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WHAT OF THE FUTURE.
BY D.
G.
CBOLY.
INTRODUCTORY.
N the chapters which follow this preface I shall try to forecast
something of the future. That the attempt is a presumptous
one, I am well aware; but l am certain it is quite time that some
one should lead the way in showing the advantages of studying
or at least speculating about our earthly hereafter. We are too apt to
animadvert upon the Chinese for their elaborate worship of ancestors;
but while we do not pay homage to our progenitors in a religious sense,
surely too much of the attention of our best and wisest scholars and
writers is given to the annals of the past. I insist that the only value
of history, apart from a natural curiosity as to what has taken place on
the earth before we came into conscious existence, is to give us data by
which we may forecast the future. So long as the race believed that
infinite Caprice in the form of supernatural and irresponsible wills gov
erned the universe, there could be no hope of a science of history.
This was impossible until the conception of universal law accounting
for all phenomena, the course of human events included, became cur
rent among the advanced thinkers of the race. We have had a good
deal, especially in modern times, of what is known as the philosophy
of history. Indeed all recent annalists have generalized more or less;
but' their theories of events are confined exclusively to the past, and
explain with greater or less accuracy what has already taken place, and
why it has come about. But the age demands something in advance
of this; the time has- come when the attempt at least should be made
to lay the foundations of what may be termed the science of human af
fairs. It is idle to speculate upon history and attempt to explain the
laws which govern the movements of human society, without endeavor
ing to apply the knowledge of the laws thus obtained in trying to realize
in thought what may occur hereafter. In the progress of this induction
I shall, of course, make many, very many, serious mistakes, but some
one must make the attempt; and it is inevitable that whoever does so
will help other inquirers in the same field by his very failures.
There is a very natural curiosity felt by every intelligent person
touching what will take place after he has passed from this earthly
sphere—what our children and our children’s children will do—what
T
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they will probably believe—what form or forms of government will
control them—what will be the material condition of the masses of
mankind—what changes in the maps of the world—what inventions
to aid man’s control over the forces of nature, and what effect all Wiese
changes will have upon human conditions. The belief is becoming
general that man himself can very largely control his own future;
that the race can be, and in many respects even now is, a “ ruling prov-'
idence” to itself, and that the natural laws which govern human society
can be modified in their complex relations by the interposition of
human will—not arbitrary will, but intelligent human volition, having
definite objects in view, and itself controlled by necessary material con
ditions.
In the articles which are to follow I beg of my readers to give me
their indulgence. They must understand that the field is almost
wholly untrodden, and it is inevitable that some very wild guesses will
be made. This much, however, I can confidently predict, that the
most incredible statements I shall venture will really be the most trust
worthy, and that I shall be more apt to make mistakes in that depart
ment of inquiry in which I shall be least questioned ; that is to say, in
speculating upon the future of religion, of the movements of popula
tion, of the course of opinion, and of the social changes which will
take place, I shall very likely be most at fault, because the data for
these speculations have not as yet been formulated. The most aston
ishing results in the future will be brought about by the command to
be yet obtained by man over nature, by the discovery of mechanical
and chemical appliances which will add marvelously to the happiness
and comfort of the race. To illustrate: If at the beginning of this
century some theorizer should have set out upon the same inquiry upon
which I have dared to enter and should have speculated upon the
course of opinions, the fluctuations of religion, the social changes to
take place, he would probably have been heard with attention, and if
his reasoning was apparently sound, would have secured many assent
ing listeners; but if he had attempted to foretell the future of tele
graphy or the application of steam to transportation, he would have been
set down as a lunatic, a dreamer of fantastic dreams. Now, the most
marvelous changes in human conditions, in the future as in the past, will
be brought about by the discoveries of science as applied to the arts.
What some of these discoveries may be, I shall try to state in the'
papers which are to follow in this series; and just here, where I really
stand upon the most solid ground, I shall seem most wild in my vati
cinations. A simple invention may do more to alleviate certain forms
of human misery than the preachings of thousands of clergymen and
the wailings of as many poets. The “ Song of the Shirt ” stirred our
sympathies, but the sewing machine—what pen or tongue can tell the good it has accomplished for myriads of working women ? Could the
press and pulpit combined have had a tithe of the effect of this one
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beneficent invention ? But speculations as to the religious future, or
the social future, will necessarily be incomplete by reason of the com
plexity of the phenomena which will accompany them, and the as yet
unformalized science of society. In the present state of knowledge—
especially that which relates to the conditions of human society—the
ripest and most cultivated intellect would be at fault, not only by rea
son of the want of information, but because of his preconceived theories
and notions. It is very evident that in speculating upon the future,
men will be controlled very largely by their settled convictions and per
haps by the religious faith in which they have been nurtured. Suppose,
for instance, an intelligent Christian, a sceptic, and a scientist, were
each to give his views upon the future ; it is very clear, that although
each might mean to tell the truth, still each would give a different solu
tion of the problem before him—none of them could help being influ
enced by their preconceived impressions. From this cause of distrac
tion the writer is not of course free. Indeed any scheme of the future
—any hope of what is to come hereafter—must be based in great part
upon a religious theory; that is, a theory which embraces a conception
of the social and religious future as well as of man’s history.
The science of history was not possible so long as merely super
natural wills were understood to be the controlling powers in the uni
verse; but with the conception of invariable law, then a science of
human affairs becomes possible ; but that very conception is in itself
essentially a religious one.
There is still another element of uncertainty in endeavoring to fore
cast the hereafter, and that is the surprising results which sometimes
are brought about by accidental discoveries in science. The share
played by accident is as discreditable to man’s invention as it is morti
fying to his vanity. Bacon points this out in the 59th Aphorism of
his Novum Organum, in which, besides giving examples, he says:—
“ We may also derive some reason for hope from the circumstance of several
actual inventions being of such a nature, that scarcely any one could have formed a
conjecture about them previously to their discovery, but would rather have ridi
culed them as impossible. ********
We may therefore well hope that many excellent and useful matters are yet
treasured up in the bosom of nature, bearing no relation or analogy to our actual
discoveries, but out of the common track of the imagination, and still undiscovered,
and which will doubtless be brought to light in the course and lapse of years, as
others have been before them.”
*******
Conscious of his own deficiencies, the present writer cannot but
think that however poor his execution may be, such a work as this can
not but be suggestive, and may lead to the discovery of data by which
we may in a measure forecast the future. It is the first serious attempt
ever made to estimate accurately the forces at work in society, and to
point out what may result unless new agencies are brought into play.
Every existing human institution has a history which changes with
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the course of time. Now, in what direction do these changes tend?
This is the inquiry to which the papers that follow will be a partial
answer.
Those who are disposed to criticise the shortcomings of what is to
follow, would do well to bear in mind the acute remark of Herbert
Spencer, who says:
“ Not directly, but by successive approximations, do mankind reach correct con
clusions ; and those who first think in'the right direction—loose as may be their
reasonings, and wide of the mark as their inferences may be—yield indispensable
aid by framing provisional conceptions, and giving a bent to inquiry.”
CHAPTER I.
THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE.
