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ROBERT DALE OWEN,
acthob of
"footfalls on
the boundabx of another wobld,”
BTC, BTC.
“ The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.”
Bentham on Morals and Legislation.
" The diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be
prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language.”
John Stuart Mill.
A NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBOBN.
�c
*
*» The Frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor
mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hotel des Enfans trouves,
(Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting is by Vigneron, a
French artist of celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand
nollars for the Gallerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French
king.
The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution
was never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy,
and, above all, a beautiful tenderness to the feelings of those poor crea
tures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their offspring, of the
asylum it affords.. No obtrusive observation is made, no unfeeling question
asked : the infant charge is received in silence, and either trained and
supported until maturity, or, if circumstances, at any subsequent period,
enable the parents to claim their offspring, it is restored to their care.
There is surely no sect, of creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it can
systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the
breasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The benevo
lent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble institution, was a
esuit. . Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after
the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow sectaries are forgotten 1
The case selected is one ofmild, of modified,—-I had almost said, of
favored misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation.
But even under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevo
lence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who
reoart^s f°r a moment the abandoned helplessness of the deserted
child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but will join in the
exclamation, <f Alasthat it should ever have been born
�PREFACE
I
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
(Published in London,)
I am requested to permit and to revise an English reprint
of “Moral Physiology;” and I accede to the request,
because the same deep conviction of the importance of the
views and
recommendations therein contained, which,
nearly two years ago, first prompted their publication, has
been still confirmed to me, in the strongest manner, during
the lapse of that period.
Myself a husband and a proprietor of land, my stake in
society may absolve me, in the eyes of those who require
such securities, from the suspicion of a design against do
mestic virtue or social order. For the rest, let the work
speak for itself. It contains the plain statement of a sub
ject, which deserves to be approached in its broadest and
simplest sense; and to be dispassionately investigated, in
connexion with its own physical and moral influence on
men and women, without reference to favorite theory or
political system.
London, September, 1832.
R. D. O
��PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
(Published in New York.)
It may be proper to state, in few words, tlie immediate circumstances
which induced me to write and publish this treatise.
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him
two ingenious specimens of English typography. He had been requested by
a Brighton printer, who executed them, to present these, as specimens of
the progress of the art in Great Britain, to some of his brother craftsmen
in America. He gave them to me; I admired the ingenuity displayed in
the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented to some
printers’ society rather than to an individual. I therefore addressed them
to our Typographical Society in New-York, accompanied by a note, simply
requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in
England.
I thought no more of the matter until I received, the other day, my spe
cimens back again, with a long and angry letter, signed by three of the
members, accusing me of principles subversive of every virtue under
heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment in
the decalogue: and, more especially, of having given my sanction to a
work, as they expressed it, “ holding out inducements and facilities for
the prostitution of our daughters, sisters, and wives.”
I subsequently learned from one of the society, circumstances which some
what extenuate this childish incivility. A gentleman who busied himself
last year in making out a notable reply to the “ Society for the Protection
of Industry,” got up, at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the so
ciety, several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile,
entitled “ Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be
excessively indecent; and asked the society whether they would receive
any thing at the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a ten
dency so dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society
were (or affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee
to return the heretical specimens, with the letter to which I have alluded.
�VI
PREFACE,
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be
of pernicious influence. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read
to me, I might have misconceived its tendency. But he must be blind
indeed, who can read the pamphlet through, and then, (whether he ap
prove it or not.) a.tribute other than good intentions to the individual who put it forth.
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing
in Indiana, to publish it, but declined doing so My chief reasons were,
that I somewhat doubted its physiological correctness • that I did not con
sider its style atd tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the
New Harmonv Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this
country, only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the
curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of
the philanthropist, ol the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a
family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, that
my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well founded.
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a duty
to step forward and vindicate them ; and this the rather, because, unless I
give my own sentiments, I shall be understood as unqualifiedly endorsing
Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one admires more than I do the courage
which induced that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject;
and to him be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But
the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was
repulsive, (I will not say revolting) to my feelings on the first perusal; and
though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not
attributable, in a measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that
a similar, and even a more unfavorable impression, will be made on the
minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardised. Then
again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat in
correct as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error
might be of important consequence.
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from
similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.
r. d, a
New York, December, 1830.
�<»•
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
f
■
CHAPTER
■
' *
'
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me
to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from
the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly
prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many more
will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed its
publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the
public was better prepared to receive it: but the enemies
of reform have already foisted the subject in an odious
form, on the public; and I have no choice left. If, there
fore, I touch the honest prejudices of any, let it be borne in
mind, that the occasion is not of my seeking.
The subject 1 intend to discuss is strictly physiological,
although connected, like many other physiological subjects,
with political economy, morals, and social science. In dis
cussing it, I must speak as plainly as physicians and phy
siologists do. What I mean, I must say. Pseudo-civilised
man, that anomalous creature who has been not inaptly de
fined “ an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it
ill that I speak simply: I cannot help that.
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become
queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the penin
sula, famous for its manufactories of gloves and stockings.
The magistrates of the place, eager to evince their loyalty to
their new queen, presented her, on her arrival, with a sample
of those commodities for which their town was most remark
able. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received
the gloves very graciously; but, when the stockings were
presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and
severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious
pjece of indecency, “Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain
has no legs.” *
I never could sympathise with this major-domo delicacy
and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this pamphlet
aside at once.
* See “ Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Aunoy.
�8
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
If you have travelled and observed much, you will already
have learnt the distinction between real and artificial pro
priety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably
know, that when any one of the grand seignor’s wives is ill,
the physician is allowed only to see her wrist, which is thrust
through an opening in the side of the room; because it is
improper even for a physician to look upon another man's
wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than
*
propriety.
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know, that they consider a woman’s virtue sa
crificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on
the public road to speak to her lover ;f and if you have read
Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic
story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited
her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers,
who were determined their sister should not survive her
dishonor.
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you can
not be ignorant how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is,
to inquire of a husband after his wife’s health; and proba
bly you may know, that men have lost their lives to atone
for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course, that in
Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her
face ; but perhaps you may not know, unless your travels
have extended to Abyssinia, that there the indecency consists
in uncovering the feet.J
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in
public, without the slightest sense of impropriety ; but you
were doubtless told, that men could not be permitted a simi
lar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they should perform
their ablutions in private.
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries and
customs, I doubt not that he or she will read my little book
understandingly; and interpretit in the purity which springs
from enlarged and enlightened views ; or, indeed, from com
mon sense. If not—if you who now peruse these lines have
been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary
line of your own nation—perhaps of your own village—if you
have not learnt that there are other proprieties besides those
of your country; and that, after all, genuine modesty has
* See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey,
t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia,
t See Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�10
MOKAL PHYSIOLOG f.
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that vio
lcnce and vice are inherent in human nature, and that
nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from
becoming a vast slaughter-house or a universal brothel.
You are led to judge your own sex and the other by the
specimens you have met with in haunts of mercenary pro
fligacy ; and, with such a standard in your minds, I niarvel
not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue,
but that which is forced in the prudish hot-bed of ceremoni
ous conformity. You willnot trust the natural soil, watered
from the free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun.
How should you? you have never seen it produce but weeds
and poisons. Libertines and debauchees ! cast my book
aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious
curiosity ; and, if you read it, you will probably only give
me credit for motives and impulses like your own.
And you, prudes and hypocrites ! you who strain at a gnat
and swallow a camel ; you whom Jesus likened to whited
sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, but within
are full of all unclcanness; you who affect to blush if the
ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or displayed
in crossing a stile, but will read indecencies enough, without
scruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, ask to be helped
to the bosom of a duck, lest, by mention of the word breast,
you call up improper associations; you who have nothing
but a head and feet and fingers ; you who look demure by
daylight, and make appointments only in the dark—you,
prudes and hypocrites ! I address not. Even if honest in
your prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are so artificial
and confused, that you are not likely to profit by the present
discussion; if dishonest, I desire to have no communication
with you.
Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or libertines,
I pray you, follow my argument no farther. My heresies
will not suit you. As a prude, you will find them too honest;
as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you will
call me a very shocking person ; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded ; if you be
unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion ; if truth
be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your objectthen approach with me a subject the most important to man s
W'ell-being ; and approach it, as I do, in a spirit of dispas
sionate, disinterested, free inquiry. Approach it, resolving
to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. 1 ho
discussion is one to which it is every man’s and every wo •
�11
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
man’s duty, (and ought to be every one’s business,) to attend.
The welfare of the present generation, and—yet far more—of
the next, requires it; common sense sanctions it; and the t
national motto of my former country, “ Honi soit qui mal y <
pcnse,” * may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,
and in which it ought to be received.
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I _
am, who now address you. Truth is truth, if it fall from t
Satan’s lips; and error ought to be rejected, though preached
by an angel from heaven. Even as an anonymous work,
therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and candid
examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I
am ashamed of honestly discussing a subject so useful and
important, I have given you my name on the title page.
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or
has been. No man of sense or modesty unnecessarily ob
trudes personalities that regard himself, on the public. And,
most assuredly, it is neither to gratify your curiosity nor my
vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and speak a few
words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can, preju
dice of her sting, thus obtaining the ears of the prejudiced ;
and to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing with
one whom circumstance and education have happily pre
served from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.
All those who have known the life and private habits of
the writer of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that
what he now states is true, to the letter. He was in
debted to his parents for habits of the strictest temperancesome would call it, abstemiousness—in all things. He never,
at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or strong
drink of any kind : latterly, he has not even used animal
food. He never entered a brothel in his life ; nor associated,
even for an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom
the brutal, yet tolerated vices of men, or their own unsus
picious or ungoverned feelings, have betrayed to misery and
* One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up
from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter belonging to a
lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his
courtiers with the words, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense ! ” or, paraphrased
in English, “ Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The senti
ment has become the motto of the English national arms. It is one
which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently applied in rebuking the
mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of this hypocritical and pro
fligate age.
�12
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
degradation. He never sought the company but of the intei
lectual and self-respecting of the other sex, and has no asso
ciations connected with the name of woman, but those of
esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even
girlishly sensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which
young men think it witty to indulge at the expense of a
sex they cannot appreciate. The confidence with which
women may have honored him, he has never selfishly abused;
and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which
to reproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the
equal of man in all the essentials of character, and his su
perior in generous disinterestedness and moral worth.
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken
the confidence of those whose confidence I value; enough,
assuredly to excite the ridicule, or the sneer, of him who
walks through life wrapped up in the cloak of conformity,
and laughs, among his private boon companions, at the
scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard
debauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited
amusements.
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your
attention, and enlisting in this inquiry your reason and your
better feelings, approach with me a subject the most interest
ing and important to you, to me, to all our fellow-creatures.
