peace, and comfort of families; sometimes it may\nsave from bankruptcy and ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother\nfrom premature death. In _no_ case can it, by possibility, be worse than\nsuperfluous. _In no case can it be mischievous._\n\nIf the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were taught to\nconsult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those we love than our\nown, how strongly would these arguments be felt? No man ought even to\n_desire_ that a woman should become the mother of his children, unless\nit was her express wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare,\nthat she should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this\nmatter _an imperative law_. She it is who bears the burden, and\ntherefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely it may well be\na question whether it be desirable, or whether any man ought to ask,\nthat the whole life of an intellectual, cultivated woman, should be\nspent in bearing a family of twelve or fifteen children; to the ruin,\nperhaps, of her constitution, if not to the overstocking of the world.\nNo man ought to require or expect it.\n\nShall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality? Alas! that\nwhat ought to be a matter of every day practice\u2014a common-place exercise\nof the duties and charities of life\u2014a bounden duty\u2014an instance of\ndomestic courtesy too universal either to excite remark or to merit\ncommendation\u2014alas! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be\nreproached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem but a\nfastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation!\n\nBut I pass from the case of married persons to that of young men and\nwomen who have yet formed no matrimonial connexion.\n\nIn the present state of the world, when public opinion stamps with\nopprobrium every sexual connexion which has not received the orthodox\nsanction of an oath, almost all young persons, on reaching the age of\nmaturity, desire to marry. The heart must be very cold, or very\nisolated, that does not find some object on which to bestow its\naffections. Thus, early marriages would be almost universal, did not\nprudential considerations interfere. The young man thinks, \u201cI must not\nmarry yet. I cannot support a family. I must make money first, and think\nof a matrimonial settlement afterwards.\u201d\n\nAnd so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved, in a few\nyears, to share it with her whom he now loves. But passions are strong,\nand temptations great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the\ncompany of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a\ndependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses\nfor being what she has made them. There his health and his moral\nfeelings alike are made shipwreck. The affections he had thought to\ntreasure up for their first object, are chilled by dissipation and\nblunted by excess. He scarcely retains a passion but avarice. Years pass\non\u2014years of profligacy and speculation\u2014and his first wish is\naccomplished; his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and\nresolves of his youth?\n\n                    Like the dew on the mountain,\n                      Like the foam on the river,\n                    Like the bubble on the fountain,\n                      They are gone\u2014and for ever!\n\nHe is a man of pleasure\u2014a man of the world. He laughs at the romance of\nhis youth, and marries a fortune. If gaudy equipages and gay parties\nconfer happiness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the\nstormy ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which\nforbids a reputable connexion until the period when provision has been\nmade for a large, expected family. Had he married the first object of\nhis choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until his prospects\nseemed to warrant it, how different might have been his lot! Until men\nand woman are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except when\nthey themselves desire it, they ever will form mercenary and\ndemoralizing connexions, and seek in dissipation the happiness they\nmight have found in domestic life.\n\nI know that this, however common, is not a universal case. Sometimes the\nheavy responsibilities of a family are incurred, at all risks; and who\nshall say how often a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the\nconsequence? Sometimes\u2014if even rarely\u2014the young mind _does_ hold to its\nfirst resolves. The youth plods through years of cold celibacy and\nsolitary anxiety; happy, if before the best hours of life are gone, and\nits warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the reward of his\nforbearance and his industry. But even in this comparatively happy case,\nshall we count for nothing the years of ascetical sacrifice at which\nafter-happiness is purchased? The days of youth are not too many, nor\nits affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require\nit, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this, in itself,\ndesirable? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacrifice is a dead\nloss\u2014to the warm-hearted often a grievous one? Does not wisdom bid us\ntemperately enjoy the spring-time of life, \u201cwhile the evil days come\nnot, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say, \u2018We have no pleasure in\nthem?\u2019\u201d\n\nLet us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacrifices the\npresent for the future, chooses wisely between two evils, profligacy and\nasceticism. This is true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a\ngood. It is _not_ good for man to be alone. It is for no man\u2019s or\nwoman\u2019s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to\nShakerism. It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the\ncharacter. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a\nlife of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,\nrestlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are among\nthe least of these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. Even\nthe very instinct which is thus mortified, assumes an undue importance,\nand occupies a portion of the thoughts which does not of right or nature\nbelong to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would\nnot obtain.\n\nI speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice[15] or disease, or\neven insanity, has been the result of ascetical mortification. I speak\nof every day cases; and I am well convinced, that, (however wise it\noften is, in the present state of the world, to select and adhere to\nthis alternative,) yet no man or woman can live the life of a\nconscientious Shaker, without suffering, more or less, both physically,\nmentally, and morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the\nvery noblest portion of our species\u2014the good, the pure, the high-minded,\nand the kind-hearted\u2014are the chief victims.\n\nThus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heavy responsibilities deters\nfrom forming moral connexions, and encourages intemperance and\nprostitution, the knowledge which enables man to limit his offspring,\nwould, in the present state of things, save much unhappiness and prevent\nmany crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other, and who\nmight wish to marry, would marry early; merely resolving not to become\nparents until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead of solitary\ntoil or vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the society and the assistance\nof her he had chosen as his companion; and the best years of life, whose\npleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot, or lost through\nmortification.\n\nMy readers will remark, that all the arguments I have hitherto employed,\napply strictly to the present order of things, and the present laws and\nsystem of marriage. No one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this\nsubject to admit and approve them. The marriage laws might all remain\nfor ever as they are; and yet a moral check to population would be\nbeneficent and important.\n\nBut there are other cases, it will be said, where the knowledge of such\na check would be mischievous. If young women, it will be argued, were\nabsolved from the fear of consequences, they would rarely preserve their\nchastity. Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom detected.\nSeduction would be facilitated. Let us dispassionately examine this\nargument.\n\nI fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics, Shelley, that\n\u201cSeduction, which term could have no meaning in a rational society, has\nnow a most tremendous one.\u201d[16] It matters not how artificial the\npenality which society has chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious\ndecrees. Society has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,\nPublic Opinion, enforces the penality, even though it cost the life of\nthe victim. The consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence\nis, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of the heart, are\nthe same as if her imprudence were indeed a crime of the blackest dye.\nAnd his conduct who, for a momentary, selfish gratification, will\ndeliberately entail a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault,\nperhaps, was her misplaced confidence in a villain, is not one whit\nexcused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.[17] Some poet says,\n\n             \u201cThe man who lays his hands upon a woman\n             Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch\n             Whom \u2019twere gross flattery to call a coward.\u201d\n\nWhat epithet, then, belongs to him who makes it a trade to win a woman\u2019s\ngentle affections, betray her generous confidence, and then, when the\nconsequences become apparent, abandon her to dependence, and the scorn\nof a cold, a self-righteous, and a wicked world; a world which will\nforgive any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose eyes\nit seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and warm-hearted! I\nwill give my hand freely to a galley-slave, and speak to the\nhighway-robber as to an honest man; but there is one character with whom\nI desire to exchange neither word nor greeting\u2014the cold-hearted,\ndeliberate, practiced, and calculating seducer!\n\nAnd, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction their sting,\nand stamps to the world its victim? Why is it, that the man goes free\nand enters society again, almost courted and applauded for his\ntreachery; while the woman is a mark for the finger of reproach, and a\nbutt for the tongue of scandal? Because she bears about her the mark of\nwhat is called her disgrace. She becomes a mother; and society has\nsomething tangible against which to direct its anathemas. Nine tenths,\nat least, of the misery and ruin which are caused by seduction, even in\nthe present state of public opinion on the subject, result from cases of\npregnancy. Perhaps the unfeeling selfishness of him who fears to become\na father, administers some noxious drug to procure abortion; perhaps\u2014for\neven such scenes our courts of justice disclose!\u2014perhaps the frenzy of\nthe wretched mother takes the life of her infant, or seeks in suicide\nthe consummation of her wrongs and her woes! Or, if the little being\nlives, the dove in the falcon\u2019s claws is not more certain of death, than\nwe may be, that society will visit, with its bitterest scoffs and\nreproaches, the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious\ninnocence of the child.\n\nIf, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we cannot\nprevent every misery which man\u2019s selfishness and the world\u2019s cruelty\nentail on a sex which it ought to be our pride and honor to cherish and\ndefend; let us prevent as many as we can. If we cannot persuade society\nto revoke its unmanly and _unchristian_[18] persecution of those who are\noften the best and gentlest of its members\u2014let us, at the least, give to\nwoman what defence we may, against its violence.\n\nI appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his child,\nwhether, if she were induced to form an unlegalized connexion, her\npregnancy would not be a frightful aggravation? I appeal to him, whether\nany innocent preventive which shall save her from a situation that must\nsoon disclose all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of\ncharity, of philanthropy\u2014whether it might not save him from despair, and\nher from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frown upon the question,\nbut to the father it comes home; and, whatever his lips may say, his\nheart will acknowledge the soundness and the force of the argument it\nconveys.[19]\n\nIt may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will still demur to\nthe positions I defend. They will perhaps tell me, as the Committee of a\ncertain Society in this city lately did, that the power of preventing\nconceptions \u201cholds out inducements and facilities for the prostitution\nof their daughters, their sisters, and their wives.\u201d[20]\n\nTruly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, a\npoor compliment! Is, then, this vaunted chastity a mere thing of\ncircumstance and occasion? Is there but the difference of opportunity\nbetween it and prostitution? Would their wives, and their sisters, and\ntheir daughters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, all become\nprostitutes\u2014all sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a level\nwith the most degraded? In truth, but they slander their own kindred;\nthey libel their own wives, sisters, and daughters. If they spoke\ntruth\u2014if fear were indeed the only safeguard of their relatives\u2019\nchastity, little value should I place on virtue like that! and small\nwould I esteem his offence, who should attempt to seduce it.[21]\n\nThat chastity which is worth preserving is not the chastity that owes\nits birth to fear and to ignorance. If to enlighten a woman regarding a\nsimple physiological fact will make her a prostitute, she must be\nespecially predisposed to profligacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few,\nindeed, there are, who would continue so miserable and degrading a\ncalling, could they but escape from it. For one prostitute that is made\nby inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws\u2014equalize the\ncomforts of society, and you need withhold no knowledge from your wives\nand daughters. It is want, not knowledge, that leads to prostitution.\n\nFor myself, I would withhold from no sister or daughter, or wife of\nmine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should be to me a duty and a\npleasure to communicate to them all I knew myself: and I should hold it\nan insult to their understandings and their hearts to imagine, that\ntheir virtue would diminish as their knowledge increased. Vice is never\nthe offspring of just knowledge, and they who say it is, slander their\nown nature. Would we but trust human nature, instead of continually\nsuspecting it, and guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make\nit very chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world we\nshould have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly plant, ever\nexposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to be scorched and\nblasted even by the free light of heaven; of precarious growth; and,\neven if at last artificially matured, of little or no real value.