The relations of the sexes ; what will they be thirty, fifty, one hun
dred years hence ? Is it possible to estimate the force of the agencies
at work modifying the old ideal of the institution of marriage, and to
point out what will be the probable issue ? Any one who has observed
the course of modem history, cannot but have been impressed with
certain tendencies concerning which there can be no chance of mistake.
During the middle ages and down to the reformation, marriage was
a sacrament of the church. It was God, according to this view, who
brought people together, and his command was that whom he had
joined no man should put asunder. Children, also, under this general
theory, were a gift of God ; it was by his will and not by man’s agency
that they were brought into existence.
This, however, is not the modern theory of the relation of the sexes.
Protestant Christendom regards marriage as a purely human institu
tion, and each State now claims the authority to separate those whom
it has joined together in the event of certain infractions of the law
regulating the institution. Roman Catholicism still sternly adhères
to its historical traditions of the sacramental character and to the
indissolubility of marriage, but the modern theory has beaten the
old church on its own ground, and in communities composed almost
exclusively of its own members. Indeed, this “free love” movement
was a potent force in the original outbreak against the church of
Rome ; as witness Luther’s marriage with a nun, his subsequent
acknowledgment of the validity of the union of a German prince to a
second wife, the first being still alive ; and also the tremendous conse
quences of Pope Clement’s refusal to divorce Henry VIII from Queen
Catherine. In every modern nation the first victory over the sacerdotal
power of mother church is signalized by the substitution of the civil
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for the sacramental marriage, and the passage of laws admitting of
divorce under certain contingencies. The recent enactment of a civil
marriage law in Austria was made the occasion of a national holiday ;
the Spanish revolution was signalized by the recognition of the legiti
macy of such unions ; and the highest courts in Italy, in spite of the
protests of the. church, have solemnly affirmed the legal validity of the
marriage of priests.
But the substitution of the civil for the sacerdotal marriage was
only one step in this social revolution. The personal theory or the
relation of the sexes is what now obtains the widest sanction. In this
view marriage is a mere contract between two persons ; living together
is a sufficient proof that the couple are man and wife. This is the
American idea of marriage, which needs the sanction of neither church
nor state—only the consent of the two persons directly interested to
insure the respectability of the connection and legitimatize the off
spring.
Nor is this all ; this theory of mere consent giving validity to the
relation involves the further consequence that a separation may ensue
when either party becomes dissatisfied. If .marriage is a mere matter
of human convenience or pleasure, then it can be dissolved at will ; the
same persons who made the contract for their mutual happiness should
have the power to dissolve it when their comfort is not enhanced by
complying with its conditions. And this is the exact view taken by
John Stuart Mill, who represents, probably more than any other living
writer, the most advanced view of the times on all topics of social
concern.
And as a consequence of this growing conception of marriage as a
mere personal matter between individuals, what do we see in society at
large ? Why a constant tendency to loosen the ties which bind the
sexes together ? The statement may be broadly made that since the
reformation all legislation in modern Christendom has been in thé
direction of the entire freedom of the affections. Not a single instance
can be furnished of legal enactment to bind still firmer the marriage
bonds, or to go back to a stricter law of divorce. On the contrary,
every change or amendment of the ordinances which society imposes
on the sexes for its protection and their happiness tends to make the
bonds lighter and separation more easy. In our own country, which
Booner than any other adopts all the so-called improvements in legisla
tion, divorce laws are notoriously lax and the number of separations
extraordinarily large. Even in so conservative, and in one sense reli
gious a State as Vermont, there is an average of one separation to every
eleven marriages, and in Connecticut (among Americans), one to nine.
Of course, in other States, especially those settled by emigrants from
New England, the proportion is still greater.
Nor do I see in any quarter a desire to go back to a more stringent
rule. There is occasionally a feeble protest from some old-fashioned
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divine, but the church as a body has taken no action, and seems quite
willing that the marriage laws should be practically abrogated in time.
And here it may be remarked that our present monogamic mar
riage is not a Christian institution.- The Bible was written by and for
a nation of polygamists. There is not a text of Scripture, from Genesis
to Revelation, which prescribes that the man shall have but one wife,
and the woman but one husband. It is true there was such a limita
tion so far as bishops were concerned in the early church, but this Very
exception proved the rule to have been otherwise. Luther recognized
this in an instance I have already mentioned. And here again it must
be borne in mind that the relation of the sexes is purely conventional;
there is no absolute rule governing all the nations. We must dis
criminate between a permanent and a transient morality. In all ages,
and among all people, it has been considered wrong to murder, lie, or
steal; but there has been no general rule recognized among men gov
erning the relation of the sexes. It has varied widely in every age and
clime. There was a time when men married their sisters, and the
priests blessed the union. The law,“ Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
was given to a polygamous people, and was understood very differently
from the way we regard it.
The brothel is deemed infamous in New York, but is a govern
ment institution in Paris; while the tea-gardens as they are called in
Japan are as respectable as the school-house or tfie temples, and are
supposed to be quite as useful in their way. Hence in discussing this
subject of marriage, we must bear in mind that our conventional
standards are not common to the entire race, but only to a small part
of it, and have not therefore the same sanction as those rules of con
duct which are recognized universally.
So far there have been the following variations of the sexual rela
tions recognized openly or tacitly by mankind:
1. Polyandry, or several men the husbands of one wife. This was
probably the prevalent institution when the race was in its infancy
and still in a very savage state—when man was the hunted rather than
the hunters of beasts of prey; and hence what was needed to fight the
wild beasts of the forest was the strong male rather than the child-bear
ing female. This accounts for the custom which still obtains in the
East of killing female infants at birth. Polyandry is still a custom in
Thibet, and in other parts of Asia.
2. Polygamy was the next form of marriage, and the one which has
always been held in the highest favor by the great mass of mankind
within the historic period. Probably three-fourths of the race to-day
practice or tolerate polygamy.
3. Monogamy. This is undoubtedly the very highest form of the
relation of the sexes so far instituted among men, and has given us the
noblest types of women, as wife and mother, of the race. Some form
of the monogamic marriage is always associated with an advanced
civilization.
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4. Concubinage. This is a real institution of monogamic commu
nities, though in disrepute, and not recognized legally. Statistics
would show, if it were possible to collect them accurately, that in all
nations where the one-wife rule obtains legally, there are a certain defi
nite number of women who act as the temporary or permanent second
wives of married or unmarried men. Among the Jews the concubine
was but an inferior kind of wife, which is just what the kept mistress
is with us—only the position of the latter is disreputable, which was
not the case with the Jewish concubine.
5. Prostitution. This is also an institution almost exclusively pecu
liar to monogamic communities. Wherever the one-wife system pre
vails, whoredom is an inevitable accompaniment. In modern Europe
and America it is estimated that one woman in every sixty practically
ignores the conventional law 'of marriage either as a prostitute or as a
kept mistress, or by indulging in occasional liaisons. From the nature
of the case it is difficult to get at exact figures, but it is known that
each of these three classes bear a certain fixed proportion to the popu
*
lation in all single-wife communities.