If you be a woman, forget that I am a man : if a man, listen
to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not as
men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common in
terests, instincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it
be possible, without prejudice and without passion. What
ever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I address 1lie
poet’s exhortation—here, far more strictly applicable, than in
the investigation to which he applied it—
“ Retire I the world shut out: thy thoughts call home;
Imagination’s airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir j
Wake all to reason j let her reign alone.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
Among the various instincts which contribute to man's pre
servation and well-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a
distinguished rank. It peoples the earth; it perpetuates
the species. Controlled by reason and chastened by good
feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and
zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is pro
lific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely
directed, its influence is that of a master principle, that
colors, brightly or darkly, much of the destiny of man.
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity ;
and the Shakers call it a “ carnal and sensual passion/’* I
see nothing in the instinct itself that merits such epithets.
Like other instincts, it may assume a selfish, mercenary, or
brutal character. But, in itself, it appears to me the most
social and least selfish of all our instincts. It fits us to give,
even while receiving, pleasure ; and, among cultivated beings,
the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter.
Not one of our instincts affords larger scope for the exercise
of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral sentiments
of our race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle,more
humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately
at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous lmpulses that honor and bless human nature. Its very power,
indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations ; even as the waters
of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their
bed, flood and ruin the country : but the gentle flow and fer
tilising influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the in
stinct, when suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to
follow its own quiet channel.
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as
a low, selfish propensity, and, as such, that the discussion of
its nature and consequences should be almost interdicted
among human beings, is to me a proof ot the profligacy
of the age, and the impurity of the pseudo-civilized
mind. I imagine, that if all men and women were gluttons
• See “ A brief Exposition of the Principles of the United Society
calledShakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, Albany,
N.Y,, 1830,
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to
^peak of diet or temperance.
Were I an optimist, and had I accustomed myself to
judge and to admire the arrangements of nature, I should
he inclined to put forward, as one of the most admirable,
the arrangement according to which the temperate fulfil
ment of the dictates of this, as of almost all other instincts,
confers pleasure. The desire of offspring would probably
induce us to perpetuate the species, though no gratifica
tion were connected with the act. In the language of the
optimist, then, “ pleasure is gratuitously superadded.” But,
instead of pausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the
great whole of which human reason seems little fitted to ap
preciate or comprehend, I content myself with remarking,
that this very circumstance (in itself surely a fortunate one,
* inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human happi
ness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a bless
ing, has been perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to
excess, and sometimes to tyranny and barbarous injustice.
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure
of any kind, it would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of
abuse. As it is, the instinct is susceptible of either: just as
wisdom or ignorance governs human laws, habits and cus
toms. It behooves us, therefore, to be especially careful in
its regulation, lest what is a great good may become a great
evil.
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light;
first, as giving the power of reproduction ; second, as afford
ing pleasure.
And here, before I proceed, let me call to the reader’s
mind, that it is the province of rational beings to bear utility
strictly in view. Reason recognises the romantic and un
earthly reveries of Stoicism, as little as she does the doctrines
of health-destroying and mind-debasing debauchery. She
reprobates equally a contemning and an abusing of pleasure
She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and excess on
the other. In all our inquiries, then, let reason guide us.
and let utility be our polar star.
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the
*
'Shakers, touching the two-fold light in which the reproduc* I call them my friends, because, however little I am disposed to
accede to their peculiar principles, I have met, from among their body, a
great proportion of individuals who have taken with them my friendship
and sympathy.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
15
live instinct may be regarded. They commonly stand out
stoutly against the propriety of considering it except simply
as a means of perpetuating the species ; and they deny that it
may be regarded as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In
this 1 totally dissent from them. It is a much more noble,
because less purely selfish,instinct, than hunger or thirst; and,
though it differ from hunger and thirst in this,that it may re
main ungratified without causing death, I have yet to learn,
I that because it fe possible, it is therefore also desirable, to
mortify and repress it. I admit, to the Shakers, that in the
world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it, this instinct is
the source of much misery ; and that if I bad to choose between
the life of the profligate man of the world and that of the asce
tic Shaker, 1 should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
But, for admitting that the most social and kindly of human
instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think
its influence moral, humanising, polishing, beneficent; and
that the social and physical education of no man or woman is
fully completed without it. Its mortification (though far less
injurious than its excess) is very mischievous. If it do
not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or incipient dis
ease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always freezes
and stiffens the character ; checking the flow of its kindliest
emotions, and not unfrequently giving to it a solitary, anti
social, selfish stamp.
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the indul
gence of the instinct is justifiable (if, indeed, it be justifiable
at all) only as necessary to the reproduction of the species.
It is justifiable, in my view, just in as far as it makes man a
happier and a better being. It is justifiable, both as a source
of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the sexes
mutually polish and improve each other.
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot re
concile his mind to this idea, he may as well close it at once.
I found all my arguments on the position, that the pleasure
derived from this instinct, independent of and totally distinct
from its ultimate object, the reproduction of our race, is good,
proper, worth securing and enjoying. I maintain, that its
temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself and in its
influence on human character.
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold cha
racter, rests the present discussion. It sometimes happens,
nay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey it»
dictates, not from any calculation of consequences, but sim
ply from animal impulse. Thus many children who are
�16
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
brought into the world owe their existence, not to deliberate
conviction in their parents that their birth is desirable, but
simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in the mass,
have not learnt either to resist or control.
V
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper
and important one—whether man can obtain, and whether ■
he is benefitted by obtaining, control over this instinct Is
IT DESIRABLE THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE GRATIFIED WITH
OUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION ? Or, IS IT DESIRABLE,
THAT, IN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHE
THER OFFSPRING SHALL BE THE RESULT OR NOT ?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be neces
sary to substantiate, that such control may be obtained with
out injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral
feelings; and also, that it may be obtained without any
leal sacrifice of enjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as
little as possible.
This is the plain statement of the subject. It resolves
itself into two distinct heads: first, the desirability of such
control, and, secondly, its possibility.
In examining its desirability, we enter a wide field, a field
often traversed by political economists, by moralists, and by
philosophers, though generally, it will be confessed, to little
purpose. This may be, in a great measure, attributed rather
to their fear than their ignorance. The world would not
permit them to say what they knew. I intend that my
readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for 1
have ceased to ask the world’s leave to say what I think
and what I believe to be useful to the public.
I propose to consider the question in the abstract, and
then to examine it in its political and social bearings.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.
Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over
the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its
gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?
But that men have not accustomed themselves to free and
dispassionate reflection, and that the various superstitions
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
17
of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the inquiries •
of after-life;—but for this, the very statement of the
question might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every
rational being. Nothing so elevates a man above the brute
creation, as the due control of his instincts. The lower animal
follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges
Himself; the bull fights, even to death, with his rival of the
pasture : the dog makes deadly war for a bone. They know
nothing of progressive improvement. The elephant or the
beaver of the nineteenth century, are just as wise and no
wiser, than the elephant or the beaver of two thousand years
ago. "Man alone has the power to improve, to cultivate, to
elevate his nature, from generation to generation. He alone
can control his instincts by reflection of consequences, and
regulate his passions by the precepts of wisdom.
It is strange, that even at this period of the world, we
should have to remind each other, that all knowledge of facts
is useful; or, at the least, that it cannot be injurious. The
knowledge of some facts may be unimportant; the know
ledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a puppet,
a glave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue.
Nor shall we know where to stop, if we follow up this prin
ciple. Shall we give our sons lessons in mechanics? but
they may thereby learn to pick locks. Shall we teach them
to read ? but they may thus obtain access to falsehood and
folly. Shall we instruct them in writing? but they may
become forgers.
Such, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark ages.
vVhen Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Lord Douglas, on
the discovery of Marmion’s treachery, the following excla
mation, it is strictly in accordance with the spirit and pre
vailing opinions of the times :
“ A letter forged 1 Saint Jude to speed
Did ever knight so foul a deed 1
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line
So swore I, and so swear I still,
Let my boy bishop fret his fill.”
The days are gone by when ignorance can be the safeguard
of virtue. The only rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge.
There is no fact, in physics or in morals, that ought to be
concealed from the inquiring mind. Let that parent who
B
�18
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
thinks to secure lis sons’honesty or his daughters’innocence
by keeping back from them facts—let that parent know,
that he is building up their morality on a sandy founda
tion. The rains and the floods of the world’s influence shall
beat upon that virtue, and great shall be the fall thereof.
If, then, man can obtain control over this most important
of instincts, it is, in principle, right that he should know it.
If men, after obtaining such knowledge, think fit not to use
it; if they deem it nobler and more virtuous, to follow each
animal impulse, like the beasts of the field and the fowls of
the air, without a thought of its consequences, or an inquiry
into its nature—let them do so. The knowledge that they
have the power to act more like rational beings will not
injure, if it fail to benefit, them. They may set it aside, may
neglect it, may forget it, if they can. Only let them show
common sense enough to permit that others,who are more slow
to incur sacred responsibilities, and more willing to give
reason the control of instinct, should obtain the requisite
knowledge, and follow out their prudent resolutions.
If this little book were in the hands of every adult in the
United States, not one need profit by it, unless he saw fit.
Nor will any man admit, that he can possibly be injured by it.
Oh no 1 His virtue can bear any quantity of light. But then,
his neighbour’s, or his son’s, or his daughter’s!
This would lead me to discuss the social bearings of the
question. But, as conceiving it more in order, I shall first
speak of it in connexion with political economy.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.
The population question, as it is called, has of late years
occupied much attention, especially in Great Britain. It
was first prominently brought forward and discussed there in
the year 1798, by Malthus, an English clergyman. Godwin,
Ricardo, Place, Mill, Thompson, Robert Owen, and other
celebrated cotemporary writers, have all discussed it, with
more or less reserve, and at greater or less length.
Malthus’ work has become the text book of a large poli
tico-economist party in England. His doctrine is that
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
]£)
“population, unrestrained, will advance beyonS the means of
subsistence.” He asserts, that, in most countries, population
at this moment presses against the means of subsistence;
and that, in all countries, it has a tendency so to do. He
recommends, as a preventive of the growing evil, celibacy
till a late age, say thirty years ; and he asserts, that unless
this “moral restraint” be exerted, vice, poverty and misery
must continue to be the checks to population. The ten
dency of such principles appears to me very mischievous;
though, upon the whole, the work of Mr. Malthus, by pro
voking inquiry, will, I doubt not, prove a source of good.
I have heard some of his disciples openly declare, that they
considered the crimes and wretchedness of society to be
necessary—to be the express ordainings of Providence in
tended to prevent the earth from being overpeopled. I
have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth and influence,
that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of morality
and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to
the end of the world ; that he who attempts to remove them
fights against God and nature ; and, if he partiaJly succeed,
will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase,
until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, and
men shall be compelled to prey on each other. It must bo
confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler;
it is a healing salve to the luxurious conscience ; an opiate to
drown the still small voice of truth and humanity, which calls
to every man to be up and do his part towards the alleviation
of the human suffering that everywhere stares himin the face.