\n\nI know that parents often think it right and proper to withhold from\ntheir children\u2014especially from their daughters\u2014facts the most\ninfluential on their future lives, and the knowledge of which is\nessential to every man and woman\u2019s well-being.[22] Such a course has\never appeared to me ill-judged and productive of very injurious effects.\nA girl is surely no whit the better for believing, until her marriage\nnight that children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden.\nThe imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on the\nstretch; and that which, if simply explained, would have been\nrecollected only as any other physiological phenomenon, assumes all the\nrank and importance and engrossing interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well\nconvinced, that mere curiosity has often led ignorant young people into\nsituations, from which a little more confidence and openness on the part\nof their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured them.\n\nIn the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was taught and believed,\nthat all the imaginations and all the thoughts of man are only evil\ncontinually\u2014when it was deemed right and proper to secure the submission\nof the mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to read and\nwrite\u2014in those days, it was all very well to shut up the physiological\npage, and tell us, that on the day we read therein we should surely die.\nBut those times are past. In this nineteenth century, men and women\nread, think, discuss, enquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter\ndays, there is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of\nknowledge and of free enquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We _cannot_\nprevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we would; we _ought_\nnot, even if we could.\n\nThis book will make its way through the whole United States. Curiosity\nand the notoriety which has already been given to the subject, will\nsuffice at first to obtain for it circulation. The practical importance\nof the subject it treats of will do the rest. It needed but some one to\nstart the stone; its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.\n\nBut, if we _could_ prevent the circulation of truth, why _should_ we? We\nare not afraid of it ourselves. No man thinks _his_ morality will suffer\nby it. Each feels certain that his virtue can stand any degree of\nknowledge. And is it not the height of egregious presumption in each to\nimagine that his neighbour is so much weaker than himself, and requires\na bandage which he can do without? Most of all, is it presumptuous to\nsuppose, that that knowledge which the man of the world can bear with\nimpunity, will corrupt the young and the pure-hearted. It is the sullied\nconscience only that suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence.\nSpeak to them openly. Show them that you respect them, by treating them\nwith confidence; and they will quickly learn to respect and to govern\nthemselves. You enlist even their pride in your behalf; and you will\nsoon see them make it their boast and their highest pleasure to _merit_\nyour confidence. But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but\nonce\u2014and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as long as\nbars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The world was never made for\na prison-house; it is too large and ill-guarded: nor were parents ever\nintended for goal-keepers; their very affections unfit them for the\ntask.\n\nThere is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family among whom\nthere are no secrets and no reserves: where the young people confide\nevery thing to their elder friends\u2014for such to them are their\nparents\u2014and where the parents trust every thing to their children; where\neach thought is communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge\ngiven, as simply as it is received. If the world contain a prototype of\nthat Paradise, where nature is said to have known no sin or impropriety,\nit is such a family; and if there be a serpent that can poison the\ninnocence of its inmates, that serpent is SUSPICION.\n\nI ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and companion of\nyoung beings whose innocence shall speak to me as unreservedly as it\nthinks to itself; of young beings who shall never imagine that there is\nguilt in their thoughts, or sin in their confidence; and to whom, in\nreturn, I may impart every important and useful fact that is known to\nmyself. Their virtue shall be of that hardy growth, which _all_ facts\ntend to nourish and strengthen.\n\nI put it to my readers, whether such a view of human nature, and such a\nmode of treating it, be not in accordance with the noblest feelings of\ntheir hearts. I put it to them, whether they have not felt themselves\nencouraged, improved, strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when\nthey were generously trusted; and whether they have not felt abased and\ndegraded, when they were suspiciously watched, and spied after, and kept\nin ignorance. If they find such feelings in their own hearts, let them\nnot self-righteously imagine, that they only can be won by generosity,\nor that the nature of their fellow-creatures is different from their\nown.\n\nThere are other considerations connected with this subject, which\nfarther attest the social advantages of the control I advocate. Human\naffections are mutable, and the sincerest of mortal resolutions may\nchange.[23] Every day furnishes instances of alienations, and of\nseparations; sometimes almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In\nsuch cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable that\nthere should be offspring; and the power of refraining from becoming\nparents until intimacy had, in a measure, established the likelihood of\npermanent harmony of views and feelings, must be confessed to be\nadvantageous.\n\nThe limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to this little\ntreatise, permit me not to meet every argument in detail, which\ningenuity or prejudice might put forward. If the world were not actually\nafraid to think freely or to listen to the suggestions of common sense,\nthree-fourths of what has already been said would be superfluous; for\nmost of the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any\nrational, reasoning being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a\nmeasure, every thing to learn on this subject. The world seems to me\nmuch to resemble a company of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful\nrepast, first very punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under\nsanction of the priest\u2019s blessing, think to gorge themselves with\nimpunity; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin. So it is\nwith popular customs and popular morality. Every thing is permitted, if\nexternal forms be but respected. Legal roguery is no crime, and\nceremony-sanctioned excess no profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to\nthe form, the virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its\nhead little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so he knows how\nto avoid the penitentiary and escape the hangman. In like manner, the\nworld seldom thinks it worth while to enquire whether a man be temperate\nor intemperate, prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform\nitself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox requirements; and,\nif he does, all is right. Thus men too often learn to consider an oath\nan absolution from all subsequent decencies and duties, and a full\nrelease from all after responsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,\nthe offence is venal; for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an\n\u201chonest woman.\u201d If a married father neglect his children, it is a\ntrifle; for grace was regularly said, before they were born.\n\nSo true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to throw out the\nidea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings, and much of the\nindifference and carelessness of each others\u2019 feelings that is exhibited\nin married life, might be traced to the almost universal custom (in this\ncountry though not in France) of man and wife continually occupying the\nsame bed\u2014if he put it to us whether such a forced and too frequent\nfamiliarity were not calculated to lessen the charms and pleasures, and\ndiminish the respectful regard and deference, which ought ever to\ncharacterize the intercourse of human beings\u2014if, I say, some heretical\npreferrer of things to forms were to light upon and express some such\nunlucky idea as this, ten to one the married portion of the community\nwould fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent intermeddler in\ntheir most legitimate rights and prerogatives.\n\nWith such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason. After\nlistening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me short by reminding\nme, that nature herself declares it to be right and proper, that we\nshould reproduce our species without calculation or restraint. I will\nask, in reply, whether nature also declares it to be right and proper,\nthat when the thermometer is at 96\u00b0, we should drink greedily of cold\nwater, and drop down dead in the streets? Let the world be told, that if\nnature gave us our passions and propensities, she gave us also the power\nwisely to control them; and that, when we hesitate to exercise that\npower we descend to a level with the brute creation, and become the\nsport of fortune\u2014the mere slaves of circumstance.[24]\n\nTo one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while to advert, but\nthat it has been already speciously used to excite popular prejudice. It\nhas been said, that to recommend to mankind prudential restraint in\ncases where children cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor\nman; since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might provide\namply for the largest family. Most assuredly all _ought_ to be so\ncircumstanced; but all _are_ not. And there would be just as much\npropriety in bidding a poor man to go and take by force a piece of\nSaxony broadcloth from his neighbour\u2019s store, because he _ought_ to be\nable to purchase it, as to encourage him to go on producing children,\nbecause he _ought_ to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert\nevery nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results\nfrom a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so, let us not,\nfor humanity\u2019s sake, madly recommend that which grievously aggravates\nthe evil; which increases the burden on the present generation, and\nthreatens with neglect and ignorance the next.\n\nAnd now, let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I\nhave placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of\nwhich I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them\nbear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it\nimportant that we should know how to control and govern it; that, when\nwe obtain such control, we may save ourselves\u2014and, what we ought to\nprize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from\nsuffering or misery; that by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous\nconnexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it,\nearly marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction\nof its sharpest sting: that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin,\nand woman from desolating dishonour; that by it the first pure\naffections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or\ndestroyed\u2014let them call to mind all this, and then let them say, whether\nthe possession of such control be not a blessing to man.\n\nIt shocks the mind of a woman at the first thought; but once practiced,\nall prejudice flies, and gratification must be the consequence. To weak\nand sickly females, to those to whom parturition is dangerous, and who\nnever produce living or healthy children, the discovery is a great\nblessing. And it is also a real blessing in all other cases, where\nchildren are not desired. It will become the very bulwark of love and\nwisdom, of beauty, health, and happiness.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n   THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNEXION WITH PHYSIOLOGY.\n\n\nIt now remains, after having spoken of the _desirability_ of obtaining\ncontrol over the instinct of reproduction, to speak of its\n_practicability_.\n\nAs, in this world, the value of labour is too often estimated almost in\nproportion to its inutility, so in physical science, contested questions\nseem to have attracted attention and engaged research, almost in the\ninverse ratio of their practical importance. We have a hundred learned\nhypotheses for one decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands\nof volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as many\ndozens to record ascertained facts.\n\nIt is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the subject, to\nexamine the hundred ingenious theories of generation which ancient and\nmodern physiologists have put forth. I shall not enquire whether the\nfuture human being owes its first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen\nasserted, and Buffon very ingeniously supports, to the union of two\nlife-giving fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent,\nand composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring; or\nwhether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposes in the ovum\nuntil vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps only by the _aura\nseminalis_; or whether, according to the theories of Leuvenhoeck and\nBoerhaave, the future man first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for\nwhich the ovum becomes merely the nourishing receptacle; or whether, as\nthe ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more correct\nhypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will have it,[25] the embryo\nbeings (too wonderfully organized to be supposed the production of any\nmere physical phenomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the\nhands of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these little\ngerms, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the animal functions, but\nstill self-existent, and awaiting only the insinuation of some subtle\nessence into their microscopic pores, to come forth as human beings.\nStill less am I inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their\nenquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the f\u0153tus, or\npreexists in the semen, and becomes, as it were, the architect of its\nfuture residence, the body;[26] or to attempt a refutation of the\nhypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist,[27] who asserts, (and adduces\nthe infinite indivisibility of matter in support of the assertion,) that\nthe actual germs of the whole human race, and of all that are yet to be\nborn, existed in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and\nfifty other hypotheses as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed by\nthose who seem to make it a point of honour to leave no fact unexplained\nby some imagined theory; and I descend at once to the _terra firma_ of\npositive experience and actual observation.