6. Celibacy. It is perhaps a misnomer to class this state under the
head of the relation of the sexes, when in fact it signifies'an absence
of relation; but old maids form so large and growing a proportion of
'our population, that they must be considered in any discussion of the
general subject of marriage, especially the future of marriage. Celibacv
is probably the most cruel of all the institutions which control women;
it entails vastly more physical and mental suffering than prostitution,
apart, of course, from the contagion engendered by the latter, because
it affects such numbers of the sex. There are probably two hundred
* Since writing the above, further thought on the subject has led me to the
conclusion that prostitution is simply polyandry under another name. Both insti
tutions spring from the same real or fancied necessities of the race. In both a few
women are set apart for the satisfaction of the sexual passions of many men. Poly
andry, however, involves offspring, and is hence an honorable estate among the
savages who practice it: while prostitution has no aim beyond satisfying a sexual
appetite on the part of the male. The one is a permanent relation, and was and is
sanctified by habit and affection; the other is a transient flirtation, in nine cases out
of ten wholly animal. Concubinage also is simply the polygamy of monogamic
communities. It has been said that there was more polygamy in London than in
Constantinople, and this is probably true, only in the one case it is an honored in> stitution, and in the other a disreputable gratification, yet both satisfying pressing
social needs.
Hugh Miller, in combating the theories of progress rife in his time, attempted
to prove from geology that a process of degradation or retrogression was going on
as well as progression. What he did show was that upon the advent of a new race
of superior beings, the one which had before held the vantage ground fell back in
the scale of creation. Thus all living animal types were better represented on this
planet than they have been since the advent of man.
The same law seems to hold good with human institutions. Polyandry and
polygamy, which were once legal and honored institutions, have become degraded
in the presence of the highest form of the relation of the sexes as yet known to
large masses of men, viz., monogamy; yet it must not be forgotten that prostitu
tion and concubinage are real, permanent institutions in our present civilization,
which zoill exert themselves as social forces, and which cannot be ignored by the
sociologist.
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unmated women for every one prostitute, and in some respects the
latter has an advantage over the former. Her instinct of sex is grati
fied to the uttermost, while every purely womanly passion in the old
maid, widow, or young maid unmated, is a matter of secret shame and
perpetual disappointment. To make matters worse, the whole past
education of women has been to train them for marriage, as their sole
business in life. That so large a proportion of women are permanently
unmated in our modern civilization is proof positive that the theories
which have heretofore obtained touching theii’ exclusive devotion to
domestic life do not meet all the wants of society. And then the num
ber of involuntary celibates tends constantly to increase. For this
there are many causes, among which are the higher standard of com
fort and luxury, the greater industrial activity of women, and especially
the emigrating tendencies of men caused by the cheapness and rapidity
of modern travel. In England it is estimated that of every one hun
dred grown women only fifty-five are married; the rest are unmated.
So much for the past and the present.
But now what of the future ? What changes or variations may we
expect in marriage before the year 2000 ? Let us apply Comte’s concep
tion of historical filiation or Herbert Spencer’s law of evolution to
this subject, and see whither we are tending.
Historically, then, it is evident that we are passing from a super
natural to a purely human conception of marriage. It is no longer a
mystic rite or sacrament; it is an institution designed to perpetuate
the race and add to human happiness. All existing criticisms on mar
riage are from a purely human standpoint. Hence the tendency is to
greater individual freedom of action. All legislation, without any ex
ception in modern Christendom, is in this direction. Individual con
sent is now the bond between the sexes, not sacerdotal authority. The
metaphysical and anarchical doctrine of human rights, now urged with
so much vehemence all over the Christian world, is disintegrating mar
riage.
So much for the historical tendency, as any one can see who keeps
his eyes open. And now what does the law of evolution lead us to
expect ? This law is that in human institutions as well as in the or
ganic world about us, the tendency is from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous, from the simple to the complex ; that what are at first
apparently accidental variations, become at length permanent character
istics ; in short, that a process of differentiation is constantly going on.
Now, if this is true, it will lead to some consequences, in considering
marriage, which will startle conservative people. Yet it is very evident
that in comparing a savage with a civilized people, one of the marked
distinctions will be the simplicity of the marriage institution in the
one, and the complex character of the relation of the sexes in the other.
A rude, simple community will tolerate but one rule or practice, but a
score of variations from the conventional requirement is winked at in
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Rome, London, and Paris. As I have shown, monogamic communities
are forced to tolerate Polyandry and Pologamy in the form of Pfostitution and Concubinage, but there are many variations of the sexual re
lation that do not come under those heads which need not be par
ticularized here, and which are practised in all civilized communities.
This differentiation will, I think, go on until the scientific law or
laws governing the relation of the sexes has been discovered. What
these variations may be, it is now our business to try and point out.
One variation of marriage is that of the present Protestant theory
of the relation of the sexes carried to its logical conclusion. This in
volves marriage and divorce at will, without recognizing the authority
of any one or any organization outside of the couple most interested.
Practically we have almost reached that stage now. There is nothing
to hinder people separating and forming new unions, provided both
parties interested are willing. The embarrassment in the way is the
dependence of the woman, especially if she has children; but the equal
rights agitation is teaching her self-help, and the necessity of women
working and being pecuniarily independent of men. This general
form of marriage may be defined as the Protestant or individual sov
ereignty marriage, and has in itself many variations. So far it involves
an idea of faithfulness to each other while living together, but if there
is to be no check to individual freedom—if the man or woman is not
responsible to any one but him or herself, it is no one’s business but
their own with whom they consort, or how often they change partners.
Thus we come to absolute free love, and there is no logical stopping
place short of that on the prevalent individual rights theory. In a
greater or less degree this is the outcome of the marriage relation in
Protestant Christendom. The prevalent free-trade, no-government,
and every-man-for-himself notions which are generated by our political,
woman’s rights and social discussions, intensifies this tendency. Were
there no children to be considered, and were women as self-helpful as
men, there is no doubt that this form of the relation of the sexes
would soon be very common in Protestant and sceptical communities.
But the great bulk of women are not independent of men pecunia
rily, and children will be born, however undesirable they may be deemed
by those who wish to realize the theory of marriage which Protestant
communities are consciously or unconsciously working out.
The class of women workers, however, are constantly increasing,
and in a short time tens of thousands of the sex as artists, writers,
physicians, professors, teachers, and heads of establishments, will have
employment which they will not give up to fill the station of life in
volved in the old theory of marriage. Hence will come partial unions
which may be for a time or for life, which may involve absolute faith
fulness to each other or entire freedom of change. All this is certain
to come about whether we like it or not, and very probably in the next
generation. It is very likelv that for the next two generations the
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monogamic form of marriage will obtain with the great mass of people,
but th«Tirregular unions I have pointed out will be not only tolerated—
they will not be under any social ban, for many worthy people will, in
all likelihood, deliberately rid themselves of the marriage fetters which
society now imposes. I expect very soon that among the large class of
professional women who will earn their own livelihood and whose oc
cupation do not admit of household cares, it will not be deemed dis
reputable to have children without any marriage formality. At first, of
course, this will create scandal, but if it is countenanced by a few women
of real character, standing, and professional reputation, it will soon be
tolerated, especially if it is done deliberately and in accordance with
some social and religious theory then prevailing, or which may be
promulgated to sanction such practices. An assumed noble motive or
religious conviction will give respectability to the wildest social aber
rations. A man or woman of recognized professional ability, who is
known to be honest, public-spirited and self-denying, could easily set a
fashion of this kind, which would be generally tolerated, though not
often imitated. A marriage contract for a limited time has been
seriously discussed in several of the Woman’s Rights and Spiritualist
journals. It is noticeable that it is the women who propose those
schemes. Here is a specimen and one very likely to be tried during
the coming years:
Ellen Storge sends a communication to the Woman’s Advocate, of Dayton, 0., •
in which she proposes the following social platform :
“ 1. Let the marriage contract be limited to from one to three years, at the coi
tion of the contracting parties.