*
It is vain to argue with the defenders of the evils that be,
that, for the present, there is land and every other necessary
in abundance for all, if there were wisdom in the distribu
tion ; and that the day of ultimate overstocking is afar off.
They tell you, that day must come at last; and that the more
you do to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of popu
lation—the sooner it will come. And what reply can one
make to the argument in the abstract? I believe it to be
true, that population, unrestrained,f will double itself on an
* Let me not be understood as charging on Mr. Malthus himself a style
of reasoning he disclaims. I do but remind the reader how easilv weak
or selfish men may pervert his doctrine to mischievous purposes.
t By unrestrained, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or
destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral, pruden
tial or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c. are allclteckR
*o population. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventive
moral restraint, have I employed the word throughout this chapter.
B2
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
20
average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evidvnt
to a demonstration, that, if population were not restrained,
morally or immorally, the earth would at last furnish scarcely
foothold for the human beings produced.
Take the least rapid of the above rates of increase, and
say, that population, unrestrained, will double itself every
fifty years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the
increase from emigration,) in many parts of this continent
is certain.
Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to po
pulation, viz. want, war, vice, and misery, removed by
rational reform, and if we assume the present population of
the world at one thousand millions, we shall find the rate
of increase as follows:—At the end of
100 years, there would be four thousand millions.
200 —------------------------ sixteen thousand millions.
300 -------------------------- sixty-four thousand millions.
400 --------------------------- two hundred and fifty-six thou
sand millions.
And so on, multiplying by 4 for every hundred years. So
that, in 500 years, if we imagine unchecked increase, there
would be more than a thousand times as many as at present;
and in 1,000 years, upwards of a million times as many
human beings as at this moment.
It is evident, then, to demonstration, that there is notspace
on this earth for population, under any circumstances, to in
crease unrestrained, during more than a very few hundred
years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner
or later, some restraint or other to population mast be em
ployed ; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic ex
pounders, that if no other better restraint than vice and
misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they are
the lot of man, from generation to generation.
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a ques
tion—whether there shall be a restraint to population or not.
There must be; unless indeed we imagine communication
opened with other planets, so that we may people them.
In the nature of things, there must be a check, of some
kind. The only question is, what that check shall be—
whether, as heretofore, the check of war, want, profligacy,
misery; or a “ moral restraint,” suggested by experience
and sanctioned by reason.
Let those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, be
told, that though they may postpone the question, no human
power can evade it. It must come up. Had the friends of
reform been left to choose their own time it might, perhaps
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
21
With advantage, have been postponed. And it is an imagi
nable case, that prejudice might delay it until a general
famine or a universal civil war became the frightful checks.
But will any man of common sense argue the propriety of
suffering such a crisis to approach?
Malthus saw this. He saw that some check must exist;
and, whatever some of his disciples might say, he did not
intend to be considered the apologist of vice and misery
His theory, indeed, supplied specious arguments to those
who assert, with the ingenious author of the Fable of the
*
Bees, that “ private vices are public benefits
and fur
nished a comfortable excuse for supine contentment witji a
vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus him
self declares the only proper check to be, the general prac
tice of celibaey to a late age. He employs all his eloquence
to persuade men and women that they ought not to marry
till they are twenty-eight or thirty years of age ; and that, if
they do, they are contributing to the misery of the world.
Now, Mr. Malthus may preach for ever on this subject.
Individuals may indeed be found, who will look to distant
consequences, and sacrifice present enjoyment; even as indi
viduals are found to become and remain Shaking Quakers:
but to believe that the mass of mankind will abjure, through
the ten fairest years of lite, the nearest and dearest of social
relations ; and during the very holiday of existence, will live
the life of monks and nuns—all to atone for a mal-administration of the earth’s resources, or to avert an ultimate catas
trophe which is confessedly some hundreds of years distant—
to believe this, requires a faith, which no accurate observer
of mankind possesses.
This weak point the aristocratic expounders of Malthus’
doctrines were not slow to discover. They broadly asserted,
that such “moral restraint” would never be generally prac
tised. They asked, whether a young woman, to whom a
comfortable home and a pleasant companion were offered,
would refuse to accept them, on this theory of population ;
whether a young man who had a fair (or even but a very
indifferent) prospect of maintaining a family, would doom
himself to celibacy, lest lhe world should be overpeopled.
And they put it to the advocates of late marriages, whether,
in one sex at least, the recommendation, if even nominally
followed, would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess
• Mandeville
�22
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and degrading- associations ; thus resolving the check at last
into vice and misery. As experience answers these ques
tions in the negative, is it not clear, (they proceeded exultingly to ask,) that vice and misery are the natural lot of man;
and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague ourselves
about them, or to attempt, by their suppression, to contro
vert the decrees of God 1
It was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so heart
less an argument. It was easy to ask, whether even the
apparent hopelessness of the case formed any legitimate apo
logy for supine indifference ; or whether, where we cannot
cure, we are absolved from the duty of alleviating. But it
was not very easy fully and fairly to meet the whole question.
It was idle to deny that preaching would not put off mar
riage for ten years: and if no other species of moral restraint
than ten years Shakerism could be proposed, it did ap
pear evident enough, that moral restraint would be by the
mass neglected, and that the physical checks of vice and
misery must come into play at last.
I pray my readers, then, distinctly to observe, how the
matter stands. Population, unrestrained, must increase
beyond the possibility of the earth and its produce to support.
At present ft is restrained by vice and misery. The only
remedy which the orthodoxy of the English clergyman
permits him to propose, is, late marriages. The most en
lightened observers of mankind are agreed, that nothing con
tributes so positively and immediately to demoralize a nation,
as when its youth refrain, until a late period, from forming
disinterested connexions with those of the other sex. The
frightful increase of prostitutes, the destruction of health,
the rapid spread of intemperance, the ruin of moral feelings,
are, to the mass, the certain consequences. Individuals
there are, who escape the contagion; individuals whose
better feelings revolt, under any temptation, from the mer
cenary embrace, or the Circean cup of intoxication ; but these
are exceptions only. The mass will have their pleasures, the
pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought affection,
and of good taste and good feeling, if they can ; but if they
cannot, then such pleasures (alas! that language should be
perverted to entitle them to the name!) as the sacrifice of
money and the ruin of body and mind can purchase.
*
* Lawrence, the ingenious author of the “ Empire of the Nairs,”
says, shrewdly enough: “ Wherever the women are prudes* the men
will be drunkards."
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
'
23
But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition
fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a latt
age those disinterested sexual connexions which can alone
save youth from .vice ; but it is ineradicable. Men and
women will scarcely pause to calculate .‘he chances they have
of affording support to their children ere they become
parents : how, then, should they stop to calculate the chances
of the world’s being overpeopled ? Mr. Malthus may say what
he pleases, they never will make any such calculation; and
it is folly to expect they should.
Let us observe, then: unless some less ascetic and more
vracticable species of “ moral restraint” be‘introduced, vice and
misery will ultimately become the inevitable lot of man. He
can no more escape them, than he can the light ot the sun,
or the stroke of death.
What an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our in
quiry 1 Here is an argument put forth, wLMi is all but an
apology for the apathy that prevails among the rich and the
powerful—among governors and legislators—in regard to
human improvement. How important, how essential for the
interests of virtue that it should be refuted! How beneficent
that knowledge, wtich discloses to us some moral practi
cable check to population, and relieves us from the despairing
conclusion, that the irrevocable doom of man is misery, with
out remedy and without end ! In the absence of such know
ledge, truly the prospects of the world were dark and cheer
less. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she begins to fear
that all her exertions are to result inhopetess disappointment.
And yet—such is this world—even the ablest opponents of
Malthus stop short when they come to the question, and
leave an argument unanswered, which a dozen pages might
suffice for ever to set at rest.
Let one of the most intellig nt of these opponents—a man
of sterling talent—let Mill, be well-known political econo
mist, and author of “ British L.'dia,” speak for himself:
“ What are the best means of checking the progress of
population, when it cannot go on unrestraired without pro
ducing one or other of two most undesirable effects, either
drawing an undue portion of the population to the mere
raising of food, or producing poverty and wretchedness, it is
not now the time to inquire. It is, indeed, the most important
practical problem to which the wisdom of lhe politician and the
tliorali^ can be applied. It has, till this time, been miserably
evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as
well as by these who were called on by lheir situation to find
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
24
a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the.
superstitions of the nursery were disregarded, and the principle
of utility hept steadily in view, a solution might not be very
difficult to be found; and the means of drying up one of the
most copious sources of human evil—a source which, if all
other sources were taken away, might alone suffice to retain the
great mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be
neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.”—Art. Colony,
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen oi
one of the most admired writers of the present day; a man
celebrated throughout Europe, for his works on political
economy, and whose writings are not unknown on this side
the Atlantic. He considers the question now under discus
sion to involve “ the most important problem to which the
wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.” This
question, he admits, has ever been “ miserably evaded.”
Yet even a man so influential and clear-sighted as Mill,
must, himself yield to the weakness he reprobates; must speak
in parables, as the Nazarene reformer did before him; and,
even while commenting on the “ miserable evasion” of a
subject so engrossingly important, must imitate the very
evasion he despises.
*
I will not imitate it. I am more independently situated
than was the English economist; and I see, as clearly as he
does, the extreme importance of the subject. What he saw
and declared ought to be said, I will say.
Before concluding this chapter, let me distinctly state an
opinion, from which Mr. Malthus himself, if I read his doc
trine aright, will hesitate to dissent. I am convinced, that,
at this moment, there is nothing approaching to an excess
of population, absolutely considered, in a single country of
Europe. Iniquitous laws, false education, and a vicious
order of things, are continually producing effects, which are
erroneously attributed to over-population; effects which
spring, not from the number, but from the ignorance, of men.
Monopolies favour the rich, imposts oppress the poor, com
mercial rivalry grinds to the dust the victims of an over
grown system of competition. To such causes as these, ana
not to positive excess of people, at the time being, is the dis
tress, more or less felt over the civilized world, to be attri
buted. Still, it is undeniable that the most perfect system of
* I speak here, as regretting the circumstance, not as censuring the
individual. It is probable, that had Mr. Mill spoken more plainly, his
essay would have been refused admission into the Encyclopasdia.
�OPAL. PHYSIOLOGY.
25
political or social economy in the world could not, of itself,
prevent the ultimate evils of superabundant population. A nd,
it is no less certain, that, in the meantime, the pressure ol a
large family on the labouring man greatly augments his
difficulties, and often deprives him of that leisure which he
might employ in devising means to better his condition, in
stead of leaving public, business in the hands of political
gamblers.