\n\nAll things having life, increase and multiply upon an analogous\nprinciple, but the method of effecting that increase differs very\nconsiderably. In the human race, nature has furnished the sexes parts,\nwhich it is necessary for the purpose of reproduction, should\napproximate and commingle their elements or rudiments of future\nexistence, and that, that intermixture should take place in the womb of\nthe female. In some of the lower order of animals and in the vegetable\nworld the sexes are combined in one object which object possesses the\npower of increase. To enter into the physiological minut\u00e6 of\nimpregnation would be embarking more scientifically in these matters\nthan this little book professes to do, it being our intention more to\nhold up a popular view than to discuss the various opinions upon any\ngiven point.\n\nIt is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not spend some small\nportion, at least, of the time and industry which has been wasted on\ntheoretical researches, in collecting and collating the _actual\nexperience_ of human beings. But this task, too difficult for the\nignorant, has generally been thought too simple and common-place for the\nlearned. To this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not\nthought fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate their\npersonal experience on the important subject now under consideration\u2014to\nthese causes are attributable the great and otherwise unaccountable\nignorance which so strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men,\nas to the power which man may possess over the reproductive instinct.\nMany physicians will positively deny that man possesses any such power.\nAnd yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and research had been\nemployed to investigate this momentous fact, which has been turned to\nthe building up of idle theories, no commonly intelligent individual\ncould well be ignorant of the truth.\n\nI have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the most\nenlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on this subject;\n(opinions which popular prejudice will not permit them to offer publicly\nin their works;) and they all concur in admitting, what the experience\nof the French nation _positively proves_, that man may have a perfect\ncontrol over this instinct: and that men and women may, without any\ninjury to health, or the slightest violence done to the moral feelings,\nand with but small diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the\ngratification of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents. It\nhas chanced to me, also, to win the confidence of several individuals,\nwho have communicated to me, without reserve, their own experience: and\nall this has been corroborative of the same opinion.\n\nThus, though I pretend not to speak positively of the details of a\nsubject, which will then only be fully understood when men acquire sense\nenough simply and unreservedly to discuss it, I may venture to assure my\nreaders, that the main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such\nfacts in proof of this as may occur to me in the course of this\ninvestigation.\n\nHowever various and contradictory the different theories of generation,\nalmost all physiologists are agreed, that the entrance of the sperm\nitself (or of some volatile particles proceeding from it) into the\nuterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first\nsuggested the possibility of preventing conception at will.\n\n\nThe Author informs us, that among the modes of preventing conception\nwhich may have prevailed in various countries, that which has been\nadopted and practiced by the cultivated classes, on the continent of\nEurope, by the French, the Italians, and to some extent by the Spaniards\nand Germans, consists in a complete withdrawal, on the part of the man,\nimmediately previous to emission. This is undoubtedly effectual where it\ncan be done, but as our author remarks, that he can readily imagine,\nthat there are men who, in part from temperament, but much more from\ntheir continued habits of unrestrained indulgence, may have so little\ncommand over their passions as to find difficulty in practising it, and\nsome there may be who will declare it to be impossible. If there be any\nto whom it is impossible, Mr. Owen tells us, that he is convinced that\nthe number is exceedingly small. In this, however, the Editor thinks the\nAuthor is in error.\n\nNumerous facts have come to the Editor\u2019s knowledge which have\ndemonstrated the impracticability of this check, and have convinced him\nthat the number who are physically incapable of profiting by the\nAuthor\u2019s recommendation, is much greater than he imagined. It is not\nunusual to see men, in a fit of anger, lose all self-control. Why, then,\nshould we suppose them capable at all times of exercising restraint over\nthe strongest passion of our nature? Mankind are endued with different\ndegrees of passion. Some never loose that perfect command of their\nfeelings which enables them to profit by the Author\u2019s suggestions, while\nothers differently constituted cannot practice the same forbearance.\n\nThe Editor knows many affectionate husbands and kind fathers who would\nmost gladly practice the check before mentioned had they the ability to\ndo it.\n\nIt is but recent that the father of a very large family, consulted the\nEditor on this subject, and in the course of conversation, he stated\nthat he had read Mr. Owen\u2019s book, and had endeavoured to adopt the\ncourse recommended by him, but found himself totally unable. Several\nothers have mentioned the same fact. The Author tells us that the\npractice is attended with but trifling diminution of physical enjoyment;\nbut however trifling it may be to some, it is not so to all, for however\ngreat their sense of duty, or however weighty the risk of incurring\nsacred responsibilities, they are unable to exercise the necessary\nrestraint.\n\nIt is a commendable virtue in those who have the ability to practice it,\nbut for such as cannot or will not, and such as are regardless of\nconsequences, it is of the utmost moment to the mother that the power of\ncontrol should be placed in the right hands. How frequently do we hear\nthe mothers say, I have all the family I want, and am determined to have\nno more children if I can prevent it; but alas: she has not the power,\nwhen the partner of her bosom loses the self-control of his passions.\nShe who bears the burden and suffers the affliction, should be able to\nprotect herself and the fault is her own if she does not.\n\nMr. Owen was aware of the strong objection which would be urged against\nthe practicability of the preventive recommended by him, for in speaking\nof it, he remarks, that it places the power in the hands of the man, and\nnot in those of the woman\u2014she who is the sufferer is not secured against\nthe culpable carelessness, or perhaps the deliberate selfishness of him,\nwho goes free and unblamed whatever may happen.\n\nTo obviate this defect, spoken of by the Author, and to provide a remedy\nfor the suffering mother by placing it in her own hands, is the object\nof the Editor of the present edition of Mr. Owen\u2019s work. The science of\nmedicine and surgery is indebted to galvanism for some of its most\nimportant remedial agents. Physiological facts of great utility to the\nmedical profession, have through its agency been demonstrated, and\nphysicians have been enabled to turn the electrical influence to many\nuseful purposes, in the treatment of diseases, and in furnishing a\nremedy for functional derangements. It is capable of exercising a\npowerful influence over the nervous system, and in the hands of the\nphysician, is a most potent remedy.\n\nThe discovery which has enabled us to obtain such control over uterine\naction or seminal influence, as to prevent conception,[28] was effected\nthrough its aid.\n\nIn the present state of society, a great number of persons are compelled\nto make an appearance and to live in a style, which consumes all their\nincomes, leaving nothing, or next to nothing, as a provision for their\nchildren. To such persons a great number of children, is a never failing\nsource of discomfort and apprehension; of a state of bodily, mental, and\npecuniary vexation and suffering, from which there is no escape. This\nstate of things pervades, to a very great extent, that respectable class\nof society called genteel. To those whose incomes depend on some\nparticular exertion, which cannot be remitted, these distressing\ncircumstances are, from various causes, greatly increased. To those who\nconstitute the great mass of the community, whose daily bread is alone\nprocured by daily labour, a large family is almost always the cause of\nruin, both of parents and children: reducing the parents to cheerless,\nhopeless, and irremediable poverty; depriving the children of those\nphysical, moral, and mental helps which are necessary to enable them to\nlive in comfort, and turning them out at an early age to prey upon the\nworld, or to become the world\u2019s prey.\n\nFor these general reasons, cognizable by every body, it is of the\ngreatest possible importance that married people should be informed of a\nmethod to prevent such tremendous evils.\n\nIf methods can be pointed out by which all the enjoyment of wedded life\nmay be partaken of without the apprehension of TOO LARGE _a family_, and\nall its bitter consequences, he, surely, who points them out, must be a\nbenefactor of mankind.\n\nThe means of prevention are simple, and harmless, and might, but for the\nfalse delicacy of the press, or, rather, of those for whom it caters,\nhave been more generally communicated.\n\nA course of experiments instituted several years past, with a view to\ntest the efficacy of the galvanic power, as a check to reproduction, has\ndemonstrated and proved its perfect adaptation, to the accomplishment of\nthis important object. The Editor has a very simple and perfectly\nharmless instrument, (so far as the health of the mother is concerned,)\nand one which may be depended upon for this purpose.\n\nThe application requires to be immediate, and its effect is\ninstantaneous. Like many other operations, the effect of which is known,\nit may be somewhat difficult satisfactorily to explain its _modus\noperandi_; nevertheless, the certainty of its action has been clearly\nproved. It is known to impart a slight momentary impetus to the parts,\nso that the vivifying influence of the semen is destroyed or expelled.\n\nIt would be no difficult matter to devise a multitude of ingenious\ntheories of the manner in which this operation may be accomplished, but\ninasmuch as no practically good effect could arise from it, we content\nourselves by simply quoting the concluding remarks of Dr. Maunsell upon\nthe theory of conception, as expressed in Dr. Gilman\u2019s edition: \u201cAt\npresent it will be sufficient for our purpose to state simply the facts\nknown and indulge as little as possible in hypotheses which must be more\nthe product of fancy than of reason.\u201d\n\nIn offering this instrument to the public, the Editor is aware that his\nmotives may be misconceived and misjudged, and that he may subject\nhimself to be censured by that class of persons who think this too\ndelicate a subject to be even mentioned, much less to be publicly\ndiscussed, and a remedy offered in this publication. He will be told by\nsome that the operations of nature ought not to be interfered with, be\nthe consequences what they may. It is well known by every person who is\nat all conversant with writers upon midwifery, that in consequence of\ndeformity of the pelvis, recourse must be had in many instances to the\nuse of instruments to destroy the child, that the life of the mother may\nbe saved; and where the deformity is very great, resort is had to that\nmost desperate of all remedies, the C\u00e6sarean operation. Dr. Gilman, in\nthe work from which we have already quoted, tells us that this last\nmentioned operation was performed five times upon the same woman, by\nMichaelis, of Kiel. It has also been performed twice by Dr. Gibson, of\nPhiladelphia, and once by Dr. R. K. Hoffman, of New York, and by other\noperators, on the continent of Europe, and in the United States. The\nsame Author tells us, that \u201cA British writer suggest the propriety of\ndividing the Fallopian tubes when this operation is performed, that thus\nthe women being rendered barren, might be guarded against the\npossibility of requiring a repetition of this terrible C\u00e6sarean\nsection.\u201d\n\nImprovements have been made in almost every department of the medical\nprofession, and many new and important remedies have been brought to\nlight through the aid of the science of chemistry; but none have\nheretofore been discovered, which could afford relief in these cases;\ntherefore, it affords us a degree of satisfaction to be able to\nannounce, that a safe and sure preventive of these sufferings will be\nfound in the instrument before mentioned, which we are confident will be\nacceptable to every father and husband, who regards the safety and\nhappiness of his wife. Perhaps it will be said that these cases seldom\noccur. In answer, it will be sufficient to state, that this is but one\nof a numerous class of cases, which imperiously demands the same\npreventive aid. As the writer, from whom we have just quoted, further\nremarks: \u201cWhen an individual woman, has been frequently delivered by\nperforation of the child\u2019s head, it becomes an object to devise some\nmeans for obviating these successive sacrifices, and accordingly it has\nbeen proposed in such cases, to induce premature labour at a period of\ngestation, when the child\u2019s head is sufficiently small to pass through\nthe pelvis.\u201d This, he remarks is a step by no means to be lightly\nundertaken, as there must always be a certain degree of danger incurred\nby the mother, and the act itself, even though it be justified by a\npowerful necessity, is unwarrantable, and even criminal in the eye of\nthe law.\n\nFrom these quotations it will be perceived that the best and only remedy\nadapted to these cases, which has heretofore been devised by the\nprofession for the relief of such as cannot safely become mothers,\nconsists in destroying the child, that the life of the mother may be\nsaved, and where a powerful necessity exists, premature labour or\nabortion at an early stage. Why not anticipate this stage, and prevent\nthe necessity spoken of, by preventing conception? Would not this be\nmore moral, and would it not save the mother from that degree of danger\nspoken of? _Prevention_ is always to be preferred to _cure_, and where\nthe remedy is fraught with such dangerous consequences to the patient,\nit is especially incumbent upon the medical attendant, to devise some\nmeans that will supersede the necessity of resorting to these desperate\nmeasures.