“2. Discard the erroneous idea that this contract is divine; admit that this is
but a human transaction, intended to perpetuate the species and produce human
happiness.
“ 3. Make both parties equal; do not exact, special promises or terms from one
sex to its disadvantage and the advantage of the other. Exact pledges of mutual
fidelity and co-operation during continuance of the marital contract; but let love
alone. Love is a sensitive, spontaneous outgrowth of the heart, subject to the con
trol of treatment and circumstances rather than formal promises ; it is too tender,
too sacred, for the public gaze.
“ 4. Let the marriage contract embrace the contingency of issue, with full and
unequivocal provision therefor. If one child, let its custody devolve by written and
recorded agreement, void during coverture ; if two or more children, the same, or
division by such agreement, provided that the party refusing to renew the expired
contract, at the instance of the other party, or the offender in case of premature an
nulment, shall be compelled to maintain the offspring and be the custodian thereof,
at the option of the opposite party.
“ 5. Enact just laws for the determination of all such contingencies as might
arise under this new order of things : make them applicable only to those now un
married ; let there be no ex post facto taint about the matter. During coverture,
us also in the event of non-renewal of the contract., let each party control its own
finances ; of that they shall have together amassed, let there be an equal division.”
The complex marriage: ‘ this is what obtains at. present, in the
Oneida Community, and is simply organized free love. Wives and
w
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husbands are alike common. To make this relation practicable, as
may be well understood, the very strongest social and religious influ
ence must be brought to bear, as the tendency would naturally be toward
pure- license, and a riot of the passions, with no care or even thought
of offspring. It could never be even tried except in a community
dominated by a strong will, or a stringent public opinion based upon a
definite social and religious creed. The complex marriage involves : A
non-recognition of preference between two persons of opposite sex, ex
cept for the time being. As a consequence, “ sweet love is slain,”—that
is to say, the romantic and sentimental side of that passion, which
invariably involves a conception of absolute possession as well as con
tinuance and perpetuity, is sternly reprohibited and stamped out. Love
in any of its so-called higher phases, involves exclusive possession of
the loved object, and this brings in jealousy, a feeling which'cannot be
tolerated in a community where all the men and women are common.
This necessary crucifixion of the sentimental side of love leaves merely
the animal passion to be gratified, and replaces the sense of personal
attachment by a conception of womanhood very different from that
which now obtains.
The Oneida Communists have practiced this complex marriage for
some twenty years. It is the most novel experiment in the relations of
the sexes ever tried, and deserves the most serious study from the
sociologist. This community is also testing some of the problems of
stirpiculture, or the scientific propagation of human beings. It is
needless to point out the very great value of the data they are collect
ing upon this most important of all the mysteries connected with the
life of the race upon this planet.
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that the current theories with
regard to scientific breeding will have their effect in giving us several
new variations of the sexual relation. One well known writer has
seriously proposed that married men who are conscious of their own
unfitness for paternity, should introduce men of superior strains of
blood to their marriage bed. “Why,” he asks, “should not a man
desire splendid children in his home as well as carefully cultivated
flowers in his garden, or superior animals on his farm ?” So far this
has been urged privately ; but I have no doubt the writer will, in a
short time, make his views public. It will seem a monstrous proposi
tion to ninety-nine persons in a hundred, but here and there a few
crotchety people may make the experiment. If public opinion would
permit, there are to-day hundreds of well-to-do women who would have
children by men they admire, but whom they cannot or would not marry.
There is still another form of the sexual relation suggested by
Madame Clémence Royer, whicfy has been described as follows :
“ Her mode of mobilizing the family is to abolish the family. Woman, she
says, needs and must always have a permanent abode. She cannot rove, as man can
and must do ; therefore let her be no longer tied to any man in particular, or any
�»4
THE FUTURE
OF MARRIAGE.
man to her. ‘We must then/ she says, ‘ mobilize the family, destroy its indissolu
bility. This is the only way of saving it from shipwreck ; it is only in reforming
courageously that we can prevent its falling into complete desuetude.’ So she pro
poses that the marriage-contract should be dissolved on the simple request of either
of the parties, and that there should be instituted a kind of marriage correspond
ing to the confa/rreatio of the Romans, sufficient to legitimize the woman’s position
and the birth of her children, but not binding on her or her husband longer than
he or she pleases. The woman being the more permanent person, Madame Royer
proposes that she, and not the father, should give her name to the children and be
the legal head of the family, the father being relegated to a secondary position, and
constituting in domestic life a kind of shadowy auxiliary, of no moral influence or
weight, and not necessarily known to his children ; and the mother taking as many
husbands in succession as her fancy or circumstances suggested; the result being
perfect happiness, purity, and freedom for all concerned, and an end, total and com
plete, to the quarrelings, falsehood, and oppression of the present system. The
scheme is worked out with much ability, and its bearings on property and other
social arrangements are fairly considered.”
This may seem very chimerical now, yet it but needs a place in
some religious or social scheme to have it tried almost any day.
There will be other variations of the marriage relation which it is
impossible to forecast now, but we may be sure that great diversity will
result from the individualistic theories which now obtain. The future
is in this respect anything but reassuring to the social philosopher and
philanthropist; it is easy enough to write calmly and in cold blood of
these possible experiments on the social relations, but they will all in
volve much human misery and some terrible heart tragedies.
For myself I have no faith in the permanence of the Individual Sov
ereignty conceptions of the relation of the sexes. It may endure for a
generation or two, but because it is individual it is necessarily anti-social,
and therefore unscientific. Whatever is purely egoistic and selfish is an
archical and self-destructive. Hence, while all these theories of marriage
will be worked out,—indeed it is indispensable to the real progress of the
race that they should all be tested by actual experiment,—they cannot
endure after their unsoundness as solutions of the great problem have
been demonstrated. For there is really a most notable problem to
solve. Our present marriage relation is not what it should be; it is a
makeshift, and must be scientifically reconstructed. The woes, disease,
miseries, divorces and murders which are incidental to the present sys
tem, or rather want of system, must give place to something which
will work out better results, especially in the way of offspring. What
that future relation may be it would be premature to point out now;
it is, however, certain it will not take the form of free love, but will be
an institution purer, more chaste, more self-denying, more altruistic
than any form of marriage which has yet been established among men.