Vice-bringing laws and customs ought to be—must be
changed ; but while the grass is growing, let us prevent the
horse from starving, if we can
Thus (and I am desirous it be distinctly understood) a
solution of the population question is here offered, as an
alleviation of existing evils, not as a cure for them ; as a pal
liative, not as a remedy, for the national disease. Population
might be but a tenth part of what it is, and unjust legislation'
and vicious customs would still give birth, as they now do, to
extravagance and want. It is true, and ought to be remem
bered, that the check I propose, by diminishing the number
of laborers, will render labor more scarce and consequently
of higher value in the market; and in this view, its political
importance is considerable: but it may also be doubted
whether our present overgrown system of commercial compe
tition be not hurrying the laborer towards the lowest rate of
wages, capable of sustaining life, too rapidly to be overtaken,
except in individual cases, even by a prudential check to
population. I do not, then, expect political wonders from my
little work. Economy in living is, like the parental foresight
of which I speak, in itself an excellent thing, and ought
to be recommended to all ; but he who expects, by the one
recommendation or the other, to eradicate the ills of poverty,
expects an effect from inadequate causes.
The root
of the evil lies far deeper than this ; and its remedy must be
of a more radical nature. This is not the place, however,
to enter on such a discussion. The great importance of the
present work I conceive to lie more in its m«raZ and social,
than in its political, bearings. It is addressed to each
individual, rather as the member of a family, than the
citizen of a state.
Enough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to deter
mine the question, whether it is, or is not, desirable, in a
political point of view, that some check to population be
sought and disclosed—some “moral restraint” that shall
not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, like late
marriages, be ascetic and immacticable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER V.
THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
This is by far the most important branch of the question.
The evils caused by an absolute overstocking; of the world, if
inevitable, are distant; and an abstract statement of the sub
ject, however unanswerable, does not come home to the
mind with the force of detailed reality.
What would be the probable effect, in social life, if man
kind obtained and exercised a control over the instinct of
reproduction?
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend
it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilising; that
it would prevent many crimes and more unhappiness; that
it would lessen intemperance and profligacy ; that it would
polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it
would alleviate the burden of the poor, and the cares of the
rich ; that it would most essentially benefit the rising gene
ration, by enabling parents generally more carefully to
educate, and more comfortably to provide for, their offspring.
I proceed to substantiate these positions.
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married
persons. Is it not notorious, that their families often
increase beyond what a regard for the young beings
coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give
them birth, would dictate ? In how many instances does the
hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a
poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at
the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living only
to die; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or
three, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative
affluence! How often is the health of the mother, giving
birth every year, perchance, to an infant—happy, if it be not
twins '.—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when
nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery
—how often is the mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life,
thus sacrificed ! Or, when care and toil have weighed down
the spirit, and at last broken the health of the father, how
often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous inten
tions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming de
graded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice !
Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
27
your nursery maids, and who ieave your children at home
to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball■room ; but you, by the labor of whose hands your children
are to live, and who, as you count their rising numbers, sigh
ttotoink how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen those
wages, which are now but just sufficient to afford them
bread—fathers and mothers in humble life ! to you my
argument comes home, with the force of reality. Others may
impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter experience you know
and feel its truth.
It will be said, that the state ought to provide for the effi
cient guardianship and education of all the children of the
land. No one is less inclined to deny the position than I.
But it does not provide for these. And if it did, a periou
must come at last, when even such an act of justice would
be no relief from the evils of over-population.
,
Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are
many women so constituted that they cannot give birth to
healthy—sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable—
is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet
this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the
contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never
to become parents; because, in so doing, they transmit to
their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that
worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life
of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the
world suffers by it. That a human being qsould give
birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary,
disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly
to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the
lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary. All that duty requires
of them is, to refrain from becoming parents. Who can
estimate the beneficial effect which rational, moral restraint
may thus have on the physical improvement of our race,
throughout future ages ! Were such virtue as this generally
cultivated, how soon might the very seeds of disease die out
among us, instead of bearing, as now, their poison-fruit,
from generation to generation! and how far might human
beings, in succeeding times, surpass their forefathers in
health, in strength and in beauty!
This view of the subject is, to the physiologist, to the phi
losopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most
interesting one, “ So long’’’ to use the words of an eloquent,
tocturer, now in this city, “ as the tainted stream is unhesi*
'* Mr. Graham, whose excellent discourses on temperance have excited!
�28
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
tatingly transmitted through the channel of nature, from
parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which
‘ visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the
third and fourth generations? ” And so long, I would add,
will mankind (wise and successful whenever there is question
of improving the animal races) be blind in perceiving, and
listless in securing, that far nobler object, the physical, and
thereby (in a measure) the mental and moral improvement
of our own.
1 may seem an enthusiast—but so let me seem then,—when
I express my conviction, that there is not greater physical
disparity between the dullest, shaggiest race of dwarf draught
horses, and the fiery-spirited and silken-haired Arabian, than
'between man degenerate as he is, and man perfected as he
might be : and though mental cultivation in this counts for
much, yet organic melioration is an influential—an indis
pensable accsseary.
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most
plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents should
have the power to limit their offspring, whether they choose
*
to exercise it or not? Who can lose by their having this
power? and how many mrr/y gain ! may gain competency for
themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and
provide for their children! How many may escape the jar
rings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an over
grown family too often causes in the domestic circle !
It sometimes happens that individual instances come home
to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning.
I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately
under my cognizance.
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of
the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of
the western states, a letter, requesting to know whether I
could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly
interested him, and which regarded a young woman for
whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father.
so much interest, and made so many converts, lately, in New York,
Philadelphia, and other cities of the Union.
* It may possibly be argued, that all married persons have this power
already ; seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than the
unmarried ; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the Shakers
do. But this Shaker remedy is, as every one knows, utterly impi acticable
as a general rule; and it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if
’t were practicable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
29
In explanation of the circumstances he enclosed me a copy
of a letter which she had just written to him, and which
I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from
its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate
situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life,
find themselves placed, I have never read.
“ Dear Sir,
L * * * Kentucky, May 3, 1829.
“ The friendship which has existed between you and my
father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected kindness
you used to express towards me when you resided in our
neighbourhood, during my childhood ; the lively solicitude
you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your
benevolent and liberal character, induce meto lay before you,
in a few words, my critical situation, and ask for your kind
advice.
“ It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic
of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners,
and agreeable features, excessively fond of our children and
of me; in short, eminently well qualified to render him
self and family and all around him happy, were it not for the
besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or
four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally, or purposely, with
some of his friends, of whom,either real or pretended, his good
nature and liberality procure him many, he is sure to get in
toxicated, so as to lose his reason ; and, when thus beside
himself, he trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to
his disadvantage, that he has almost reduced himself and
family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his
own, but obliged to work journey work.
“We have not been married quite four years, and have
already given being to three dear little ones. Under present
circumstances what can I expect will be their fate and mine?
I shudder at the prospect before me. With my excellent con
stitution and industry, and the labor of my husband, I feel
able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency, were
I to have no more : but when I seriously consider my situa
tion, I can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear
myself away from the man who, though addicted to occasional
intoxication, would sacrifice his life for my sake; and for
whom, contrary to my father’s will, I successively refused the '
hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher; or continue
to witness his degradation, and bring into existence,in all pro
bability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, .
who, on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice and misery.
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MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
“ The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father
for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for
advice or anything else. Aly husband being somewhat
sceptical, my father attributes Ins intemperance to his infi
delity ; though my brother, as you know, being a member of
the same church with my father, is, nevertheless, though he
does not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my
husband, and ranks among the faithful. You will therefore
plainly see, that for these and other reasons, 1 stand the more .
in need of your friendly advice; and I do hope, and believe ■■
you will give me such advice and counsel as you would to
your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that
I am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude
of your friend,
M. W.”
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this?
Every one must be touched with the amiable feeling and
good sense that pervade the letter. Every rational being,
surely, must admit, that the power of preventing, without
injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under such cir
cumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible re
ply to these facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the
thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point
to France, in justification of my denial. Where will you find,
on the face of the globe, a more polished, or more civilised
nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any
rudeness, coarseness, or indecorum? You will find none. The
French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. Yet,
as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked,
there is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper
■classes, (and seldom even among the working classes,) a
large family; seldom more than three or four children. A
French lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in
common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as innocently,
whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to the contrary)
as she would proffer any common remark about the weather:
“ I have three children ; my husband and I think that is as
many as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have
any more.”*
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who
has visited Paris, and been admitted to the domestic life of
* Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and sim
plicity of such an observation ? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is in
their own minds, not in the words of the French mother.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
31
its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However heterodox,
then, my view of the subject may be in this country, 1 am
supported in it by the opinion and the practice of one of the
most refined and most socially cultivated nations in the
world.
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is
immoral ? Again I appeal to France. I appeal to the details
of the late glorious revolution—to the innumerable instances
of moderation, of courage, of honesty, of disinterestedness, of
generosity, of magnanimity, displayed on the memorable
“ three days,” and ever since; and I challenge comparison
between the national character of modern France for virtue,
as well as politeness, and that of any other nation under
heaven.
It is evident, then, that, to married persons, the power of
limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most desir
able. It may often promote the harmony, peace, and com
fort of families ; sometimes it may save from bankruptcy and
ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother from premature
death. In no case can it, by possibility, be worse than super
fluous. In no case can it be mischievous.
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were
taught to consult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those
we love than our own, how strongly would these arguments
be felt! No man ought even to desire that a woman should
become the mother of his children, unless it was her express
wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare, that she
should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this
matter an imperative law. She it is who bears the burden,
and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely
it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether
any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual,!
cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of/
twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her con
stitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No man
ought to require or expect it.
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality?
Alas ! that what ought to be a matter of every day practice—
a common-place exercise of the duties and charities of life,
■* —a bounden duty—an instance of domestic courtesy too
universal either to excite remark orto merit commendation—
alas ! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be re
proached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem
iu.t a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation !
But I pass from the case of married persons to that of
�32
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
young men and women who have not yet formed a matrirno.nial connexion.
In the present state of the world, when public opinion
stamps with opprobrium every sexual connexion which has
not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, almost all
young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to
marry. The heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that
does not find some object on which to bestow its affections.
Early marriages would be almost universal, did not pruden
tial considerations interfere. The young man thinks, “ I
must not marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must
make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement
afterwards.”
And so he sets about making money, fully and sincerely
resolved, in a few years, to share it with her whom he now
loves. But passions are strong, and temptations great.
Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of
those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a depen
dence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then
curses for being- what she has made them. There his health
and his moral feelings alike make shipwreck. The affections
he had thought to treasure up for their first object, are chil
led by dissipation and blunted by excess, He scarcely re
tains a passion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profli
gacy and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished;
his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and re
solves of his youth ?
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone—and for ever I
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs
at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If
gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is
happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy
ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which
forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provi
sion has been made for a large, expected family. Had he
married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed
becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it,
how different might have been his lot? Until men and wo
men are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except
when they themselves desire it, they will continue to form
�33
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissi
pation the happiness they might have found in domestic life.