\n\nSince some publicity has been given to the article before mentioned,\nnumerous applications have been made, and much enquiry elicited, which\nhas brought a great variety of cases, under the Editor\u2019s observation.\nThese cases were of such a nature as to demonstrate the necessity of\nsome preventive which should be placed in the right hands, and would\nhave been sufficient to remove any doubt (had any remained) as to the\npropriety of giving publicity to this instrument. It was but yesterday\nthat the husband of a delicate woman, and the father of a family, in\nconversation upon this subject, stated that his wife was the mother of\ntwo children\u2014that since the birth of the last, she had suffered from\nfive abortions, which had so impaired her health, that he had found it\nnecessary to abstain from all intercourse with her. Numerous cases of a\nlike nature come under his observation almost daily. Shall we be told\nthat it is immoral and unbecoming for the physician to provide a remedy\nfor cases of this description? Will any pretend that the delicacy of the\nsubject should prevent us from directing the proper course to be pursued\nto insure health and happiness? Away with such mockery\u2014let us speak\nplainly upon all subjects that equally concern the health and happiness\nof our fellow beings. It comes within the province of the physician, to\ninvestigate this matter in a philosophical manner, and to let nothing\nbut a sense of duty to his patients, and to the public guide him in his\ndetermination.\n\nThe only thing that is a matter of surprise to the Editor is, that this\nsubject should have been so long neglected by the profession. He is\nconvinced that this little book and the means of prevention herein\nrecommended, will do more to prevent that moral evil, abortion among\nmarried females, than all the penal enactments of our legislators, and\nthe criminal courts which enforce them. Yes, it is his firm conviction\nthat a moral check to reproduction, will do what judges and juries have\nin vain attempted. It will put an end to the occupation of the\nabortionist by removing the cause and thus striking at the root of the\nevil. The want of the means of prevention has lead to the commission of\na crime revolting to our feelings. How many lives of mothers would have\nbeen spared, had the power of preventing conception been known to them!\nthe feelings of the community would not be so often shocked by those\nhorrid tales, which are so frequently related in the daily papers, of\nchild murders: and the incensed feelings of the community, ready to\nburst forth in mobs, and other demonstrations of popular indignation,\nagainst those who commit such crimes. I here quote a paragraph which\nrecently appeared in one of the New York daily papers, for the purpose\nof showing the feeling of the community on this subject: \u201cThe residence\nof Madame Restell, in Greenwich street, was beset yesterday afternoon by\na vast concourse of people of all classes, many of them, doubtless,\ndrawn thither by curiosity, or a vague idea that something extraordinary\nwas about to be enacted in reference to this notorious woman, and not a\nfew who came apparently with the intention of being actors in some scene\nof violence and popular outbreak. There were very many of our most\nrespectable citizens noticed among the mass\u2014a result unlooked for, and\ncertainly ominous of a deep and abiding feeling of abhorrence and\ndetestation among the better classes, for the practices of this\nmiserable female, which may yet prove of fearful import to her, and to\nthose who countenance and support her in the vile and unholy occupation,\nthe known existence of which in our midst, in defiance of all law, and\noutraging every sense of decency and morality, has been suffered so long\nto rest, as a foul plague-spot upon our city. We learn that in\nanticipation of some energetic demonstration in the course of the day,\nMadame Restell early left her house, and secretly repaired to the\ndwelling of some unknown friend, seeking a shelter from her fears in a\nhiding-place, far from the scene of her iniquitous practices. Meanwhile\nalthough the Chief of Police, aided by a strong body of officers, were\nupon the ground of the disturbance, it seemed for some hours as though\nthe neighbourhood was slumbering upon a volcano, which a mere breath\nwould inflame into fierce and terrible action. Curses loud and deep upon\nRestell and her coadjutors, were rife amid the crowd, and cries of \u2018Haul\nher out!\u2019 \u2018Where\u2019s Mary Applegate\u2019s child?\u2019 \u2018Where\u2019s the _thousand\nchildren_ murdered in this house!\u2019 \u2018Where is Miss Munson!\u2019 \u2018Throw her in\nthe dock!\u2019 \u2018Hanging is too good for the monster!\u2019 \u2018Who murdered Mary\nRodgers!\u2019 and other inflammatory exclamations of a like nature, were\ncontinually uprising from the excited multitude. Through the whole\nvicinity, the windows on both sides of the street were upraised, and\nfilled with anxious faces, intently watching the movements of the mass\nbelow; and there were not wanting those, among the inmates of the\nneighbouring houses, and those inmates too, females of respectability\nand refinement, who joined in the universal cry for vengence and\nretribution. It did indeed seem as though the strong feeling of popular\nindignation was about to be manifested in an outbreak of a serious\ncharacter, and that the unhappy object of their dislikes was about to\nrealize that there is in this land, a power above all law, whose\nmandates would\u2014when the arm of justice became paralysed and\ninsufficient, and was daringly sneered at by those who depend upon their\nill-earned wealth, _and certain peculiar influences_ for impunity from\nthe just reward of crime\u2014be suddenly executed in violence and confusion.\nOwing, however, to the prompt exertions of the Chief of Police, under\nwhose directions one or two arrests were made of the most active spirits\namong the assembled mass, the threatened disturbance was finally put\ndown, and at this time, (late in the evening) order and quiet are\nrestored to the neighbourhood.\n\n\u201cWe do not envy the feelings of the wretched woman during the existence\nof the threatening outbreak, for although at some distance from the\nscene yet she well knew what was going forward, being made acquainted at\nshort intervals with the position of affairs. We trust that from the\nexperience of yesterday, Madame Restell is now convinced of the\nnecessity of immediately closing her unlawful business; otherwise, there\nseems to be a most fearful certainty that _the end is not yet_.\u201d\n\nSee, what a mass of evil arises from bastard children, from\nchild-murder, from deserted children, from diseased children, and even\nwhere the parents are most industrious and most virtuous, from a\nhalf-starved, naked, and badly housed family, from families crowded into\none room, for whose health a house and garden is essential. All these\nmatters are a tax upon love, a perpetual tax upon human pleasure, and\nupon health; a tax that turns beauty into shrivelled ugliness, defaces\nthe noble attitude of mankind, and makes their condition worse than that\nof the cattle of the field.\n\nThen comes the consideration\u2014what a dreadful thing it is, that health\nand beauty cannot be encouraged and extended, that love cannot be\nenjoyed without the danger of a conception, when that conception is not\ndesired, when it is a positive injury to the parties and to society.\nThis circumstance has been a great bar to health, strength, and beauty.\n\nWhat is to be done to remedy this evil? There is something to be done: a\nmeans has been discovered, a simple means, criminal in the neglect, not\nin the use. The destruction of conceptions have been sought by acts of\nviolence, by doses of poison, that injure, and sometimes destroy the\nmother, to reach the f\u0153tus in her womb. This is dreadful, truly\ndreadful. Yet custom has made it a common matter. Every village has its\nalmost yearly cases of the kind. In this country, hundreds of infants\nare yearly destroyed at birth: some cases are discovered, but many pass\nundiscovered. We condemn and shudder at the infanticides of China and\nother countries: yet it is a question, if infanticide ever prevailed in\nany country to a greater extent than in our own. Here, then, as in every\nother case of disease or other evil, _it is better to prevent than to\ncure_, and here _prevention is most simply practicable, a means within\nthe reach of all_.\n\nThose who have no means of arriving at a knowledge of the extent of this\nevil, could scarce realize it; since the investigation of this subject\nwas commenced and since mention has been made publicly of the instrument\nbefore alluded to, numerous facts have come to the Editor\u2019s knowledge\nwhich would be sufficient to convince every candid reflecting person,\nthat the utmost extent of the credulity of those who have taken but\nlittle pains to inform themselves upon this part of the subject is not\nhalf equal to the extent of this vice. He is inclined to believe that\nhis statement would be doubted were he to relate the number of calls he\nhas received from persons seeking this kind of medical service under a\nmisapprehension of his notice. The number is not confined to such as\ncannot legitimately become mothers, but what is most surprising, parents\nwho move in what is called respectable society, appear to feel no\ndelicacy in asking relief, in these cases, at the hands of the\nphysician.\n\nFor the purpose of illustrating still more forcibly, the extent to which\nthe business of the abortionist is carried on in this city, and likewise\nthe dangers to which the victim is exposed, we propose to make some\nextracts from a case reported by Dr. Bedford, the eminent Professor of\nMidwifery in the University of the city of New York. Several physicians\nhad been called in, the patient had been in labour for twenty-four\nhours, and they severally professed their ignorance of the nature of the\ncase. Dr. B. then goes on to say:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cMrs. M. had been taken in labour Monday, Dec. 18th, at seven o\u2019clock,\nP. M. and on Tuesday at seven o\u2019clock, P. M., I first saw her. Her pains\nwere then almost constant, and such had been the severity of her\nsuffering that her cries for relief, as her medical attendants informed\nme, had attracted crowds of persons about the door. As soon as I entered\nher room, she exclaimed, \u2018For God\u2019s sake Doctor, cut me open or I shall\ndie: I never can be delivered without you cut me open.\u2019 I was struck\nwith this language, especially as I had already been informed, that she\nhad previously borne two children. At the request of the medical\ngentlemen, I proceeded to make an examination per vaginam, and I must\nconfess that I was startled at what I discovered, expecting every\ninstant, from the intensity of the contractions of the uterus, that this\norgan would be ruptured in some portion of its extent. I could\ndistinctly feel a solid, resisting tumor at the superior strait, through\nthe walls of the uterus, _but could detect no opening in the womb_. In\ncarrying my finger upward and backward toward the cul-de-sac of the\nvagina, I could trace two bridles, extending from this portion of the\nvagina to a point of the uterus, which was quite rough and slightly\nelevated; this roughness was transverse in shape, but with all the\ncaution and nicety of manipulation I could bring to bear, I found it\nimpossible to detect any opening in the womb. In passing my finger with\ncare, from the bridles to the rough surface, and exploring the condition\nof the parts with an anxious desire to afford the distressed patient\nprompt and effectual relief, I distinctly felt cicatrices, of which this\nrough surface was one. Here, then, was a condition of things produced by\ninjury done to the soft parts, at some previous period, resulting in the\nformation of cicatrices and bridles, and likewise in the closure of the\nmouth of the womb. At this stage of the examination, I knew nothing of\nthe previous history of the patient more than I have already stated, and\nthe first question I addressed to her was this: \u2018Have you ever had any\ndifficulty in your previous confinements? have you ever been delivered\nwith instruments?\u2019 &c., &c. She distinctly replied, that her previous\nlabors had been of short duration, and that she had not been delivered\nwith instruments, nor had she ever sustained any injury in consequence\nof her confinements. This information somewhat puzzled me, for it was\nnot in keeping with what any one might have conjectured, taking into\nview her actual condition, which was undoubtedly the result of direct\ninjury done to the parts. On assuring her, that she was in a most\nperilous situation, and at the same time, promising that we would do all\nin our power to rescue her, she voluntarily made the following\nconfession:\n\n\n\u201cAbout six weeks after becoming pregnant, she called on the notorious\nMadame Restell, who, on learning her situation, gave her some powders\nwith directions for use; these powders did not appear to produce the\ndesired effect. She returned again to this woman, and asked her if there\nwas no other way to make her miscarry. \u2018Yes,\u2019 says Madame Restell, \u2018I\ncan probe you; but I must have my price for this operation.\u2019 \u2018What do\nyou probe with?\u2019 \u2018A piece of whalebone.\u2019 \u2018Well,\u2019 thought the patient,\nbut without expressing it, \u2018I cannot afford to pay your price, and I\nwill probe myself.\u2019 She returned home, and used the whalebone several\ntimes; it produced considerable pain, followed by a discharge of blood.\nThe whole secret was now disclosed. Injuries inflicted on the mouth of\nthe womb, by these violent attempts, had resulted in the circumstances\nas detailed above.\n\n\u201cIt was evident from the nature of this poor woman\u2019s sufferings, and the\nexpulsive character of her pains, that prompt artificial delivery was\nindicated. Accordingly, without loss of time, (she then having been in\nlabor twenty-nine hours,) I performed the operation. In a short time,\nMrs. M. was delivered of a vigorous, full grown child, whose boisterous\ncries were heard with astonishment by the mother, and with sincere\ngratification by her medical friends. The expression of that woman\u2019s\ngratitude, in thus being preserved from what she and her friends\nsupposed to be inevitable death, was an ample compensation for the\nanxiety experienced by those, who were the humble instruments of\naffording her relief. This patient recovered rapidly, and did not during\nthe whole of her convalescence, present one untoward symptom. It is now\nten weeks since the operation, and she and her infant are in the\nenjoyment of excellent health.