Until the problem is solved all true reformers will watch and wait,
and conform in their own lives to the noble ideal of the monogamic mar
riage propounded by Auguste Comte—a marriage which admits of no
divorce for anyjsause, and which decrees eternal widowhood to the sur
viving partner.'
�1» T E AM
AS
A
FA CTOR.
86
CHAPTER II.
STEAM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIOLOGY.
The use of steam and its application to transportation are so mod
em, that we as yet scarcely realize what wonders it has accomplished,
much less the marvels it has in store for us. We know in a general
way of the conveniences of railway and steam travel; but thus far no
one has apprehended all the consequences which will result from this
rapid method of intercommunication. We know that one of the first
effects of railway traffic was to develop and enrich the centers of popu
lation. Cities grew at the expense of the rural districts. This has
been true of all parts of the world into which railroads have been intro
duced. Another effect has been the rapid equalization of prices. The
inability of agriculturists to market their crops economically at the
centers of population, led in the past to great differences in prices.
During the last century, and up to the first third of the present, it was
a matter of frequent occurrence for all but bankrupt families in En
gland, to retire to some rural district on the continent to recruit their
fortunes, being able in that way to live on one-quarter or one-fifth of
their expense at home. In theory it was supposed that the building
of railroads would reduce prices at the centers of population ; but such
does not seem to have been the case. The converse fact, however, is
true, that it has largely enhanced prices in the rural districts.
Wherever railroads have run, the prices of agricultural products have
increased and have been equalized with the prices which formerly ob
tained in the large centers and controlling markets of the world. In
this country it is not so long since the cost of living away from the
large cities was very small. It is within the experience of us all that
as means of communication were established, country living became
more and more costly. This equalization of prices is having a most
important effect upon accumulation of wealth, and the relation of the
city to the country. Our farming class are becoming enriched. The
comparative poverty which characterized the agricultural community in
the past, has given way in these more recent years to comfort and in
some cases to affluence. The labor of the agriculturist is better paid
and the enjoyments of civilized life have been extended to an enlarged
and constantly enlarging class of people. What effect this will have
upon the education, the intelligence and the refinement of the farming
community, it is needless here to dwell upon.
Curiously enough, while the first effect of railroads has been to
build up great centers of population, it has had and is having a dispersing
effect upon these same centers. For instance, New York and London
have grown enormously since the general use of railroads, but, as an
�V
86
STEAM
AS
A
I
..
FACTOR.
offset to this packing of population, the railroad is coming in as a dis
persive agency also. It has added hundreds of square miles to the
available area of very large cities. The street railways, the dummies,
and the swarm of local steam railroads, which spring up to accommo
date the traffic between large cities and their suburbs, are having the
effect of scattering dense populations. Travelers in Europe may have
noticed that all the old cities, such as Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Vienna
and others, are notable for the extreme height of the houses, many of
them having from ten to fourteen stories. The reason for this packing
of population upon a small area of ground, was manifestly the impos
sibility of living at any great distance from the actual place of busi
ness. There was a limit to the spread of population with the growth
of business, and hence the people who could not be accommodated by
a lateral extension, remedied the difficulty by piling story upon story
of their houses. This is the secret of the “ Paris Flats,” so called,
which some of our unthinking architects have been trying to intro
duce into our American cities. The plea of necessity for either tene
ment houses or flats no longer exists ; all that is needed is the proper
extension of railroad facilities, the complete systematizing of trans
portation of local passengers; and the ground to be occupied is practi
cably illimitable. This is a matter of supreme importance to the resi
dents of large citiqs, and it is one which has as yet been almost entirely
overlooked. The remedy for the overcrowding of cities, is not the
erection of model lodging-houses or improved tenement-houses, or
“ Paris flats,” or any contrivance for packing people together in dense
masses. It is to be found in the extension of our railroad system, so
that every city business or working man may have his own home—his
own vine and apple-tree.
There is a larger view to take of the application of steam to rail
way and ocean navigation, which also has been hardly thought out,
and that is its effect upon the distribution of population. We have
seen that one of the most palpable effects of railway extension is the
equalization of the prices of produce ; and that further along in their
history, the equalizing of the wages of labor between city and country.
It will also be noticed that there is a dispersing as well as concentrating
action in the development of railroad traffic. Applying this conception
to the whole civilized world, we can readily see what changes may yet be
made in the distribution of population. History shows us how unequal
the distribution of population has been in all countries, in some deiise,
in others very sparse, the cause always being the dearness and difficulty
of transportation between the densely populated parts of the earth’s sur
face and. the portions not populated at all. But steam navigation is just
beginning to change all this. Its cheapness and rapidity is bringing it
year by year more and more within the means of the poorer classes.
One of the most extraordinary phenomena of modern times is the
equalizing of populations by the emigration of vast numbers of people.
�STEAM
AS
A
FA CTOR.
87
Such voluntary-quovement of masses of men and women as have been
witnessed since the introduction of steam power for the purposes of
transportation, were never known or even dreamed of before. Travel
has increased a hundred, aye, a thousand fold. We are still in only the
beginning of these enormous movements of population from one part
of the earth’s surface to another. Indeed this mighty flux of nations is
to be one of the most conspicuous features of the travel of the future.
When the post-horse system had reached its perfection in England
at the beginning of the present century, it ia estimated that there were
never more than eighty thousand persons per day traveling at any one
time. It is now estimated that in England alone, the railroads are
patronized by nearly one million persons per day. We have no figures
touching the rapid interchange of population by means of railroads in
this country, but from the general wealth of the community, and the
mental and bodily activity of the people, we know that the change
must have been far greater here, and it is not too much to say that five
hundred persons now travel by railway for every one person who trav
eled by stage-coach in the first years of the history of the Republic.
This easily generalized fact will show us that some of the problems of
modern society are to be solved by this ease of transit, in a way quite
unexpected to past writers upon political economy. Free travel will b$
found to be a mightier agency for elevating pauperized populations
than free trade. The common people of Ireland, of Germany, and of
England have begun to find out that there is an opening on other por
tions of the earth’s surface, and that there is no real necessity for them
to remain in their old homes, and starve, when they can go elsewhere
and live in abundance; and hence the armies, mightier than those com
manded by Timour, Genghis Khan or Attila, or led by Peter the Her
mit—armies not with weapons of war in their hands, but with instru
ments of labor, and willing and able to work, which are on the march
to attack the wild portions of the globe with the view of making them
the homes of civilized peoples. Hence the rush of population to our
Western Territories and the Pacific coast, the overflowing of New Zea
land, Australia, and the Islands of the Indian Ocean, and the rapid
extension of population even in South Africa. The streams, of emigra
tion from Southern Europe which have set in toward Brazil and other
parts of South America are indices of a mightier influx of population
in the future. The most portentous of these changes has already com
menced upon our Pacific coast. The Mongolians have discovered the
enormous riches of California, and are only waiting for proper facilities,
such as steam will yet afford, to overrun the whole of the Western
coast of the United States; and if not interrupted, millions of that
race will yet find their way into the Mississippi Valley, and even to the
North Atlantic coast.
*
This article was written in 1867.—Author.