I know that this, however common, is not a universal case.
Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred,
at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremit
ting toil and poverty is the consequence ? Sometimes—if even
rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The
youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary
anxiety : happy, if before the best hours of life are gone and
its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the
reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in
this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the
years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is pur
chased ? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affec
tions too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this in
itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacri
fice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one?
Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time
of life, “ while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh when we shall say, ‘ We have no pleasure in them
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacri
fices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two
evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not
imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man
to be aione. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a vio
lence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A
life of rigid celibacy, though greatly preferable to a life of
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,
restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are
among the least of these. The ipind is unsettled, and the
judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus
mortified, assumes an undue importance, and occupies a por
tion of the thoughts, which does not, of right or nature, belong
to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice or
*
* For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no tempta*
lion, and therefore no existence, were not men and women unnaturally
and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in monasteries
and convents ; and has been perpetuated by the more or less antisocial and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each
ether,inalmost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the
�34
1
‘
moral physiology.
disease, or even insanity, lias been tbe result of asceftca.
mortification. I speak of every-day cases ; and I am well
convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the present state
of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative,) yet no
man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker,
without suffering, more or less, physically, mentally, and
morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very
noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the highminded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, ^nasmuc’1 as the scruple of incurring heavy respon
sibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and en
courages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge
which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the pre
sent state of things, save much unhappiness, and prevent
many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other,
and who might wish to marry, might marry early; merely
resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it.
The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation,
would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had
chosen as his companion ; and the best years of life, whose
pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot
or lost through mortification.
If, in virtue of these recommendations, early marriages
became common, and parents were accustomed to limit the
number of their offspring, they would have the best chance
of forming their children’s characters, watching their pro
gress, even to manhood, and seeing them settled in the
world ; instead of leaving them, while young and inexpe
rienced, as they who become parents at a late age must
expect to do, to the mercy of fortune and the guidance of
strangers.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have
hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of
things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No
one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject, to
present false situation of society, we must set down to the black account
the wretched, wretched consequences, (terminating not unfrequently in
incurable insanity,) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern
civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a
lamentable extent, both in this country and England. If the recorts
*
mendations contained in this little treatise were generally followed, it
would probably disappear in a single generation.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
35
admit and approve them. The marriage laws mi ht all re
main for ever as they are ; and yet a moral check to popula
tion would be beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, in which the
knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If young
women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of
consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity.
Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom de
tected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us carefully
i examine this argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics,
Shelley, that “ Seduction, which term could have no mean
ing in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.”
It matters not. how artificial the penalty which society has
chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society
has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,
Public Opinion, enforces the penalty, even though it cost
the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor
sufferer, whose offence is but an error of judgment or a weak
ness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were
indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who,
for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail
a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was
her misplaced confidence in a hypocrite, is not one whit
excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.j- Some
poet says,
“ The man. who lays his hand upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”
How, then, shall we regard him who makes it a trade to
win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her generous confi
dence, and then, when the consequences become apparent,
abandon her to dependence, and the scorn of a cold, a selfrighteous and a wicked world; a world which will forgive
* Letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of December 5, 1818.
+ Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unreasoning—
sometimes even generous imprudence of youthful passion, and the calcu
lating selfishness of the matured and heartless libertine. It is a melant^ich®ly truth, that pseudo-civilization produces thousands of seducers by
profession, who, while daily calling the heavens to witness their eternal
affections, have no affection for any thing on earth but their own profli
gate Reives. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my
t&scrvations apply.
a
�36
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose
eyes it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and
warm-hearted !
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction
thier sting, and stamps to the world its victim ? Why is it,
that the man goes free and enters society again, almost
courted and applauded ; while the woman is a mark for the
finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal ? Is
it not chiefly because she bears about her the mark of what
is called her disgrace ? She becomes a mother ; and society
has something tangible against which to direct its anathe
mas. Mine-tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are
caused by seduction, even in the present state of public
opinion, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeel
ing selfishness of him who fears to become a father, adminis
ters some noxious drug to procure abortion ; perhaps—
for even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps
the frenzy of the wretched mother takes the life of her in
fant, or seeks in suicide the consummation of her wrongs
and her woes ! Or, if the little being live, the dove in the
falcon’s claws is not more certain of death than we may be,
that society will visit, with its bitterest scoff’s and reproaches,
the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious inno
cence of the child.
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we
cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the
world’s cruelty" entail on a sex, which it ought to be our pride
and honor to cherish and defend; let us prevent as many as
we can. If we cannot persuade society to revoke its unmanly
and unchristian * persecution of those who are often the best
and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to wo
man what defence we may, against its violence.
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his
child, whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalised
connexion, her pregnancy would not be a frightful aggrava
tion? I appeal to him, whether any innocent preventive
which shall save her from a situation that must soon disclose
all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of charity, of
philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair,
and her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frow£
upon the question, but to the father it comes home; and.,
• Jesus said unto her,“ Neither do I condemn thee.”—viii. 11
�moral physiology.
37
whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the
soundness and the force of the argument it conveys.
*
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will
still demur to the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell
me, as the Committee of a certain Society in this city lately
did, that the power of preventing conceptions “ holds out
inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their
daughters, their sisters, and their wives.
* What is the actual state of society in Great Britain, and even in thii
republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy, should so
fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction, a simple, moral, effectual
check to population? Are her sons all chaste and temperate, and her
daughters all passionless and pure ? I might disclose, if I would, in this
very city of New York—and in our neighbor city of Philadelphia—
scenes and practices that have come to light from time to time, and that
would furnish no very favorable answer to the question. I might ask,
whether all the houses of assignation in these two cities are frequented
b y the known profligate alone ? or, whether some of the most outwardly
respectable fathers—ay, mothers of families—have not been found in
resorts frequented and supported only by “ good society’'’ like them
selves ?
As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence delivered before
a “ Committee of the House of Commons, on Laborers’ Wages,” by
Mr. Henry Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large land-owner, in
the county of Surry, in which the following question and answer occur
Q. “ What is the practice you allude to of forcing marriages ?” A. “ I
believe nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws
tend to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being
married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking
place throagh a calculation for future support.” Mr. Drummond’s
assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses; and
from what I have myself learnt in conversation with some of the chief
manufacturers of England, I am convinced, that the statement, as regards
the working population in the chief manufacturing districts, is scarcely
exaggerated.
I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling Hospital
in Dublin now stands, formerly went by the name of “ Murderer’s
Lane,” from the number of ch-’’d murders that were perpetrated in the
vicinity.
I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, that,
even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are not unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, in public,
would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book.
But why multiply proofs? The records of every court of justice, nay,
the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing room, sufficiently marks the
leal character of this prudish and p'narisaical world.of ours.
t See Letter of the Gommittee of the Typographical Socletv ‘ib Robert
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
38
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their
daughters, a poor compliment!
Is, then, this vaunted
chastity a mere thing of circumstance and occasion ? Is
there but the difference of opportunity between it and prosti
tution ? Would their wives, their sisters, and their daugh
ters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, become
prostitutes—sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a
level with the most degraded? In truth, they slander their
own kindred; they libel their own wives, sisters, and
daughters. If they spoke truth—if fear were indeed the only
safeguard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I
place on a virtue like that I and small would I esteem his
offence, who should attempt or seduce it.
*
Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of the 29th of
September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 9th of Oqfepber,
1830.
For a statement of the circumstances connected with that letter, and
which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the present treatise,
see Preface to the New York edition.
* I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what
principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow out of a fear of
offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution would follow.
I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be supposed careful
to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can be assigned ; but a
wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal
cause ; and a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whe
ther the true cause be assigned or not. This safeguard to married
chastity, therefore, to which the gentlemen of the Typographical Com
mittee seem to look with so implicit a confidence, is a mere broken reed ;
and has been so ever since the days of Bathsheba.
Yet conjugal chastity is that which is especially valued. The incon
stancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dishonor of a
sister. In that case, then, which the world usually considers of the
highest importance, the fear of offspring imposes no check whatever. It
cannot make one iota of difference whether a married woman be knowing
in physiology or not; except perhaps, indeed, to the husbands advan
tage ; in cases where the wife’s conscience induces her at least to guard
against the possibility of burthening her legal lord with the care and sup
port of children that are not his. Constancy, where it actually exists, is
the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance. And if in
the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something else, why not in all
other cases, where constraint may be considered desirable ? Shall men
trust in the greater, and fear to trust in the less? Whatever any one
may choose to assert regarding his relatives’ secret inclinations to pro
fligacy, these arguments may convince him, that if he have any safeguard
at present, a perusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it.
’Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, should be
�M01UL PHYSIOLOGY.
39
That chastity which is worth preserving is not Ihc chastity
that owes its birth to fear and ignorance. If to enlighten a
woman regarding a simple physiological fact will make her
a prostitute, she must be especially predisposed to profli' gacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few, indeed, there are,
, who would continue so miserable and degrading a calling could they escape from it. For one prostitute that is made
by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws
—equalize the comforts of society, and you need withhold no
knowledge from your wives and daughters. It is want, not
knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daughter,
or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should
be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate to them all
I knew myself: and I should hold it an insult to their under
standings and their hearts to imagine, that their virtue would
diminish as their knowledge increased. Would we but trust
human nature, instead of continually suspecting it, and
guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make it very
chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world
we should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly
plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to
be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven ; of
precarious growth ; and even if at last artificially matured, of
little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to
withhold from their children, especially from their daughters,
facts the most influential on their future lives, and the know
ledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well
being. Such a course has ever appeared to me ill-judged
and productive of very injurious effects. A girl is surely no
whit tlie better for believing, until her marriage night, that
■ children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden
The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on
the stretch ; and that which, if simply explained, would have
been recollected only as any other physiological phenome
non, assumes alf the rank and importance and engrossing
interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well convinced, that mere
Curiosity has often led ignorant young people into situations,
from which a little more confidence and openness on the part
of their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured
| them.
willing thus to vilify their relatives’ character and motives, without first
carefully examining whether any thing was gained to theii cause, after
all, by the ’'i'Pic-uion
�•A
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was
taught and believed that all the imaginations and all the
thoughts of man are only evil continually, when it was
deemed right and proper to secure the submission of the
mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to
read and write—in those days, it was all very well to shut up
the physiological page, and tell us, that on the day we read
therein we should surely die. But those times are past. In
this nineteenth century men and women read, think, discuss,
inquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter days, there
is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of knowledge
and of free inquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We
cannot prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we
would ; we ought not, even if we could.
This book will make its way through the whole United
States. Curiosity and the notoriety which has already been
given to the subject, will suffice at first to obtain for it cir
culation. The practical importance of the subject it treats
will do the rest. It needed but some one to start the stone;
its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.