\n\n\u201cAt my last visit to this patient, with Dr. Forry, she made some\nadditional revelations, which I think should be given not only to the\nprofession, but to the public, in order that it may be known that in our\nvery midst, there is a monster who speculates with human life with as\nmuch coolness as if she were engaged in a game of chance. This patient,\nwith unaffected sincerity, and apparently ignorant of the moral\nturpitude of the act, stated, most unequivocally, to both Dr. Forry and\nmyself that Mad. Restell, on previous occasions, had _caused her to\nmiscarry five times_, and that these miscarriages had, in every\ninstance, been brought about by drugs administered by this trafficker in\nhuman life. The only instance in which medicines failed, was the last\npregnancy, when at the suggestion of Madame Restell, she probed herself,\nand induced the condition of things described, and which most seriously\ninvolved her own safety, as well as that of her child. In the course of\nconversation, this patient mentioned that she knew a great number of\nfemales, who were in the habit of applying to Madame Restell, for the\npurpose of miscarrying, and that she scarcely ever failed in affording\nthe desired relief. Among others, she cited the case of a female\nresiding in Houston-street, who was five months pregnant; Madame Restell\nprobed her, and she was delivered of a child, which, to use her own\nexpression, \u2018kicked several times after it was put into the bowl.\u2019 It,\nindeed, seems too monstrous for belief that such gross violations of the\nlaws, both of God and man, should be suffered in the very heart of a\ncommunity professing to be Christian, and to be governed by law and good\norder. Yet these facts are known to all who read. This creature\u2019s\nadvertisements are to be seen in our daily papers; there she invites the\nbase and the guilty, the innocent and the unwary, to apply to her. She\ntells publicly what she can do, and without the slightest scruple, urges\nall to call on her who may be anxious to avoid having children. Here,\nthen, is a premium offered for vice, to say nothing of the prodigal\ndestruction of human life, that must necessarily result from the\nabominations of this mercenary and heartless woman.\u201d\n\n\nThere is an erroneous impression upon the minds of a certain class of\nthe community. They make no distinction between the commission of crime,\nand the means that are used to diffuse information, and remove the\ninducement to commit moral offence. Ignorance and prejudice\u2014the parents\nof vice\u2014have blinded or misguided those who have not or would not\nproperly investigate the subject matter of this discussion. However, we\nare consoled by the reflection that the day is dawning which shall\ndispel the mist and vapours which have heretofore clouded and benighted\nthe human understanding, upon matters that infinitely concern the\nhappiness of the great mass of the human family.\n\nWe take pleasure in stating that since the publication of Mr. Owen\u2019s\nlittle work, (now ten years,) we have good reason for believing that the\npublic mind is better prepared for the reception of the Editor\u2019s amended\nedition of his book. As each revolving year passes over, and as truth\novercomes error, and as the diffusion of knowledge dispels ignorance, so\nwill the subject elicit additional inquiry, and the merits of the work\nbe more justly appreciated by the enlightened portion of the community.\nA further discussion and investigation of the subject will cause it to\nbe better understood, and a public opinion favourable to the subject\nwill be formed, of immense moral utility.\n\n\nAs in the language of the author,\u2014How mighty and how beneficent the\npower which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and\nrapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extirpation of\nthose selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now disgrace and brutify\nour species, it is difficult even to imagine.\n\nIn the silent, but resistless progress of human improvement, such a\nchange is fortunately inevitable. We are gradually emerging from the\nnight of blind prejudice and of brutal force; and, day by day, rational\nliberty and cultivated refinement, win an accession of power. Violence\nyields to benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the\nspirit of justice; and, day by day, men and women become more willing,\nand better prepared, to entrust the most sacred duties (social as well\nas political) more to good feeling and less to idle form\u2014more to moral\nand less to legal keeping.\n\nIt is no question whether such reform will come: no human power can\narrest its progress. How slowly or how rapidly it may come, _is_ a\nquestion; and depends, in some degree, on adventitious circumstances.\nShould this little book prove one among the number of circumstances to\naccelerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be repaid,\nten times over, for any trifling labour it may have cost him.\n\nIn conclusion, the author remarks, that a knowledge of the check to\npopulation spoken of, and recommended by him, with other preventive\nmeans was for many years extensively disseminated in most of the\npopulous towns in Great Britain; not only through the medium of \u201cEvery\nWoman\u2019s Book,\u201d but, previously to its publication, by hundreds of\nthousands of handbills, which were gratuitously distributed from\nbenevolent motives. The men who were first instrumental in making them\nknown in England, are all elderly men, fathers of families of children\ngrown up to be men and women; men of unimpeachable integrity, and of\nfirst rate moral character; many of them men of science, and some of\nthem known as the first political economists and philanthropists of the\nage. Besides the allusion to the subject already given from the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, it is adverted to in Mill\u2019s \u201cElements of\nPolitical Economy;\u201d in Place\u2019s \u201cIllustrations of the Principle of\nPopulation;\u201d in Thompson\u2019s \u201cDistribution of Wealth,\u201d and probably in\nother works with which I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly)\nbroached in several English newspapers, and was preached in lectures to\nthe labouring classes, by a most benevolent man, at Leeds. I do not\nbelieve the subject has ever been touched upon, in one single instance,\nexcept by men of irreproachable moral character, and generally of high\nstanding in society. The chief difference between this little treatise,\nand the allusions made by the distinguished authors above mentioned, is,\nthat what public opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture\nto say plainly.\n\nMy readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the facts I have\nstated. Though in the present state of public opinion, I may not, for\nobvious reasons, give _names_ in proof, yet it is evident that I cannot\nhave the shadow of a motive to mislead or deceive. I shall consider it a\nfavour if any individuals who can adduce, _from personal experience_,\nfacts connected with this subject, will communicate them to me.\n\n\n_Note._ The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known \u201c_Esquisse des\nprogres de l\u2019esprit human_,\u201d very distinctly alludes to the safety and\nfacility with which population might be restrained, \u201cIf reason should\nbut keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of\nsuperstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity\ncorrupting and degrading, not purifying or elevated.\u201d See his\n_Esquisse_, _pages_ 285 to 288, _Paris_ Ed. 1822.\n\nMalthus (See his \u201c_Essays on Population_,\u201d _Book_ 3, _chap._ 1)\n\u201cprofesses not to understand\u201d the French philosopher. No Frenchman could\nmisunderstand him.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII.\n                          ADDITIONAL REMARKS.\n\n\nThat most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets chastity to\nmean, _the regulated and strictly temperate satisfaction, without injury\nto others, of those desires which are natural to all healthy adult\nbeings_. In this sense, chastity is the first of virtues, and one most\nrarely practiced, either by young men or by married persons, even when\nthe latter most scrupulously conform to the letter of the law.[29]\n\nThe promotion of such chastity is the chief object of the present work.\nIt is all-important for the welfare of our race, that the reproductive\ninstinct should never be selfishly indulged; never gratified at the\nexpense of the well-being of our companions. A man who, in this matter,\nwill not consult, with scrupulous deference, the slightest wishes of the\nother sex; a man who will ever put his desires in competition with\ntheirs, and who will prize more highly the pleasure he receives than\nthat he may be capable of bestowing\u2014such a man appears to me, in the\nessentials of character, a brute. The brutes commonly seek the\nsatisfaction of their propensities with straight-forward selfishness,\nand never calculate whether their companions are gratified or teased by\ntheir importunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely to\ntheirs, than by imitating them in this.\n\nAgain. There is no instinct in regard to which strict temperance is more\nessential. All our animal desires have hitherto occupied an undue share\nof human thoughts; but none more generally than this. The imaginations\nof the young and the passions of the adult are inflamed by mystery or\nexcited by restraint, and a full half of all the thoughts and intrigues\nof the world has a direct reference to this single instinct. Even those\nwho, like the Shakers, \u201ccrucify the flesh,\u201d are not the less occupied by\nit in their secret thoughts; as the Shaker writings themselves may\nafford proof. Neither human institutions nor human prejudices can\ndestroy the instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content\nrationally to control, and wisely to regulate it.\n\nIt is a question of passing importance, \u201cHow may it best be regulated?\u201d\nNot by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity. Assuredly not by the world\u2019s\nfavourite regulator, ignorance. No. Do we wish to bring this instinct\nunder easy government, and to assign it only its due rank among human\nsentiments? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise the\nbody, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human being. What is it\ngives to passion its sway, and to desires their empire, now? It is\nvacancy of mind; it is listlessness of body; it is idleness. A\ncultivated race are never sensual; a hardy race are seldom love-sick; an\nindustrious race have no time to be sentimental. Develop the moral\nsentiments, and they will govern the physical instincts. Occupy the mind\nand body usefully, intellectually; and the propensities will obtain that\ncare and time only which they merit. Upon any other principle we may\ndoctor poor human nature for ever, and shall only prove ourselves\nempirics in the end. Mortifications, vestal vows, mysteries, bolts and\nbars, prudish prejudices\u2014these are all quack-medicines; and are only\ncalculated to prostrate the strength and spirits, or to heighten the\nfever, of the patient. If we will dislodge error and passion from the\nmind, we must replace them by something better. They say that a vacuum\ncannot exist in nature. Least of all can it exist in the human mind.\nEmpty it of one folly, cure it of one vice, and another flows in to fill\nthe vacancy, unless it find it already occupied by intellectual exercise\nand common sense.\n\nHusbands and fathers! study Franklin\u2019s definition of chastity. Your\nfears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on the stretch to watch and\nguard: reflect whether it be not pleasanter and better, to enlighten and\ntrust.\n\nHonest ascetics! you have striven to mortify the flesh; ask yourselves\nwhether it be not wiser to control it. You have sought to crucify the\nbody; consider whether it be not more effectual to cultivate the mind.\nHave you succeeded in spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not,\nenquire whether all human propensities, duly governed, be not a benefit\nand a blessing to the nature in which they are inherent.\n\nHuman beings, of whatever sex or class! examine dispassionately and\nnarrowly the influence which the control here recommended will produce\nthroughout society. Reflect whether it will not lighten the burdens of\none sex, while it affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of\nthe other. Consider whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating;\nconducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the permanent\nwelfare of the human race.\n\n\nThe following remarks are addressed to the reasonable and considerate\namong mechanics, the most numerous and most useful class of society.\n\nIt is a great truth, often told, and never denied, that when there are\ntoo many working people in any trade or manufacture, they are worse paid\nthan they ought to be paid, and are compelled to work more hours than\nthey ought to work.\n\nWhen the number of working people in any trade or manufacture, has for\nsome years been too great, wages are reduced very low, and the working\npeople become little better than slaves.\n\nWhen wages have been thus reduced to a very small sum, working people\ncan no longer maintain their children as all good and respectable people\nwish to maintain their children, but are compelled to neglect them;\u2014to\nsend them to different employments;\u2014to mills and manufactories, at a\nvery early age.\n\nThe misery of these poor children cannot be described, and need not be\ndescribed, to you who witness them and deplore them every day of your\nlives.\n\nMany indeed among you are compelled for a bare subsistence to labor\nincessantly, from the moment you rise in the morning, to the moment you\nlie down at night, without even the hope of ever being better off.\n\nThe sickness of yourselves and your children, the privation and pain and\npremature death of those you love, but cannot cherish as you wish, need\nonly be alluded to. You know all these evils too well.\n\nAnd, what, you will ask, is the remedy?\n\nHow are we to avoid these miseries?\n\nThe answer is short and plain; the means are easy. You have but to use\nthe_ Electro-Galvania_ as directed and previously explained; it will\nprevent conception, and thus, without diminishing the pleasures of\nmarried life, or doing the least injury to the health of the most\ndelicate woman, both the woman and her husband will be saved from all\nthe miseries which having too many children produces.\n\nBy limiting the number of children, the wages both of children and of\ngrown up persons will rise; the hours of working will be no more than\nthey ought to be; you will have some time for recreation, some means of\nenjoying yourselves rationally, some means as well as some time for your\nown and your children\u2019s moral and religious instruction.\n\nAt present, every respectable mother trembles for the fate of her\ndaughters as they grow up. Debauchery is always feared. This fear makes\nmany good mothers unhappy. The evil when it comes make them miserable.\n\nAnd why is there so much debauchery? Why such sad consequences?\n\nWhy? But because many young men, who fear the consequences which a large\nfamily produces, turn to debauchery and destroy their own happiness as\nwell as the happiness of the unfortunate girls with whom they connect\nthemselves.\n\nOther young men, whose moral and religious feelings deter then from this\nvicious course, marry early and produce large families, which they are\nutterly unable to maintain. These are the causes of the wretchedness\nwhich afflicts you.