�88
STEAM
AS
A
FACTOR.
It is not so difficult, though the magnitude of the result may be
surprising, to forecast the effect of these changes of population upon
human conditions. All can be predicted with tolerable accuracy. The
agricultural poor of England are to-day the most debased of any class
in Europe—are the worst fed, worst used, and worst paid. This cheap
agricultural labor lies at the very basis of the aristocratic features of
English landed property, and of their whole tenant system Let the emi
gration fever once reach this lowest strata of English-Society—and it is
reaching it—and a heavy blow will have been dealt at the great tenant
farming interest of that country, and at the wealth of the large aristo
cratic landed establishments. A very small advance in the wages of
English agricultural laborers, will make the raising of wheat and of all
the cereals an unprofitable business in that country. It has already to
a great extent done so, and hence the attention which has been paid in
the last fifteen or twenty years to the growth and development of supe
rior cattle. But here again the equalizing tendencies of steam naviga
tion comes into play. While meat is extremely dear in England and
the west of Europe, owing to the density of the population and the
small amount of ground available for pasture, there are portions of the
earth’s surface where meat is worth scarcely anything. The problem is
¿o transport the meat from the place where it is very plenty to the
place where it is very scarce. Science is now at work upon the proper
method of preserving the meat; and it is believed that if this be not
as yet accomplished, it is on the very point of accomplishment. Steam
navigation will most certainly supply the necessary facilities for bring
ing the cheap meat and the dear meat countries into intimate relation;
and then another heavy blow will be dealt at the farming and aristo
cratic interests of Great Britain. Wages will be raised in that country
and food cheapened.
But the most important problem for us to solve in connection with
this coming flux of nations is, what shall we do with the millions of hea
thens willing to work for little more than a bare livelihood, who will be
swarming upon us from Eastern and Southern Asia ? What will become
of our working classes if this practically inexhaustible supply of laborers
be available for our industrial wants ? It is idle to talk of restrictive laws,
though they will undoubtedly be tried; indeed they have been tried.
The spirit of the age is all against this stoppage of emigration. We
may pile act of Congress upon act of Congress, and station war-ships
before every port in the Pacific, yet it would be impossible practically
to prevent this influx of Chinese and Hindoos upon our western coast.
Nothing will do it but the equalization of the prices of labor in Asia
and America. Undoubtedly there is trouble, a great deal of it, in the
future working of this question. We have already experienced some
of the effects of the influx of cheap labor from Europe ; but so far, our
mechanics have had such ready access to cheap lands, that the price of
labor has been upheld in the fact of a very large emigration. As the
�STEAM AS A
FACTOR.
89
foreigners arrived and embarked in the various trades, the American
mechanics started for the West and secured homes of their own. But
this change of employment will soon reach its limit. It will not/ be
many years before all the public lands will be taken up, and then will
commence the enhancement of the price of all the lands of this coun
try. The solution of this labor problem, it will be found, is not a local
matter; it is not confined to any one country, and no one nation will
be able to pass laws or create any conditions by which its own poor
will be well used, well fed and properly educated, without also taking into
consideration the feeding and educating of all peoples upon the globe.
The trades-unions in England, despite of all that has been said against
them, have really had the effect of raising the rate of wages in that
country, but in all those occupations in which the unionists succeeded
in banding together, they found that the chief obstacle in the way of
the success of their strikes and demands for higher wages, was the
ability of the English manufacturers to import laborers from France
and Belgium. This has, in a measure, been prevented by the English
workmen through the forming of labor-unions in Belgium and France,
and by having an understanding that there should be no competition
between the workmen of either of the three nations. This furnishes a
hint as to the solution of this labor problem. Steam is bringing about
that dream of the French socialists, the solidarity of the nations. The
working classes will find out that to permanently better their condi
tion, they must take into consideration, not only the workmen in their
own locality, but the laboring class of every other population under the
sun, and in time they will realize that, with the extremely rapid and
cheap system of transportation which is about to obtain all over the
world, there can be no very great differences of condition between the
laboring population of different countries; and this fact may yet bring
about that dream of the past:
“ Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new ;
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.”
This rapid interchange of populations will also have other and far
wider effects. What becomes of local patriotism in the face of a chang
ing fluctuating population ? The farmers in the country and the
bouseholders in the city may have sentiments of local attachment, but
the great trading community, the traveling and working population
who have no stake in the soil—what will they care for one country
more than another ? What attachment will then exist to bind them
to any particular spot of earth ? Is it not reasonable to suppose that
the extension of this agent of modern civilization, steam, may tend to
increase the number of cosmopolitans, people who care more for the
whole earth than for any particular part of it, for the race at large
rather than any of its natural divisions ?
Then again as to government, do we not already see that the ex
�90
STEAM AS A
FACTOR.
tension of the railroad has had most important effects in changing the
map of the world. The “ shrieks of locality ” are no longer heeded;
state lines have no longer the sacredness formerly attributed to them.
The history of modern governments is the history of the growth of
centralization. All efforts of late years towards rebellion or secession
have miserably failed. The South could not escape from the grasp of
the North. Hungary was beaten in her attempt to separate from
Austria. Ireland failed, entirely in her moral agitation to effect a repeal
of the act of union with Great Britain. Not so with efforts to consoli
date nations. Prussia to-day represents some forty smaller nationalities
that existed but a few short years ago. Italy is one nation where but
yesterday were six or seven. The United States Government keeps
adding steadily to its possessions; Russia encroaches upon Central Asia;
England extends her dominions in Southern Asia; and so as the means
of intercommunication multiply, the smaller become merged in the
larger nations. Contemporaneously with this enlargement of the
boundaries of great states, we find another curious and hitherto unsus
pected effect of the influence of modern steam travel, which is the
extension of suffrage to larger and still larger classes of the community.
There is no doubt whatever that this rapid flux of population is really
at the bottom of this equalizing of men’s position as regards the gov
ernment. In England, in America, in France, in Germany, in Italy,
in Spain—in every civilized nation, we see that greater and still greater
concessions are being made to the laboring population in the way of
political power. But strangely enough, and yet naturally enough, if
we regard it in the right light, with the extension of the voting privi
lege to the laboring classes we see a greater concentration of power in
the central authority. This follows naturally from the obliteration of
localities. All can see that New York State at large, through its legis
lature at Albany, takes the power away from New York City; that
Washington absorbs much of the power formerly centering in Albany.
Berlin to-day represents twenty small capitals of ten years ago. Paris,
in the van of civilization, has.long been the virtual head of all France.
The reason for this change is obvious. When the doctrine of States
rights in this country was preached in its early vigor, Washington was
in point of fact at a greater distance from the city of New York than it
is to-day from the city of Delhi. In point of actual time, it took
over two weeks to reach Maine from the capital, and a still greater
length of time to reach New Orleans. There could be no wise govern
ment of provinces which were so distant in point of time, where infor
mation to head-quarters took so long to go, and commands therefrom
so long to come. And this has been the real force of the argument in
favor of the exclusive government of localities by the people thereof;
but human conditions have changed marvelously within the last few
years, and distance in relation to time is practically annihilated by the
use of the telegraph, while space has been greatly abridged by the
�STEAM AS
A
FACTOR.