But, if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why
should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No man
thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels certain that
bis virtue can stand any degree of knowledge. And is it not
the height of egregious presumption in each to imagine that
his neighbor is so much weaker than himself, and requires a
bandage which he can do without? Most of all, it is pre
sumptuous to suppose, that that knowledge which the man
of the world can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young
and lhe pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that
suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. Speak
to them openly. Show them that yot- respect them, by
treating them with confidence; and they will quickly learn
to respect and to govern themselves. Enlist their pride
in your behalf; and you will soon see them make it their
boast and their highest pleasure to merit your confidence.
But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but once,
and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as
long as bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The
world was never made for a prison-house; it is too large
and ill-guarded : nor were parents ever intended for gaol
keepers ; their very affections unfit them for the task.
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family
among whom there are no secrets and no reserves ; where
the young people confide every thing to their elder friends—
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
for such to them arc their parents—and whine the parents
trust every thing to their children; where each thought is
communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge
given as simply as it is received. If the world contain a
prototype of That Paradise, where nature is said to have
known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family. And if •'
there be a serpent that can poison the innocence of its in- 5
mates, that serpent is Suspicion,
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and
companion of young beings whose innocence shall speak to
me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; of young beings
who shall never imagine that there is guilt in their thoughts,
or sin in their confidence ; and to whom, in return, I may
impart every important and useful «fact that is known to
myself. Their virtue should be of that hardy growth, which
all facts tend to nourish and strengthen.
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human
nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accordance
with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it to them,
whether they have not felt themselves encouraged, improved,
strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when they were
generously trusted, and whether they have not felt abashed
and degraded when they were suspiciously watched, and
spied after, and kept in ignorance. If they find such feelings
in their own hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine,
that they only can be won by generosity, or that the nature
of their fellow-creatures is different from their own.
There are other considerations connected with this subject,
which farther attest the social advantages of the control I
advocate. Human affections are mutable, and the sincerest
of mortal resolutions may change.
*
Every day furnishes
instances of alienations, and of separattons; sometimes
almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In such
cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable
that there should be offspring; and the power of refraining
from becoming parents until intimacy had, in a measure,
established the likelihood of permanent harmony of view
and feelings, will be confessed to be advantageous.
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to
* Le premier serment que se firent deux etres de chair, se fut au
ied d’un rocher, qui tombait en poussiere; ils attesterent de leur conpance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le meme: tout passait en eux, et
stutour d’eux ; et ils croyaient leurs coeurs affranchis de vicissitudes. O
afaiise a’, touiours enfans! —Diderot Jacques et son Maitre.
t
�42
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this little treatise, permit me not to meet every argument in
detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If
the world were not actually afraid to think freely or to listen
io the suggestions of common sense, three fourths of what
has already been said would be superfluous for most of
;
*
the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any
rational being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a
measure, every thing to learn on this and other moral sub
jects. The world seems to me much to resemble a company
of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful repast, first very
punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under sanction
of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with im
punity ; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin.
So it is with popular customs and popular morality. Every
thing is permitted, if external forms be but respected. Le
gal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned excess no
profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the form, the
virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its
head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so
he knows how to avoid the penitentiary and escape the
gallows. In like manner, the world seldom thinks it worth
while to enquire whether a man be temperate or intemperate,
prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform
itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox require
ments ; and, if he does, all is right. Thus men too often
learn to consider an oath an absolution from all subsequent
decencies and duties, and a full release from all after re
sponsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,, the offence is
venal: for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an
honest vfoman.” If a married father neglect his children,,
it is a trifle ; for grace was regularly said, before they were
born.
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to
throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings,
and much of the indifference and carelessness of each others’
feelings that are exhibited in married life, might be traced to
the almost universal custom (in this country, though not in
France) of man and wife continually occupying the same
bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too fre
quent familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms
and pleasures, and diminish the respectful regard and defer
ence, which ought ever to characterize the intercourse or
□uman beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things
Jo forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky
�43
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
ideaas this, ten to one the married portion of the community
would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent inter
meddler in their most legitimate rights and prerogatives.
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason.
After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me
short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be
right and proper, that we should reproduce our species with
out calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether
nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the
thermometer is at 96, we should drink greedily of cold
water, and drop down dead in the streets ? Let the world
be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities,
she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that,
when we hesitate to exercise that power, we descend to a
level with the brute creation, and become the sport of for
tune—the mere slaves of circumstance.
*
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while
to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to
excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recom
mend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where chil
dren cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man;
since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might pro
vide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all ought
to be so circumstanced ; but all are not. And there would
be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man go and take
by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbor’s
store, because he ought to be able to purchase it, as to en
courage him to go on producing children, because he ought
to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every
nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results
from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so,
let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which
grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden
on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and
Ignorance the next.
* Some German poet, whose name has escaped me, says,
“ Tapfer ist der Lowensieger,
Tapfer ist der Weltbezwinger,
.
Tapferer, wer sich selbst bezwang!”
u
<f Brave is the lion victor,
Brave the conqueror of a world,
Braver he who controls himself!”
It ia a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present discussion-
�44
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the va
rious arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect
how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected
with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind,
that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important
that we should know how to control and govern it; that,
when we oblain such control, we may save ourselves, and
what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our com
panions and our offspring, from suffering or misery ; that, by
such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions,
instead of becoming profligate or ascetics; that, by it, early
marriage is deprived of its heaviest, consequences, and seduc
tion of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from
moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor: that by it
the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead
of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all
this, and then let them say, whether the possession of such
control be not a blessing to man.
,______ _
•
,, ffniUitiia. ot buoni
-id joun«o rroib
<■', H-. rmi-:
CHAPTER VI.
/
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNECTION
WITH PHYSIOLOGY.
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of
obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak
of its practicability.
As, in this world, the value of labor is too often estimated
almost in proportion to its inutility; so, in physical science,
contested questions seem to have attracted attention and en
gaged research, almost in the inverse ratio of their practical
importance. We have a hundred learned hypotheses for one
decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands of
volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as
many dozens to record ascertained facts.
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the sub
ject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories of genera
tion which ancient and modern physiologists have put forth.
I shall not inquire whether the future human being owes its
first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen assert, and Buffon
very ingeniously supports, to the union of two life-giving
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
45
fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent, and!
composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring;
or whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposea
in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps
only by the aura seminalis: or whether, according to the
theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future man
first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which the ovum,
becomes merely the nourishing receptacle, or whether,, as
the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more
correct hypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will
have it, the embryo beings (too wondex fully organized’
*
to be supposed the production of any mere physical phe
nomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the hands
of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these
little germs, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the ani
mal functions, but still self-existent, and awaiting only
the insinuation of some subtle essence into their microscopic
pores, to come forth as human beings. Still less am I
inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their
inquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the
foetus, or pre-exists in the semen, and becomes, as it were,
the architect of its future residence, the body; f or to attempt
a refutation of the hypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist, J
who asserts, (and adduces the infinite indivisibility of matter
in support of the assertion,) that the actual germs of the
whole human race, and of all that are yet to be born, existed
in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty
other hypotheses, as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed
by those who seem to make it a point of honor to leave no
fact unexplained by some imagined theory ; and come at
once to positive experience and actual observation.
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not
spend some small portion of the time and industry which,
has been wasted on theoretical research, in collecting and
collating the actual experience of human beings. But this
task, too difficult for the ignorant, has generally been
thought too simple and common-place for the learned. To
* See “ Histoire de l’Academie des Sciences,” for the year 1679,
page 279.
t Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is outrage
ous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on diet, he tells us,
“ Si quis non credat animam, anima misceri, demens est” TertulliaO
tvarmly supports the orthodoxy of this opinion.
| Bonner, I believe.
�46
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not thought
fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate
their personal experience on the important subject now
under consideration—to these causes are attributable the
great and otherwise unaccountable ignorance which so
strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men, as
to the power which man may possess over the reproductive
instinct. Some physicians deny that man possesses any such
power. And yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and
research had been employed to investigate this momentous
fact, which has been turned to the building up of idle
theories, no commonly intelligent individual would be igno
rant of the truth.
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the
most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on
this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not per
mit them to offer publicly in their works ;) and they all con
cur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation
positively proves, that man may have a complete control over
this instinct; and that men and women may, without injury
to health, or violence to the moral feelings, and with very
little diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the grati
fication of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents.
It has chanced to me, also, to gain the confidence of several
individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve,
their own experience ; and all this has been corroborative of
the same opinion.
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively to the de
tails of a subject, which will then only be fully understood
when men acquire sense enough simply and unreservedly
to discuss it, I may venture to assure my readers, that the
main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such facts in
proof of this as may occur to me in the course of the inves
tigation.
However various and contradictory the different theories
of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, that the
entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile particles
proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first suggested the possibi
lity of preventing conception at will.
Among the modes of preventing conception which may
have prevailed in various countries, that which has been
adopted, and is now practised, by the cultivated classes on
the continent of Europe, by the French the Italians and I
!
*
■
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
47
Relieve, by the Germans and Spaniards, consists of complete
Withdrawal, on the part of the man, immediately previous to
emission. This is, in all cases, effectual. It may be objected,
that the practice requires a mental effort and a partial sacri
fice. I reply, that, in France, where men consider this, (as
it ought ever to be considered, when the interests of the other
sex require it,) a point of honor—ally oung men learn to make
the necessary effort; and custom renders it easy and a matter
J of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trifling (and it is but a
very trifling) diminution of physical enjoyment be suflered
to outweigh the most important considerations connected
with the permanent welfare of those who are the nearest and
dearest to us? Shall it be suffered to outweigh the risk of
incurring heavy and sacred responsibilities, ere we are pre
pared to fulfil them ? Shall it be suffered to outweigh a regard
for the comfort, the well-being—in some cases, the life, of
those whom we profess to love? The most selfish will hesitate
deliberately to reply, in the affirmative, to such questions as
these. A cultivated young Frenchman, instructed as he is,
even from his infancy, carefully to consult, on all occasions,
the wishes, and punctiliously to care for the comfort and wel
fare, of the gentler sex, would learn, almost with incredulity,
that, in other countries, there are men to be found, pretend
ing to cultivation, who were less scrupulously honorable on
this point than himself. You could not offer him a greater
insult than to presuppose the possibility of his forgetting
himself so far as thus to put his own momentary gratification,
for an instant, in competition with the wish or the well-being
of any one to whom he professed regard or affection.
I know it will be argued, that men in the mass are not
I sufficiently moral to adopt this recommendation; because they
will not make any voluntary sacrifice of animal enjoyment,
however trifling. I do not see that. Hundreds of voluntary
* A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes, would as soon bear
to be called a coward, as to be accused of causing the pregnancy of a
woman who did not desire it ■, and that, too, whether the matrimonial
’ law had given him legal rights over her person or not. Such an imputa
tion, if substantiated, would shut him out for ever from all decent society ;
and most properly so. It is a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated
as such.