\n\nBut when it has become the custom here as elsewhere, to limit the number\nof children, so that none need have more than they wish to have, no man\nwill fear to take a wife, all will be married while young;\u2014debauchery\nwill diminish:\u2014while good morals, and religious duties will be promoted.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII.\n             TO THE MARRIED OF BOTH SEXES IN GENTEEL LIFE.\n\n\nAmong the many sufferings of women, as mothers, there are two cases\nwhich command the utmost sympathy and commiseration.\n\nThe first arises from constitutional peculiarities, or weakness.\n\nThe second from mal-conformation of the bones of the pelvis.\n\nBesides these two cases, there is a third case, applicable to both\nsexes; namely, the consequence of having more children than the income\nof the parents enables them to maintain and educate in a desirable\nmanner.\n\nThe first named case produces miscarriages, and brings on a state of\nexistence scarcely endurable. It has caused thousands of respectable\nwomen to linger on in pain and apprehension, till, at length, death has\nput an end to their almost inconceivable sufferings.\n\nThe second case is always attended with immediate risk of life.\nPregnancy never terminates without intense suffering, seldom without the\ndeath of the child, frequently with the death of the mother, and\nsometimes with the death of both mother and child.\n\nThe third case is by far the most common, and the most open to general\nobservation. In the middle ranks, the most virtuous and praiseworthy\nefforts are perpetually made to keep up the respectability of the\nfamily; but a continual increase of children gradually, yet certainly,\nrenders every effort to prevent degradation unavailing, it paralyzes by\nrendering hopeless all exertion, and the family sinks into poverty and\ndespair. Thus is engendered and perpetuated a hideous mass of misery.\n\nThe knowledge of what awaits them deters vast numbers of young men from\nmarrying, and causes them to spend the best portion of their lives in a\nstate of debauchery, utterly incompatible with the honorable and honest\nfeelings which should be the characteristic of young men. The treachery,\nduplicity, and hypocrisy that they use towards their friends and the\nunfortunate victims of their seductions, while they devote a large\nnumber of females to the most dreadful of all states which human beings\ncan endure, extinguishes in them, to a very great extent, all manly,\nupright notions; and qualifies them, to as great an extent, for the\ncommission of acts, which, but for these vile practices they would\nabhor, and thus, to an enormous extent, is the whole community injured.\n\nMarriage in early life is the only truly happy state, and if the evil\nconsequences of too large a family did not deter them, all men would\nmarry when young, and thus would many lamentable evils be removed from\nsociety.\n\nA simple, effectual, and safe means of accomplishing these desirable\nresults has long been known, and to a considerable extent practiced in\nsome places. But until lately has been little known in the United\nStates.\n\nAccouchers of the first respectability, and surgeons of great eminence,\nhave in some peculiar cases recommended it. Within the last two years, a\nmore extensive knowledge of the process has prevailed and its practice\nhas been more extensively adopted. It is now made public through the\nmedium of this book; and to those who deem its use expedient, may not\nonly prevent much unhappiness and physical inconvenience, but will be of\nincalculable benefit to society.\n\nThe great utility and importance of the use of this instrument, may be\nsummed up under the following heads:\n\n1st. That no married couple shall have more children than they wish to\nhave and can maintain.\n\n2nd. That no unhealthy woman shall bear children, that cannot be reared,\nand which endanger her own life in the parturition:\n\n\n\u201cWomen, for no other crime than having followed the dictates of a\nnatural appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts and sympathies\nof society. It is less venial than murder! and the punishment which is\ninflicted on her who destroys her child to escape reproach, is lighter\nthan the life of agony and disease to which the prostitute is\nirrecoverable doomed. Has the woman obeyed the impulse of unerring\nnature;\u2014society declares war against her, pitiless and eternal war; she\nmust be a tame slave, she must make no reprisals: theirs is the right of\npersecution, hers the duty of endurance. She lives a life of infamy; the\nloud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all return. She dies of\nlong and lingering disease: yet _she_ is in fault, _she_ is the\ncriminal, _she_ the froward and untameable child\u2014and society, forsooth,\nis the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion from her\nundefiled bosom! Society avenges itself on the criminals of its own\ncreation; it is employed in anathematizing the vice to day, which\nyesterday it was the most zealous to teach.\n\n\u201cYoung men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society\nof modest and accomplished women, associate with the most vicious and\nmiserable beings, and thus destroy those exquisite and delicate\nsensibilities, whose existence cold-hearted worldings have denied; thus\nthey annihilate genuine passion, and debase that to a selfish feeling\nwhich is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their body and mind\nbecome a hideous wreck of humanity; idiocy and disease are perpetuated\nin their miserable offspring, and distant generations suffer for the\nignorance of their forefathers.\u201d\n\n\nIt has also been objected, that if the physical means of preventing\nundesirable conceptions were to become general, debauchery, immorality,\nand misery would be increased, and society would be much more degraded\nthan it is. But this is a fallacy easily exposed, and those who conclude\nthat dissolute conduct would be increased, are but ill-formed as to the\nactual amount of such conduct, and it is more than probable that if the\nfacts were disclosed to them as they are known to exist by magistrates,\noverseers, and medical men, they would be astounded.\n\nMultitudes of men never marry, a still greater number refrain from\nmarrying until they grow comparatively old; yet most such men are\npracticed debauchees, and the mischief they do by the fraud and\nhypocrisy they produce is incalculable. This would not be so were a\nfreer intercourse permitted and physical means adopted to prevent\nconceptions.\n\nBut the great good which would result from physical preventives, would\nbe, that alliances would be early formed and in most cases would be\nlasting. Girls would not then surrender themselves to the caprice and\ninjustice of men as they do now; men would not then be able to practice\nupon them as they do now.\n\nA girl would then tell her lover that there was no impediment to their\nsubmitting to the form whatever it was that society had established, and\nas she would be sure to make a match, she would take care to keep\nherself in that state which would induce the man she liked to conform.\nThe great obstacle to marriage under its present form, is the fear of a\nlarge family, and the poverty which results therefrom. This removed,\nmarriages would become much more common. People would form alliances\nwhile young and unpracticed in deceit and hypocrisy, and would live\nvirtuously and happily all their lives.\n\nWhoever will examine the statements here put forth, will assuredly be\nconvinced that a physical preventive of conception, if in general use,\nwould put an end to an immense quantity of debauchery, and its\nattendant\u2014misery; and would greatly improve the condition of the whole\nbody of the people. Women, if we may be allowed the expression, would\nthen be in much greater demand, as every young man would take a wife,\nand women would be all but infinitely more respected, than they are now.\nIt is not possible to anticipate the happiness which would result from\nthe physical check, if once brought into general use.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX.\n               THE PURPOSES AND OBLIGATIONS OF MARRIAGE.\n\n\nIt is a strange world and man is a strange animal. It may appear\nwonderful that with such passions and powers as he possesses he should\nbe so controllable, that he should become tamed down into a civilized\nbeing, and submit to such impositions on his desires, that make him a\nmere creature of circumstance; and yet from this very submission does he\nsecure to himself the greater amount of joys and delights: so that what\nhe partakes of by tolerance, or call it the unanimous consent of his\nfellow-men, is absolutely and infinitely more gratifying to him than\nwould be the unrestricted indulgence of his appetites. The world abounds\nwith inexhaustible sources of enjoyment, and man has capacity for all;\nbut were it not for civil and wholesome restraints, it would be one\ncontinued brute struggle for possession. For no one circumstance have we\nmore reason to rejoice in our civilization, than for the regulations\nregarding marriage. It is the basis of a nation\u2019s prosperity and of\nindividual happiness. It gives legal and strong possession of the object\nof our most earnest wish. It establishes regulation and order, forms\nties of relationship, and makes each country one family. A happy\nmarriage is the alpha and omega of every man\u2019s hopes, nor is it less\nmomentous to our companion. There is no pleasure in this life comparable\nto it where it is unalloyed by physical or mental disqualifications: but\nalas! how rarely is such a consummation to be found. It is a happy state\nindeed \u201cwhen the fountain is blessed, and he rejoiceth with the wife of\nhis youth, and she is to him as the loving hind and the pleasant roe,\nand he delights in her continually.\u201d[30]\n\nAlthough this marriage is but a civil contract, it should not be\nforgotten that if injudiciously made or its obligations be not\nfulfilled, the most calamitous results oftentimes ensue. Imagine a\nbargain, made between two persons, in which both parties have assumed\nmore or less disguise or dissimulation towards the other, and which are\nonly discovered when the treaty cannot be annulled. The lady\u2019s dower may\nbe handsome, or the gentleman\u2019s prospects good and his pursuits most\nthriving; their respective families and connexions may be equally\nrespectable, and neither consort nor husband have reason to regret that\npart of the arrangement, which the world only sees or hears of. It may\nbe a love match, a match of many years\u2019 making, a match in which the\nmost delicious of all anticipations assumed every likelihood of being\nrealized, and yet which one hour\u2019s possession has destroyed. If the\ndenouement be not so sudden, there may grow up a secret sorrow, a sorrow\nthat has its source, like any other feeling, in some cause, just or\nevil, by the discovery of some concealed hindrance to mutual love. There\nmay arise some justifiable personal dislike, there may be found to exist\nsome impediment to the full and proper enjoyment of those connubial\ndelights which instinct has taught each party to expect from the other.\nIt is true, and well it is so, that all marriages have not hidden\ngriefs, but that renders not those which have, the more endurable.\nMarriage mostly is a matter of love, policy, or convenience; it ought no\nless to be a matter of conscience. The legal right which the ceremony\ngives to the man, of his wife, which alienates her from the world, which\nenslaves her to his person and passions, or shuts her for ever out from\nthe indulgence of her own, should not be sought without reflection; for\nalthough the law awards its punishment for infidelity which is sure to\nfollow such dissimulation, it is a poor compensation for the\nmortification and distress which accompanies it. The very proceeding may\nprove alike that nature, as well as honour, have been outraged. Love is\nnot the parent of sexual desire\u2014it is the offspring; and if that\ninstinctive passion be frustrated or deprived of its just entitlement,\nlove soon loses its name, and goes one knows not whither. Yet there are\nproper bounds to every thing, an excess is frequently attended with more\nunhappy results than want.\n\nThe end of marriage, then, is to afford the legitimate use of amative\nenjoyments; to regulate the procreation of children; to ensure\nsuccession, and thereby transmit one\u2019s property and identity; to\ncultivate domestic happiness, and thereby give all an equal incentive\nto aspire to the same possession; and also to afford protection when\nso obtained. If any deception be practiced towards each other the\nculpable party will incur, sooner or later, the rarely failing\npunishment\u2014disappointment in their pleasures, their domestic\nanticipations, and their hopes of hereditary succession.\n\nWomen have their disqualifications for the marriage bed\u2014many from causes\nwhich we have already enumerated, and many from others over which they\nhave no control. Among the latter, absolute fear of the consequences\nimbibed through early intuition of some disappointed maiden-aunt\u2014some\nfrom acquired notions of the immorality of the proceeding\u2014others from\npersonal disrelish\u2014a total absence of desire;[31] and many, although an\nungenerous world may be sceptical of the truth hereof, have not the\nleast idea of the difference even of the sexes; at least the use and\npurposes of that difference. There are ways of preparing females for\nwhat they will have to encounter at all periods of life; and no mother\nshould fail to instruct her child, as circumstances demand, of the\nexpectancy of each succeeding era of her coming existence. It is not\nintended thereby to be urged, that females cannot be too early initiated\ninto the mysteries of matrimonial ceremonies and consequences; but there\nis a time, and an age, when such intelligence should be conveyed to\nthem, and by no means should they be allowed to form alliances without\nsuch knowledge. The reader, I repeat, may possibly express a doubt\nwhether such an event ever did occur;\u2014he may be assured that many such\nhave, and do still occur, and are productive of much distress. Nor is it\nintended that the physiology of reproduction should form part of the\npreliminary education of a boarding-school young female; but no woman\nought to become a mother without knowing something of the phenomena of\nconception. It is really astonishing to see the very great ignorance of\nthese matters entertained by woman in general: it may be constructed\ninto a specimen of American modesty: but it occasions many needless\nfears and anxieties that sometimes prove of serious consequence to a\nlying-in woman. At the hour of peril, as it is called, how few women,\nexcept those in humble life, and who have earnt their little knowledge\nby dear-bought experience,\u2014have any idea of aiding their fellow-sister\nat the moment of their affliction: indeed by the ignorance, fear, and\nimpatience they display, they unnecessarily alarm the patient or\nthemselves, and put a whole family into confusion; whereas, by the help\nof a little information on this subject, they might allay the fears of\nthe timid and assist the weak, and not unfrequently be the instruments\nwhereby the life itself of the infant, or mother, might be saved.