91
application of steam to transportation. The telegraphic wires have
become the real nerves of the human race. They communicate sensa
tion from all parts of the body politic, and in the fullness of time there
must be, as in the human organism, one great brain to which this sen
sation will be transmitted, and which must act intelligently for all
parts of the corporate body. I do not see how statesmen, political
economists, and philosophers generally can avoid realizing that the
mighty change in human conditions created by the use of steam will
change radically (indeed is changing radically) the relations of locali
ties to the central authority; and that while the equality of human
conditions brought about by steam and electricity has had the effect to
extend the right of the choice of rulers to wider circles of population,
and may yet include even women, it has taken more and more power
from localities, and concentrated it in the central governments. In no
part of the world to-day do we see any powers taken away from the
central governments; in every part of the world, with the extension of
suffrage we see more and more power added to the central authority.
In fact, when the active intelligent and effective part of the population
are rapidly moving from place to place, locality to locality, they are no
longer any better judges of the interests of that locality than are people
who permanently live at a distance. If in the future, therefore, an agi
tation in favor of local rights and State authority should prove feebler
than in past times in the history of our government, it can be readily
understood that this change is made by the agency of steam in effect
ing rapid intercommunication between all parts of the country.
To sum up, then, the effects of the application of steam to transpor
tation—
1. It has built up the centers of population at the expense of the
rural districts, thus stimulating the growth of large cities.
2. In its fullest development it will have a dispersive effect upon
large cities, and prevent overcrowding by rendering available larger
areas of country for business purposes. Cheap steam travel is the real
and certain cure for the tenement-house horror, and most of the evils
of overcrowding. One cheap, swift road, reaching out into the country
from the heart of a great city, is a greater beneficence to the poor than
could be conferred upon them by a generation of Peabodys.
3. Steam travel is equalizing the price of all commodities as well as
the wages of labor. So far the effect has been to enhance prices when
they were low; the reverse effect has rarely taken place; the leveling
has been up, not down. This is a fact upon which depends conse
quences most momentous to the future of the working classes the
world over.
4. Steam is giving an immense impetus to emigration, and is solv
ing the problem of over-population, or perhaps it would be more pre
cise to say, is making that problem one upon which the whole race
must sit in judgment rather than any one people. Like water, wages.
�92
STEAM AS
A
FACTOR.
prices, and population will find their level. The most momentous fact
of the immediate future will be the “flux of nations,” the emigration
of the laboring poor from places where land is dear to where it is
cheap, and from crowded communities to sparsely inhabited settle
ments.
5. This vast emigration will make the social future of the working
class a cosmopolitan question, and will in effect bring about that dream
of the continental socialists, the “ solidarity of the peoples.”
6. The railroad and telegraph, in helping to conquer time and
space, is bringing about the reign of a centralized democracy all over
the world. They tend on the one hand to extend the privilege of the
ballot to every grown human being, and on the other to center more
power in the general government. Localities are constantly getting to
be of less account.
Note.—The three chapters above given will form part of a book upon “ The
Future,” should I ever find time to write it. One other chapter, “ By 1900, What ? ”
was published in Appleton's Journal. In addition I have the rough drafts of about
a dozen other chapters, the contents of which may be judged by their titles, as
follows:
1. The Future of Language.
2. Synthetic Chemistry, and what it will Accomplish.
3. The Future of Money and Prices.
4. Will the Coming Man Sleep ?
5. Can Human Life be Prolonged, and How ?
6. The Food of the Future, and its probable effect upon the Structure of the
Human Body.
7. On the Equalization of the Temperature of the Globe.
8. The Probable Governments of the Future.
9. The Tendency of Educational Changes.
Of course the range of topics is endless, and none of them in the present state of
Sociological Science can be discussed with the intelligence they demand to be made
profitable as objects of serious study. The test of science, as Comte pointed out, is
prevision, and the foundations of a science of human affairs canndt be said to have
been begun until we are able speculatively to anticipate the future. Now all I can
do is to try and point out the tendency or drift of things. I may be mistaken on
every point, but of one thing I am sure—that those who follow me will succeed
where I have failed. All the value I claim for my speculations is the attempt to
deliberately foreeast the future. Now I firmly believe this not only can be done,
but some time or other it will be done.
D. G. C.
�THE SEXUAL QUESTION.
*
T is to the conspicuous disgrace of the medical profession, that so
far it has not supplied the public with any standard work upon
the intimate relations of the sexes. Of all the subjects relating to
the7 life of man upon this planet, there is no one of such prime
importance as the generative act between the sexes. So far it has prac
tically been regarded as a brute instinct, and an indecent shame has
prevented the wise, pure and good of both sexes from fully under
standing all about the act, as well as all the consequences it entails.
The curiosity with regard’to the sexual organs and their uses, not
withstanding this conventional, indelicate reticence, in every one con
scious of sex is necessarily very great, but it has to be gratified illegiti
mately. Mothers do not instruct their daughters, nor fathers their
sons touching this most important of all the relations of their life, not
only because of the sinful shame they feel in conversing upon such
topics with their children, but because of their own amazing ignorance
of the antecedents to and consequences of the act by which the race is
continued.
It may be broadly stated that there as yet has never been written
or published in any language one comprehensive and exhaustive work
upon the generative organs, their uses and abuses. Science has not
yet occupied that field: it has been left to quackery and empiricism.
The works appended are useful as an indication that some few
physicians at least, are becoming aware that these matters must be
discussed from a scientific standpoint, and that the knowledge in the
possession of the medical profession must be given to the public. The
real difficulty in the way, however, is the singular unacquaintance of
the profession with all that relates to the sociological side of this dis
cussion. Comte complained that in his day physicians were little
better than horse doctors when they came to regard man sexually.
They looked upon the male as an animal, and paid no attention to the
enormous modifications brought about by society, and the course of his
tory upon the human family. And this fruitful field is even yet left
unoccupied. Now that women are getting into the medical profession
there is reason to hope for some intelligent discussion of the sexual
question; for it is remarkable to note that the women are far less
squeamish than the men when this topic is broached in the press or on
I
* The Preventive Obstacle.—Dr. Bergeyet.
den&r. Common Sense.—Dr. Foote.
Conjugal Sin A—Dr. Garr-
�94
THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
the platform. All pure women feel what all artists and poets have ever
felt, that there is no sin or shame in any of the legitimate gratifications
of the sense of sex. And in considering this subject women seem to
realize more truly than men the social aspects of the case. These are
now up for comment and settlement, especially so far as they relate to
the means to be used in limiting the size of families.
The different methods in use to keep down population or prevent
an undesirable increase in families in times past, may be summed up as
follows:
1. The killing of infants after they are horn.—This is the most
ancient practice, and obtains to this day in the East and in exceptional
cases among the very poor in so-called civilized communities. The
Spartans made a wise use of this practice to rid themselves of mal
formed children, as well as those who should not have been generated.