When we begin to look to genuine morality, instead of empty or onenk fcve forms, these are the principle, of honor we shall implant in our chil
dren’s minds : and then we shall have a world of courtesy and kindneSF^
instead of a scene of legal outrage, or hypocritical profession.
�48
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
sacrifices are daily made to fashion—to public opiniou. Let
but public opinion bear on this point in other countries, as it
does among the more enlightened classes in France, and
similar effects will be produced.
The matter is a trifle. The mere act of animal satisfaction,
counts with any man of commonly cultivated feelings, as but
a small item in the aggregate of enjoyment which satisfied
affection aifords; and, surely, whether that act be at ali
times attended with the utmost degrees of physica pleasure
or not, must, even with the felfish, be a secondary and unim
portant consideration. His moral sentiments must be espe
cially weak or uncultivated, who will not admit, that it is the
gratification of the social feelings—the repose of the affec
tions—which, at all times, constitutes the chief charm of
human intercourse.
The least injurious among the present checks to popula
tion, celibacy, is a mortification of the affections, a violence
done to the social feelings, sometimes a sacrifice even of the
health. Not one of these objections can be urged to the
trifling restraint proposed.
As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being
unnatural, it is just as unnatural, and no more so, than to
refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps,
more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells
us is enough, while inclination bids us drink a quart. All
thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense,
be called unnatural; it is not, however, oft-time the less pru
dent and proper, on that account. Then, too, if this trifling re
straint is to be called unnatural, what shall we say of celibacy ?
As to the practical efficacy of this simple preventive, the
experience of France, where it is extensively practised,
might suffice in proof. I know, at this moment, several
married persons who have told me, that, after having had
as many children as they thought prudent, they hail for years
employed this check, with perfect success. For the satisfaction
of my readers, I will select one particular instance.
I knew personally and intimately for many years, a young ,
man of strict honour, in whose sincerity I ever placed confi- 1
dence, and who confided to me the particulars of his situation. ■,
He was just entering on life, with slender means, and his I
circumstances forbade him to have a large family of chil
dren. He, therefore, having consulted his young wife, prac
tised this restraint, I believe for about eighteen months, and
with perfect success. At the expiration of that period, theij
situation being more favourable, they resolved to become
�MOKAL PHYSioluGY.
4.9
parents; and, in a fortnight after, the wife found herself
pregnant. My friend told me, that though he felt the partial
privation a little at first, a few weeks’ habit perfectly re
conciled him to it; and that nothing but a deliberate con
viction that he might prudently now become a parent,
and a strong desire on his wife’s part to have a child, in
duced him to alter his first practice. I believe I was the
only one among his friends to whom he ever communicated
the real state of the case; and I doubt not there are, even
in this cotf-^try, hundreds of similar cases which the world
never learns any thing about. Hence the doubts and igno
rance which exist on the subject.
I add another instance. A short time since, a respectable
and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five
years of a<re, who resides west of the mountains, called at
our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and
I expressed to him my conviction, that this check was effec
tual. He told me he could speak from personal experience.
He had married young, and soon had three children. These
he could support in comfort, without running into debt or
*
difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neigh
bourhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a
large family. In _ .'sequence, he and his wife determined to
limit their offspring to three. They havo accordingly em
ployed the above check for seven or eight years; have had
no more children; and have been rewarded for their pru
dence by finding their situation and prospects improving
every year. He confirmed an opinion I have already ex
pressed, by stating, that custom completely reconciled him
to anv slig1,i privation he might at first have felt. I asked
him, whether his neighbors generally followed the same
practice. H" replied, that he could not tell; for he had not
thought it prudent to speak with any but his own relations on
the subject, one or two of whom, he knew, had profited by his
advice, and afterwards expressed to him their gratitude for
the important information.
It is unnecessary farther to multiply instances. The fact
that this check is in common practice, and known to be effi
cacious, in France, is alone sufficient evidence of its practi
cability and safety.
I can readily imagine, that there are men, wSo, in parr
from temperament, but much more from the continued habit
of unrestrained indulgence, may have so little command
over their passions, as to find difficulty in practising it; and
some, it may be, who will declare it to be impossible. If any
D
�50
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
there be to whom itzs impossible, (which I very much doubt,
I am at least convinced that the number is exceedingly small;
not a fiftieth part of those who may at first imagine such to be
their case.
I may add, that partial withdrawal is not an infallible pre
ventive of conception.
Other modes of prevention have been employed. I have
selected this, because I judge it to be at once the most simple,
and the most efficacious. Those who have employed it for
ys»ars, seem to concur in the opinion that it. is, as regards its
influence on health, innocent: it has even been said to
*
produce on the human system an influence similar to that of
temperance in diet; but this I doubt. As regards any moral
impropriety in its use, enough methinks has already been said,
to convince all except those who will not be convinced, that
to employ it, in all cases where prudence or the well-being
of our companions requires it, is an act of practical virtue.
It may be said, and said truly, that this check places the
power chiefly in the hands of the man, and not, where it
ought to be, in those of the woman. She, who is the sufferer,
is not secured against the culpable carelessness, or perhaps
the deliberate selfishness, of him who goes free and unblamed
whatever may happen. To this, the reply is, that the best and
only effectual defence for women is to refuse connexion with
any man void of honor. An (almost omnipotent) public opinion
would thus be speedily formed: one of immense moral utility,
by means of which the man’s social reputation would be
placed, as it should be, in the keeping of women, whose
moral tact and nice discrimination in such matters is far
superior to ours. How mighty and beneficent the power
which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and
rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extir* Experience, extensive and carefully recorded, can alone verify, as
in a matter so important ought to be verified, the opinion here expressed
touching the innocence to health of the preventive recommended. No
one is justified in speaking positively on such a subject, until he has
accumulated a greater mass of facts than I, or perhaps any other indi
vidual, have yet had the means of ascertaining. The subject once
agitated, such facts will gradually come to light. <n the mean time let
us bear in mind, that the truth and importance of th abstract principle
*
rest not on the accuracy of the physiological items here adduced. A
preventive check to population is a thing in itself good and desirable, or
it is the reverse. If good and desirable, men and women will ultimately
perceive it to be so, and will search and experiment until they discover
what practice is best. Of this, as of other branches of physical science,
time alone can elucidate and substantiate the details.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
51
pation of those selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now dis
grace and brutify our species, it is difficult even to imagine.
In the silent, but resistless progress of human im
provement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We
are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and
of brute force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated
refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to
benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the
spirit of justice : and, day by day, men and women become
more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred
duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and
less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no
human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or how
rapidly it may come, is a question ; and depends, in some
degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should this little
book prove one among the number of circumstances to ac
celerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be
repaid, ten times over, for the trifling labor it has cost
him.
In conclusion, it may be useful to state to the reader the
following facts. A knowledge of this and other checks to
population has been, for many years, extensively disseminated
in most of the populous towns in Great Britain by hundreds
of thousands ofhand-bills which were gratuitously distributed
from benevolent motives. The men who were first instru mental
in making them known in England are all elderly men,fathers
of families of children grown up to be men and women ; men
of unquestioned integrity and moral character; many of them
men of science, and some of them known as the first political
economists of the age. Beside the allusion to thesubjectalready
given from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is adverted to in
Place’s “ Illustrations of the principles of Population;” in Mill’s
“ Elements of Political Economy in Thompson’s “ Distri
bution of Wealth,” and probably in other works with which
I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly) broach ed in
several English newspapers, and was preached in lectur es to
the laboring classes, by a benevolent man, at Leeds. I do
not believe the subject has ever been touched upon, ex
cept by men of irreproachable moral character, and gene
rally of high standing in society. The chief difference
between this little treatise, and the allusions made by the
distinguished authors above mentioned, is, that what public
opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture to say
plainly.
~
D 2
�52
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the
facts I have stated. Though, in the present state of public
opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof,
yet it is evident that I can have no motive whatever to mislead
or deceive. I shall consider it a favor if any individuals who
can adduce, from personal experience, facts connected with
this subject, will communicate them to me.
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “ Esquisse des
progres de I’esprit humain,” -very distinctly alludes to the safety and
facility with which population might be restrained, “ if reason should
but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of
superstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity cor
rupting and degrading, not purifying or elevating.” See his Esquisse,
pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822. Malthus (see his “ Essays on Popu
lation,’' Book III. chap. 1.) “professes not to understand the French
philosopher.” No Frenchman could misunderstand him.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
That most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets
chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly temperate satisfac
tion, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural
to all healthy adult beings. In this sense chastity is the first
of virtues, and one most rarely practised, either by young
*
men or by married persons, even when the latter most scru
pulously conform to the letter of the law.
*
The promotion of such chastity is the chief object of tne
present work. It is all-important for the welfare of our
race, that the reproductive instinct should never be selfishly
indulged ; never gratified at the expense of the well-being of
our companions. A man who, in this matter, will not con
sult, with scrupulous deference, the slightest wishes of the
other sex ; a man who will ever put his desires in competi
tion with theirs, and who will prize more highly the pleasure
lie receives than that he may be capable of bestowing—such
a man, appears to me, in the essentials of character, a brute.
* My father, Robert Owen’s definition of chastity is also an excellent
and an important one: “PROSTITUTION, Sexual intercourse without
affection: CHASTITY, Sexual intercourse with affection.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
53
The brutes commonly seek the satisfaction of their propen
sities with straight-forward selfishness, and never calculate
whether their companions are gratified or teased by their im
portunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely
to theirs than by imitating them in this.
Again. There is no instinct in regard to which strict tem
perance is more essential. All our animal desires have
hitherto occupied an undue share of human thoughts; but
none more generally than this. The imaginations of the young
and the passions of the adult are inflamed by mystery or
excited by restraint, and a full half of all the thoughts and
intrigues of the world has a direct reference to this single
instinct. Even those who, like the Shakers, “ crucify the
flesh,” are not the less occupied by it in their secret thoughts;
as the Shaker writings themselves may afford proof. Neither
human institutions nor human prejudices can destroy the
instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content ration
ally to control and wisely to regulate it.
It is a question of passing importance, IIow may it Dest
he regulated?” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity.
Assuredly not by the world’s favorite regulator, ignorance.
No. Do we wish to bring this instinct under easy govern
ment, and to assign it only its due rank among human senti
ments ? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise
the body, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human
being. What is it gives to passion its sway, and to desires
their empire, now ? It is vacancy of mind; it is listlessness
of body ; it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual;
a hardy race are seldom love-sick ; an industrious race have
no time to be sentimental. Develope the moral sentiments,
and they will govern the physical instincts. Occupy the
mind and body usefully, intellectually ; and the propensities
will obtain that care and time only which they merit. Upon
any other principle we may doctor poor human nature for
ever, and shall only prove ourselves empirics in the end.