\n\nWe have before stated, that persons subject to hereditary diseases ought\nnot to become parents, because by so doing they will bring into the\nworld a progeny, whose issue will eventually become extinct. And it is\nto these persons that we now more particularly address our remarks.\n\nThe same laws which regulate the perfection of plants, the growth of\ncorn, the fleetness of the greyhound, and the symmetry of the horse,\ngovern the physical and mental culture of man. In the vegetable kingdom,\nthe agriculturalist is aware that the success of his crops depends upon\nthe condition of what he sows, and the fertility of the soil wherein it\nis sown. It is precisely the case with the propagation of the human\nspecies. The race may be improved, or deteriorated, accordingly as the\nlaws which govern the continuance of mankind are more or less observed.\n\nBut we are digressing from the subject of which we intended to\nspeak\u2014that of the transmission of diseases from parent to child. Parents\nexercise a mighty influence over the physical condition of their\noffspring,\u2014the general constitution, mental and physical qualities, and\neven individual peculiarities, being transmitted from sire to son.\nPremature marriage, and, consequently too early sexual congress,\nalthough it may not prove detrimental to the parents, except where its\nprivileges are intemperately exercised, may be, and often is a great\ndisadvantage to the children, they being generally delicate, imperfect,\nand seldom arriving at maturity. The same results follow, where the\nparents, or either of them are at the moment of conception in\nill-health. And shall the circumstances of early marriage, or a bad\nstate of health, debar the sexes from the satisfaction of the holiest\nand most ennobling of the passions? Would it not be far more just and\nmoral, then, to make use of a preventive of conception, when from\nmotives of economy, offspring is not desired, or, from the reasons\nmentioned above, health cannot be given at the same time that life is\nimparted? The candid reader will have but one answer.\n\nPhysicians, generally, when referring to the subject of the transmission\nof disease, lay it down as a law, that persons so affected should not\nmarry. Here we beg leave to differ from them, and, we think, justly.\nConsumptive or scrofulous persons certainly should not beget offspring;\nbut we cannot see why they should be prevented from enjoying the\npleasures of the married state. It is necessary for the general health\nof an individual, that the sexual embrace should be occasionally\nenjoyed\u2014indeed it is an established fact, that many of those women who\ndie unmarried, owe their early death, to a species of consumption,\nexcited by deprivation of the sexual act. We think therefore, that all\nought to be married, and that those who cannot produce healthy progeny,\nshould make use of means to prevent conception.\n\nEnough has been said already to remove the maudlin delicacy which some\npeople entertain on the subject of human reproduction, and as it seems\nto us not out of place, we will say a few words on the subject.\nCopulation should never be an act of effort. To use a quaint but selfish\nphrase, \u201cit should only be used when the man listeth.\u201d Much mischief may\nbe done by fruitless endeavours; violent palpitations of the heart may\nensue that so quicken the circulation of the blood, and propel it with\nsuch violence towards the brain as to induce apoplexy. I have often had\nthe question put as to which was the most fitting season for sexual\nindulgence. We know that man is omnivorous, and after certain intervals,\nis capable of reperforming the procreative act. Some hold morning to be\nthe most healthy time, as the body is renovated by the night\u2019s rest, but\nthe lassitude which follows encroaches on the business duties of the\nday, and it is more probable that so far as the health is concerned,\nnight is the preferable; the quietude and secrecy thereby afforded are\nadditional incentives to love, and the exhaustion of the body is\nrepaired by the several hours sleep that follows. Too frequent\nindulgence in venereal pleasures are strongly opposed to the procreation\nof children. Abstemiousness in sexual pleasures is a physical virtue\nwhere issue be desirable; and probably the period when conception is\nmost likely to occur, is to refrain from intercourse till a day or two\nafter the female has ceased menstruating. Women may be sterile, but they\nare rarely impotent. Sterility may depend upon the absence of a uterus,\nof which many instances are on record. It may depend upon morbid\nconditions of that organ where it exists; such as excessive debility,\nfrequent floodings, prolapsus or descent of it, eversion or misplacement\nof it; from a retention of the menstrual secretion, from the presence of\nleucorrh\u0153a, or the debility induced by a long prevalence of that\ndisorder. Too frequent indulgence in cohabitation, promiscuous\nintercourse, &c., as with those unfortunates who gain their subsistence\nby such means, are direct causes of infecundity. To bring this subject\nto a close, I may observe, that although nature has been apparently thus\nfreaksome in the constitution of mankind, she is amply generous and kind\nto those who choose to study and observe her laws. She pays no\ndistinction to the past, present, or future. For many of our infirmities\nwe have to thank those who have gone before us, and many are of our own\nproducing, the conjoined consideration ought to induce us to reflect how\nwe are justified in transferring them to those who follow. There are\nseasons for all enjoyments, and limits set to all; if we infringe those\nlimits, we are answerable for the consequences: there is much happiness\nin this world and much misery: a skilful pilot will see most of it and\nlive longest in it.\n\nThe Instrument which we have brought before the public, for preventing\nconception, depends for its virtue upon the electric fluid. The public\nare well acquainted with the common shock of an electrical apparatus;\nthey are probably aware that many physiologists consider electricity\nanalogous to the principle of life itself. They know that lightning is a\ndisplay of the electric power\u2014that it abounds in all nature, but not in\nequal intensity. They may possibly have heard of its efficacy in cases\nof Rheumatism, Palsy, and many other diseases\u2014that its property is to\nstimulate, and, in excess, to kill. They may be familiar with the terms\nMagnetism, Galvanism, &c., but, in fact, they all are the effects of one\ncause, differing only in the intensity of their action, and their mode\nof development. What is now called electro-magnetism, or magnetic\nelectricity, is merely electricity in a modified form; the result of its\napplication is the same. The public may be told of the extraordinary\npowers possessed by this fluid in supporting partial life, when it is\nestablished in nervous communications. Digestion depends upon the\nuninterrupted nervous communication between the brain and the stomach;\nif that is destroyed, digestion ceases; but if electricity or galvanism\nbe applied to the divided ends of the nervous channels, digestion\nproceeds as before, and for a very considerable time. Its usefulness,\ntherefore, can be fully appreciated when applied through the\ninstrumentality of the nerves, to those organs or structures, that are\nnot sufficiently endued with vital influence. The many hindrances\nheretofore existing in the employment of electricity, as a preventive,\nowing to the circumstance of favourable weather being required for its\nexhibition, and it also being difficult and formidable in its\napplication, are now obviated by the introduction of this instrument.\nThe advantages are, that it can be used at any time, and under all\ncircumstances. It is perfectly safe, and that it is certain, is attested\nby the fact, that of the large number already sold, not one has been\nreturned, although the purchasers have had the liberty given them of\ndoing so, should the instrument fail in effecting its object.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X.\n                          CONCLUDING REMARKS.\n\n\nAfter the publication of Mr. Owen\u2019s first edition of this work, several\ncommunications were received by him, approbatory of his book, some of\nwhich I think of sufficient importance to be introduced into this\nedition, inasmuch as they contain facts that are worthy of being\ntreasured up in the recollection of all young married persons. In the\none to which I now allude his correspondent remarks as follows:\n\n\n\u201cI have read your little work with much interest, and desire that it may\nhave a wide circulation, and that its recommendations may be adopted in\npractice. If you publish a third edition, I could wish that you would\nadd a piece of advice of the greatest importance, especially to young\nmarried persons. Many women are ignorant, that, in the gratification of\nthe reproductive instinct, the exhaustion to the man is much greater\nthan to the woman: a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of\nwhich has caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his\n_life_. TISSOT tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to\nthat by forty ounces of blood;[32] and that, in the case of the\nhealthiest man, nature does not _demand_ connexion oftener than once a\nmonth.[33]\n\n\u201cHow many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly and\ndisinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would watch\nover and preserve their partners\u2019 healths, instead of exciting them to\nover-indulgence.\n\n\u201cI send you a copy of Italian verses, appropriate, like the German\nstanzas you have quoted in your work, to the above remarks:\n\n                 \u201c\u2018Merta gli alleri al crine\n                 Chi scende in campo armato,\n                 Chi a cento squadre a lato,\n                   Impallidir nun sa:\n                 Ma piu gloria ha nel fronte\n                 Chi, alla ragion soggetto,\n                 D\u2019un sconsigliato astello\n                   Trionfator si f\u00e0.\u2019[34]\n                                                 L. G.\u201d\n\nMr. Fowler the Phrenologist in speaking upon this subject in his\npamphlet entitled, \u201cAmativeness warning and advice to married and\nsingle,\u201d makes the following remarks, that \u201ca hard day\u2019s work does not\nequally prostrate and fatigue. The fallow-buck after his passion has\nsubsided is tamed down by exhaustion, that he can be approached and\nalmost caught by hand. Frequent indulgence in any of its forms will run\ndown and run out any one of either sex. Those who would write or speak\nor study must forego this indulgence or intellectual exertion or else\ndie. Powerful constitutions will stand an immense drain before they\nfinally break, but terrible is the result. Mere animal temperaments are\nless injured, because by supposition their vitality is abundant, and its\ndrain by other functions is slight; nor do they enjoy this function as\ndo those more highly organised and hence are proportionally less\nexhausted; such live, to be sure; so do brutes\u2014carnal grovelling,\nsensual, low-lived animals, living mainly on a single pleasure, when\ntheir nature serves up so many. Let such revel in lust because capable\nof little else. But then highly organised must partake rarely, else it\nwill excite to distraction and proportionally exhaust.\u201d\n\n\n                                 FINIS.\n\n\n\n\n                             ADVERTISEMENT.\n\n\nThe readers of the editor\u2019s second enlarged edition of the Hon. R. D.\nOwen\u2019s Moral Physiology, are apprized that since the publication of his\nfirst edition of this work, considerable opportunity has been afforded\nby the sale of the _Electro-Galvania_ alluded to in this work, for\ntesting its efficacy as a preventive of conception. Time is required to\ntest the effect and establish the certainty of every new remedial agent.\nSufficient opportunity has been afforded in this instance, since this\ninstrument was first introduced to public notice, for proving the\ncertain control which the electrical influence is capable of exercising\nover the nervous system.\n\nThe increased demand for the instrument has demonstrated its perfect\nadaption to the accomplishment of the important object for which it is\ndesigned, and has most fully established its claim to the confidence\nheretofore reposed in its preventive influence. Communications from\nabroad, and orders for this work or the article herein alluded to,\naddressed to Dr. R. Glover, New York, will meet with due attention.\n\n-----\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  The Greeks and Romans considered that by familiarizing the population\n  with the exhibition of the human figure completely naked, libidinous\n  propensities and desires would be less excited. The continence and\n  chastity of the half-clad Germans, Tacitus highly extols, and\n  contrasts with the effeminate and luxurious habits of the more\n  polished nations of his time. The worship of the Phallus, or erect\n  penis, is of the most remote antiquity, and derived its origin not\n  from vulgar or obscene notions, but from a consideration that the\n  generative powers of nature were thus best personified; and to render\n  the type more complete, the Deities were often made Hermaphroditic or\n  of a two-fold sex, to show that either alone would be incomplete\n  without the other, to represent nature engendering and reproducing.\n  The Phallus was also used as an amulet or charm suspended from the\n  neck, and its exhibition over a house in Pompeii is explained by the\n  words \u201cdomus felicitatis.\u201d On this interesting subject, Mr. O\u2019Brien\u2019s\n  learned, but too fanciful work, on the Round Towers of Ireland, will\n  throw considerable light.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  See \u201cMemoires de la Court d\u2019Espagne,\u201d by Madame d\u2019Aunoy.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  See Tournefort\u2019s Travels in Turkey.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  See Buckingham\u2019s Travels in Asia.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  See Bruce\u2019s Travels in Abyssinia.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up\n  from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter, belonging to a\n  lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of\n  his courtiers with the words, \u201cHoni soit qui mal y pense!\u201d or,\n  paraphrased in English, \u201cShame on him who invidiously interprets it!\u201d\n  The sentiment was so greatly approved, that it has become the motto of\n  the English national arms. It is one which might be not inaptly nor\n  unfrequently applied in rebuking the mawkish, skin-deep, and\n  intolerant morality of this hypocritical and profligate age.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  See \u201cA brief exposition of the principles of the United Society called\n  Shakers,\u201d published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, 1830.