2. Abortion—the killing of the foetus in the womb.—This is done to
a fearful extent in all " civilized ” communities. It is a worse practice
than infanticide, as it entails far more physical and moral evil. It
generally injures the physical system of the mother and prevents the
birth of desirable as well as undesirable offspring. Then, in spite of
all efforts, a number of half-killed children are born, and live to add to
the sum of human misery. Our laws tacitly recognize the right of
mothers to kill their unborn offspring. Throughout Christendom
there is not a law on any statute-book forbidding or punishing a
woman for killing the unborn fruit of her womb. It is only those who
make a business of committing abortion upon women who are dis
countenanced by law; but all enactments on this subject are practically
null. In New York city abortion is an open and lucrative profession,
as witness the advertisements in the papers and Mad. Restell’s splendid
mansion on Fifth Avenue.
3. Preventative measures.—George Sand is reputed to have said,
apropos of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that the great
concern in the life of a Parisian woman was not “ how to conceive
without sin, but how to sin without conceiving.” Omitting all notion
of sin in the matter, this is the problem nearly all married couples in
modern civilization are compelled to try and solve. How is it possible to
nave sexual intercourse without resulting offspring ? That this is done
in myriads of cases every one is aware, but can these various practices be
kept up without peril to health ? As yet medical science has given no
decisive or satisfactory answer; but what little the profession does say
is against all attempts to interfere with the propagative act. Bergeret,
Gardener, Mayer, as well as nearly all who have written on the subject,
assert that all preventative measures are hurtful, and that the increase
of uterine diseases among women is due to them. But it is evident
from the loose popular way in which these books are written, that as
yet this problem is without a scientific solution which is likely to be
generally accepted. By commo’h consent it is considered desirable that
�THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
95
men and women should marry in order to satisfy the most intense and
exacting of all human passions; but at the same time the foremost
minds of the age insist upon the necessity of married people control
ling the number of their offspring. John Stuart Mill, who represents
the most advanced wing of the political economists, never tires of bear
ing testimony to the criminality of bringing more children into the
world than the family can well take care of, and the common sense of
the community supports this view.
We are agreed as to the'what, but how ? asks the married men and
women most interested.
Science has as yet no answer; the medical profession so far as it
has spoken says, “ absolute continence except when you are willing to
assume the responsibilities of paternity.” Here, then, is the dilemma.
All the best social influences conspire to induce people to marry; when
married, every consideration of prudence -and common sense prompt
them to try and control propagation; but the physicians say this cannot
be done without peril to health, except by complete abstention, some
times extending over years; for, according to Bergeret and his medical
confreres, no intercourse is allowable during pregnancy and lactation,
nor after the woman’s “turn of life.” Yet, every one knows that these
canons of conduct in the sexual relation are universally disregarded.
The Oneida communists profess to have solved this problem by
what they call “ male continence.” The sexes have intercourse, but the
male stops short of the emission of semen. But this is one of the
practices which Bergeret declares is destructive of health. Per contra,
the communists insist that they are not injured but benefited in health
by this peculiar custom, which has been in vogue among them for over
a score of years, and they point to their exemption from disease and
longevity as compared with their neighbors, as a proof of the truth of
their claim.
The simple truth is, the relations of the' sexes have not yet been
put under scientific co-ordination. Marriage and propagation are not
subject to the “ higher law.” Hence prostitution, celibacy, polygamy,
free love, disease, the gratification of mere brute instincts in marriage
and out of it, and, as a consequence, the social disturbance, the propa
gation of faulty human beings as well as the generation of hideous
diseases. The work to be done is to collect all the verified facts rela
ting to the intercourse of the sexes, and generalize the laws which con
trol them. When we have discovered those laws, all there is to do is to
obey them. In the preliminary discussions, what is needed is pure
thinking and plain speaking. The tawdry sentimentalizing which dis
tinguishes Dr. Gardener’s book, for instance, is extremely offensive.
Things must be called by their right names; but it must never be for
gotten that, as the sexual act involves the highest interests of society,
it must be lifted out of the slough of mere animality and discussed
from a religious point of view.
�96
UNIVERSOL OGY.
TEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS’S «Primary Synopsis of Universology,” embraces his scheme of a scientific universal lan
guage. • It is a condensation of another work, covering the
whole field of philosophy, as yet unpublished. I do not
propose to pass any verdict upon this preliminary work. Its author
makes a most tremendous claim. He alleges that he has discovered
the Science of Sciences—that he has supplied the connecting link
between the body of all human knowledges. In other words, he has
not only discovered a new Method, but the Method of Methods. If
this claim can be established, America has at length produced a philos
opher of the very highest type—a greater than Aristotle, Bacon, Des
cartes, Spinoza, or Comte. The audacity of Mr. Andrews’s claim can
not but challenge attention from the scientific world. It is quite safe
to predict that, whether his work has any value or not, it will be re
ceived with a storm of derision from all the old schools of thought.
The Modern Thinker, however, declines to pass a verdict until all the
testimony is in. Mr. Andrews is undoubtedly a man of unusual powers
of mind—he is an acute thinker, and has rare powers of persuasion
and exposition. We say this much because ordinary readers who take
up his book will be repelled by its terminology. Comte points out the
great value it would be to mankind if all phenomena could be referred
to some one law, such, for instance, as that of gravitation, but in the
same chaptei’ he denies that it is possible to formulate such a law.
Man is finite, and the universe is infinite, and therefore it is chimerical
to expect ever to discover the secret of the grand Unity, if indeed there
is a Unity. Now Mr. Andrews declares that what Comte pronounced
an eternally impossible feat he has accomplished. The very splendoi’
of the claim ought to command respect, at least; but I judge it will
not, and that for a long time to come he will have to submit to a good
deal of abuse and ridicule.
I am inclined to believe that Mr. Andrews has made a real discovery
in his universal language; at least, if he has not solved the problem
himself, he has pointed out how it may be done by some one else.
There are about sixty-four primary sounds in all languages. Every
one of these, Mr. Andrews alleges, is charged by nature with certain
meanings, which he prints in his new vocabulary. The instances Mr.
Andrews gives to prove his claim will carry a great deal of weight with
philologists who have made a study of phonetics. As there is a science
of harmony, which was not invented, but discovered, so, says our
author, there is a science of sound, expressing sense, which we must
find out by careful induction. When discovered, we will have the
Language of Man, which must, in time, be common to the whole planet.
It is possible that Mr. Andrews has been bedeviled by analogies; indeed
his universology is confessedly a science of analogies; but I believe he
has in this conception of a universal language hit upon something of
supreme importance to the race.—D. G.
S
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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What of the future
Creator
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Croly, David Goodman [1829-1889]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [73]-96 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Croly was an American journalist. From 1870 to 1873, he published the journal Modern Thinker which served as a vehicle for the positivist and Spencerian positions of himself and a small circle of colleagues. Chapter headings: The Future of Marriage; Steam as a Factor of Sociology; The Sexual Question. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870.||(BND) Some uncut pages. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in red ink on cream paper.
Publisher
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[American News Company]
Date
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[1870]
Identifier
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G5416
Subject
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Society
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (What of the future), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Future Life
Industrialization
Marriage
Sexual Behavior