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  I call them my friends, because, however little I am disposed to\n  accede to all their principles, I have met, from among their body, a\n  greater proportion of individuals who have taken with them my\n  friendship and sympathy, than perhaps from among any other sect or\n  class of men.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  By _unrestrained_, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or\n  destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral,\n  prudential or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c.\n  are all powerful checks to population. In this sense, and not simply\n  as applying to preventative moral restraint, have I employed the word\n  throughout this chapter.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Mandeville.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  Some wag, adverting to the fact, that Mr. Malthus himself has a large\n  family, remarked, \u201cthat the reverend gentleman knew better how to\n  preach than to practice.\u201d\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  Lawrence, the ingenious author of the \u201cEmpire of the Nairs,\u201d says\n  shrewdly enough, \u201cWherever the women are prudes, the men will be\n  drunkards.\u201d\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  It may perhaps be argued, that all married persons have this power\n  already, seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than\n  the unmarried; they may live as the brethern and sisters among the\n  Shakers do. But this Shaker remedy is, in the first place, utterly\n  impracticable, as a general rule; and, secondly, it would chill and\n  embitter domestic life, even if it were practicable.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and\n  simplicity of such an observation? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is\n  in their own minds, not in the words of the French mother.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no possible\n  temptation, and therefore no existence, were not men unnaturally and\n  mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in monasteries;\n  and has been perpetuated by the more or less anti-social and\n  demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each other, in\n  almost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the present\n  false situation of society, we must set down to the black account the\n  wretched, wretched consequences (terminating not unfrequently in\n  incurable insanity) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern\n  civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a\n  lamentable extent, both in this country and in England. If the\n  recommendations contained in this little treatise were generally\n  followed, it would probably totally disappear in a single generation.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  See letter of Percy Byssche Shelley, published in the \u201cLion,\u201d of\n  December 5, 1828.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n  Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the\n  unreasoning\u2014sometimes even generous, imprudence of youthful passion,\n  and the calculating selfishness of the matured and heartless\n  libertine. It is a melancholy truth, that pseudo-civilization produces\n  thousands of seducers by profession, who, while daily calling the\n  heavens to witness their eternal affections, have no affection for any\n  thing on earth but their own precious and profligate selves. It is to\n  characters so utterly worthless as these that my observations apply.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n  Jesus said unto her, \u201cNeither do I condemn thee.\u201d\u2014_John_ viii. 11.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n  What is the actual state of society in Great Britain and even in this\n  republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy,\n  should so fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction a simple,\n  moral, effectual check to population? Are her sons all chaste and\n  temperate, and her daughters all passionless and pure? I might\n  disclose, if I would, in this very city of New York\u2014and in our\n  neighbour city of Philadelphia\u2014scenes and practices that have come to\n  light from time to time, and that would furnish no very favourable\n  answer to the question. I might ask, whether all the houses of\n  assignation in these two cities are frequented by the known profligate\n  alone? or whether some of the most outwardly respectable fathers\u2014ay,\n  _mothers_ of families\u2014have not been found in resorts supported and\n  frequented only by \u201cgood society\u201d like themselves?\n\n  As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence delivered before\n  a \u201cCommittee of the House of Commons, on Labourers\u2019 Wages,\u201d by Henry\n  Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large land-owner in the county of\n  Surrey, in which the following question and answer occur: Q. \u201cWhat is\n  the practice you allude to of forcing marriages?\u201d A. \u201cI believe\n  nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws tend\n  to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being\n  married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking\n  place through a calculation for future support.\u201d Mr. Drummond\u2019s\n  assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses; and\n  from what I myself have learnt in conversation with some of the chief\n  manufacturers of England, I am convinced, that the statement, as\n  regards the working population in the chief manufacturing districts,\n  is scarcely exaggerated.\n\n  I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling Hospital\n  in Dublin now stands, formerly went by the name of \u201cMurderer\u2019s Lane,\u201d\n  from the number of child murders that were perpetrated in the\n  vicinity.\n\n  I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, that,\n  even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are not\n  unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, in\n  public, would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book.\n\n  But why multiply proofs? The records of every court of justice, nay,\n  the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing-room, sufficiently\n  marks the real character of this prudish and pharisaical world of\n  ours.\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n  See letter of the Committee of the Typographical Society to Robert\n  Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of the 29th of\n  September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 9th of October,\n  1830.\n\n  For a statement of the circumstances connected with that letter, and\n  which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the present\n  treatise, see Preface.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n  I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what\n  principle they imagine the chastity of their _wives_ to grow out of a\n  fear of offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution\n  would follow. I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be\n  supposed careful to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can\n  be assigned; but a wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign,\n  in all cases, a legal cause; and a husband must be especially\n  sagacious, if he can tell whether the true cause be assigned or not.\n  This safeguard to married chastity, therefore, to which the gentlemen\n  of the Typographical Committee seem to look with so implicit a\n  confidence, is a mere broken reed; and has been so, ever since the\n  days of Bethsheba.\n\n  Yet _conjugal_ chastity is that which is especially valued. The\n  inconstancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dishonor of a\n  sister. In that case, then, which the world usually considers of the\n  highest importance, the fear of offspring _imposes no check whatever_.\n  It cannot make one iota of difference whether a married woman be\n  knowing in physiology or not; except perhaps, indeed, to the husband\u2019s\n  advantage; in cases where the wife\u2019s conscience induces her at least\n  to guard against the possibility of burthening her legal lord with the\n  care and support of children that are not his. Constancy, where it\n  actually exists, is the offspring of something more efficacious than\n  ignorance. And if in the wife\u2019s case, men must and do trust to\n  something else, why not in all other cases, where restraint may be\n  considered desirable? Shall men trust in the greater, and fear to\n  trust in the less? Whatever any one may choose to assert regarding his\n  relatives\u2019 secret inclinations to profligacy, these arguments may\n  convince him that if he has any safeguard at present, a perusal of\n  Moral Physiology will not destroy it.\n\n  \u2019Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, should be\n  willing thus to vilify their relatives\u2019 character and motives, without\n  first carefully examining whether any thing was gained to their cause,\n  after all, by the vilification.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n  Instances innumerable might be adduced. Not one young person, for\n  example, in twenty, is ever told, that sexual intercourse during the\n  period of a woman\u2019s courses is not unfrequently productive, to the\n  woman of a species of fluor albus, and sometimes (as a consequent) to\n  the man of symptoms very similar to those of urethritis or gonorrh\u0153a,\n  but more easily removed. Yet what fact more important to be\n  communicated! And how ridiculous the mischievously prudish refinement\n  that conceals from human beings what it most deeply concerns them to\n  know? The following case is related by Dr. Dewees in his work on\n  Diseases of Females: \u201cWe have known a complaint communicated to the\n  male by intercourse with a woman labouring under _Pruritis_. It was\n  very similar to that which affected the female in its general\n  character. When this occurs with the married man, much disturbance is\n  sometimes created from a supposition that the wife has been\n  unfaithful, and the contrary. Indeed it has occurred in more instances\n  than one, within our own knowledge, where the woman has thought\n  herself the injured party; and in one case, the recrimination was\n  mutual. In this instance, the friends of the parties assembled to\n  determine on the terms of separation, when it was suggested, by one of\n  those who happened to be more rational than the rest, that before they\n  proceeded to such an extremity, their family physician should be\n  consulted. We were accordingly sent for. After an attentive hearing of\n  both parties, and an examination of the parts, we were satisfied that\n  there was not the slightest ground for either to be charged with want\n  of fidelity, and we assured the parties that this was the case, and\n  were fortunate enough to cause all further proceedings to be\n  suspended.\u201d\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n  Le premier serment que se firent deux \u00eatres de chair, ce fut au pied\n  d\u2019un rocher, qui tombait en poussi\u00e8re; ils attest\u00e8rent de leur\n  constance un ciel qui n\u2019est pas un instant le m\u00eame: tout passait en\n  eux, et autour d\u2019eux; et ils croyaient leurs c\u0153urs affranchis de\n  vicissitudes. O enfans! toujours enfans!\n\n  DIDEROT; _Jacques et son maitre_.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n  Some German poet, whose name has escaped me says,\n\n                   \u201cTapfer ist der Lowensieger,\n                   Tapfer is der Weltbezwinger,\n                   Tapferer, wer sich selbst bezwang!\u201d\n\n                   \u201cBrave is the lion-victor,\n                   Brave the conqueror of a world,\n                   Braver he who controls himself!\u201d\n\n  It is a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present\n  discussion.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n  See \u201cHistorie de l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences,\u201d for the year 1679, page\n  279.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n  Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is\n  outrageous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on diet, he\n  tells us, \u201c_Si quis non credat animam anim\u00e6 misceri, demens est._\u201d\n  Tertullian warmly supports the orthodoxy of this opinion.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n  Bonner, I believe.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n  Velpeau defines conception to be, that change which takes place\n  between the instant of vivification, and the period at which the germ\n  shows evidence of development.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n  My father, Robert Owen\u2019s definition of chastity is also an excellent\n  one: \u201cPROSTITUTION, Sexual intercourse _without_ affection: CHASTITY,\n  Sexual intercourse _with_ affection.\u201d\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n  Proverbs v. 18.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n  It is not uncommon to hear of women deriving no pleasure from the\n  sexual embrace; and however powerful an inducement the expected reward\n  of the highest sensual gratification may be to encourage propagation,\n  such a consummation, although much it may be wished for, is not\n  absolutely necessary for impregnation. I have met with numerous\n  females who, like [35]the mother of one of Napoleon\u2019s Generals, have\n  declared: \u201cQu\u2019elle n\u2019avoit eu que les douleurs d\u2019enfanter.\u201d\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n  This, of course, must be rather a matter of conjecture and\n  approximation, than of accurate calculation.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n  And I doubt whether she _permits_ it, without more or less of injury,\n  to the average of constitutions, oftener than once a week. Certain I\n  am, that any young man who will carefully note and compare his\n  sensations, will become convinced, that temperance positively forbids\n  such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice a week; and that he\n  trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. How\n  immeasurably important that parents should communicate to their sons,\n  but especially to their daughters, facts like these!\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n  For the English reader, I have attempted the following imitation of\n  the above lines:\n\n              Crown his brows with laurel wreath,\n              Who can tread the field of death\u2014\n              Tread\u2014with armed thousands near\u2014\n              And know not what it is to fear.\n              But greater far his meed of praise,\n              Juster his claim to glory\u2019s bays,\n              Who, true to reason\u2019s voice, to virtue\u2019s call,\n              Conquers himself, the noblest deed of all!\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n  Elliotson\u2019s notes to Blumenbach\u2019s Physiology.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Table of Contents added by transcriber.\n 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.\n 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Owen's Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":31413}