Mortifications, vestal vows, mysteries, bolts and bars, prud
ish prejudices—these are all quack-medicines; and are only
calculated to prostrate lhe strength and spirits, or to heighten
the fever, of the patient. If we will dislodge error and pas
sion, we must replace them by something better. They say
that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. Least of all can it exist
in the human mind. Empty it of one folly, cure it of one
vice, and another flows in to fill the vacancy, unless it find it
already occupied by intellectual exorcise and common sense
�54
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
Husbands and fathers! study Franklin’s definition of chas
tity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on the
stretch to watch and guard: reflect whether it be not pleasan
ter and better, to enlighten and trust.
Honest ascetics ! you have striven to mortify the flesh;
ask yourselves whether it be not wiser to control it. You have
sought to crucify the body ; consider whether it be not more
effectual to cultivate the mind.
Have you succeeded mi
spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not, inquire whether
every human propensity, duly governed, be not a benefit and
a blessing to the nature in which it is inherent.
Human beings, of whatever sex or class I examine dispas
sionately and narrowly the influence which the control here
recommended will produce throughout society. Reflect
whether it will not lighten the burdens of one sex, while it
affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of the other.
Decide whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating;
conducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the per
manent welfare of the human race.
�APPENDIX
TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
Reception of the Work by the Public. Opinion of a talented Author. Opinion
of a Physician and Professor. Letter from a Mechanic. The work never in
tended as a political panacea. Transmission of hereditary disease. Letter on
the subject. Letter from a French gentleman. Physiological argument in fa
vor of temperance. Experience of two members of the Society of Fri ends
Objection of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them
Weighty objections. Suggestion in a letter from Manchester.
New-York, June 25, 1831
Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication of
“ Moral Physiology
and already I am called upon to pre
pare a fifth edition. If I am pleased (as what author is not) to
see that my labors are appreciated by the public, I am also
reminded of the additional obligations I lie under, to render the
little treatise as complete and as free from error and inaccuracy
as possible.
I have therefore carefully revised the work, and made such
amendments as have suggested themselves during these seven
months. And as, in the course of that time, I have received a mul
titude of communications (some verbal.but chiefly by letter) on ths
subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of Appendix,
such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, as seem
<.0 me interesting and useful.
I expected much opprobrium from the work ; and have been
not a , little surprised to find my expectations agreeably dis
�APPENDIX.
56
appointed. Never, in my life, have I written any thing that so
nearly united the suffrages of all whose opinion I care for, or
which has been suffered to spread more quietly by our opponents.
Jn this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they abused it, it
might have been the Appendix to the twentieth, not to the fifth,
edition I should now be writing.
The sentiments of approval which have reached me from vari
ous quarters, have, in the expressive language of the Old Book,
“ strengthened my hands and encouraged my heart;” for,
though the world’s opinion be worth little, there are individualsin
it whose opinion is worth much; and though a consciousness of
rectitude may support a man against all opinions, yet it is plea
sant to find, now and then, in one’s progress, concurrent senti
ments from those we esteem.
I imagine that it may afford similar encouragement, in a de
gree, to any of my readers who may chance to approve what they
read, if I quote for them a few of these opinions. I begin by se
lecting for the purpose two, which come from men both known to
me, as to the American public, only by their writings. Could I
give the names of the writers, these w ould be sufficient to secure
for their opinions a weight which no anonymous sentiments can
obtain. But, in the present state of public opinion, I do not feel
myself at liberty to do so. My readers must therefore be content
to take my word for it, that both the writers are gentlemen who
nave displayed in their works talents of a high order, and whose
personal acquaintance I should highly value.
I extract from the first letter the following:
“ I am greatly obliged to you for sending me your ‘ Moral Phy
siology.’ I have read it with pleasure and instruction. I see not
why you should anticipate censure, from any quarter, for its pub
lication. It contains no sentiment or doctrine which strikes me
unfavorably, or which any person could wish suppressed. Had
the same thoughts occurred to me, I should have entertained
them, and possibly published them, without the least suspicion of
offence to delicacy or good morals.
“ I fully concur with you, that truth can do the world no harm.
Nor do I doubt that he would be deemed a benefactor, (even an
exceedingly great benefactor,) who can teach man how to limit
his powers of reproduction without abridging his enjoyments.”
Again, the same correspondent says :
“ The value of the pow'er to limit offspring is, I think, very se
parable from any theory which involves consequences arising from
�APPENDIX.
67
the extent of population which the earth can sustain. The liini.
tation is a matter which concerns the present comfort of indivu
duals, in their private capacity; while the extent of the earth’
ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts of speculatists and
politicians. I say this, because I am not troubled by the spectre
of Malthus.”
This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical
view of the subject. The political economy of the question ought
ever to be kept separate from its moral bearings. The conse
quences involved by the former, are distant, and may be called
theoretical; while those resulting from the latter, are immediate,
and of daily recurrence in practice. If there were no tendency
whatever in the human race to increase beyond its present num
bers, the question would still be one of vital interest, and the con
sequences it involves would still be of surpassing importance to
man in his social and domestic relations. The more I reflect on
the subject, the more thoroughly convinced I am, that man can
never attain to any thing like social cultivation, without a know
ledge of the means to limit, at pleasure and without much sacri
fice of enjoyment, his power of reproduction. And I cannot but
think, that all who have seen much of the civilised world, and
carefully traced out the various causes of the vices and miseries
that pervade it, will, upon reflection, concur with me in the
opinion.
The second writer of whom I spoke (an eminent physician and
professor) says:
“ I have received your ‘ Moral Physiology.’ Your boldness
and independence are entitled to great respect. It is a very im
portant question, and ought to be brought forward, that the pub
lic opinion concerning it may be based on the only proper ground,
full and free and patient public discussion. Your method of hand
ling the subject I approve. Place, the political economist, sug
gests the remedy more boldly than any other.”
The next communication from which I shall copy is from a
young man of excellent character, living in a neighbouring state,
and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After sug
gesting to me the propriety of re-publishing some English works
now out of print, he proceeds as follows :
“-------- , February 23, 1831.
Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should
nnt have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of approba
tion, due to your last work ; but I cannot let slip this opportunity
�58
APPENDIX.
of endeavouring to express how much I feel indebted to you for
its publication.
“ To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should
also know something of my situation in life : and when it is de
scribed, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of
the journeymen mechanics of this country.
“ I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of
two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own in
dustry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look
forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect
of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevi
table lot of the generality of working men. Under these circum
stances, I saw W. Jackson’s article in the Delaware Free Press •
but my feelings as a freeman (nominally) revolted at it, and I
must say that I felt greatly pleased when I found that his’ system
did not meet your approbation. You had spoken upon the sub
ject, but, like the Nazarene Reformer, you spoke in parables.
‘ Every Woman’s Book’ I could not see ; and, had not Dr. Gibbons afforded me an example of how much you might be misre
presented, I might have been tempted to believe the slanders cir
culated regarding you.
“ I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their
own course, when your ‘ Moral Physiology’ made its appearance.
“ I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open be
fore me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free
agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could
have said to you, as Selim said to Hassan,
‘ Thou’st hewed a mountain’s weight from off my heart.
*
My visions of poverty and future distress vanished ; the present
seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared no
longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I can
describe, the revolution of my feelings.
“ I have since endeavoured to circulate the little book as
widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue to
do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made its
appearance since the publication of Paine’s ‘ Common Sense
and convinced that, by so doing, I shall render you the most
acceptable return, in my power to make, for the benefit you have
conferred upon me as an individual
G.”
The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, I have
selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas ! a rare, ex
�APPENDIX.
59
ample, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to inipar‘
existence, where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary
to render that existence happy
“----------- , March 23, 1831.
*
% “ I use no meat, unless eggs may be considered such; I drink
neither tea, coffee, nor any thing more exciting than milk and
water; and, like yourself, I am fully satisfied, having no craving
after the luxuries of the table. With regard to ‘ Moral Physio
*
logy, let the following facts speak :
** I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan.
When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly for
the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a
good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The check spoken
of in your book (withdrawal) presented itself to my mind. And
for seven years that I have now been married, lhave continued to
practise it. I was successful in business, and acquired the means
of maintaining a family; but still I have refrained, because my
constitution is such an one as I think a parent ought not to transmit
to his offspring. I prefer refraining from giving birth to sentient
beings, unless I can give them those advantages, physical as well
as moral and intellectual, which are essential to human happiness.
“ One thing I have observed, that since I have adopted a simple
diet, and laid by all artificial stimuli, not only is my health better
and my mind more clear, but I can abstain, at will, without in
jury or inconvenience, from sexual connexion for any length of
time;’ and this without having, in the least, lost any power in
that respect.
T.”
* We applaud as a marvel, the continence of Scipio. Such continence—and
amid circumstances far more trying—is habitually found (under no other re
straint than that of public opinion) among the native Indians of our continentA friend of mine, whose family was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians some
fifty years ago, informed me, that four young women (two of them of considera
ble beauty) who were made prisoners on that occasion, were not once, during a
residence of several years, addressed, even with the remotest degree of sexual im
portunity, by an Indian, old or young, though living with them in the same wig
wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related this
fact to me; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were sa
vages.
4 How common would be such 'virtue among ourselves, but for the artificial
Stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which custom and Jaw make prevalent amonv
as.
R. D. O.
�60
APPENDIX.
From the letter of in aged French gentleman, who holds a
public office in the western country, I translate the following •
and I would that every young man and woman in these United
States could read it:
•‘I have read your little work with much interest, and desire
that it may have a wide circulation, and that its recommendations
may be adopted in practice. If you publish a third edition, I
could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the greatest
importance, especially to young married persons. Many women
are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the reproductive instinct
the exhaustion to the man is much greater than to the woman:
a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of which has
caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his life.
Tissot tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to that
by forty ounces of blood ; and that in the case of the healthiest
*
man, nature does not demand connexion oftener than once a
month.!
“ How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly
and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would
watch over and and preserve their partners’ healths, instead of
exciting them to over-indulgence 1
“ I send you a copy of Italian verses,; appropriate, like the
German stanza you have quoted in your work, to the above re
marks :
(
* Merta gli allori al crine
Chi scende in campo arinato,
• This of course must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, than
of accurate calculation.
r. d. O.
F- t And I doubt whether she permits it without more or less injury, to the average
of constitutions, oftener than once a week. I am convinced that atty young man who
will carefully note and compare his sensations, will become convinced, that tem
perance forbids such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice a week; and
that he trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. How immea
surably important that parents should communicate to their sons, but especially
to their daughters, facts like these!
t For the English reader, 1 have attempted the following imitation of the above
lines:
Crown his brows with laurel wreath,
Who can tread the field* of death—
�6h
APPENDIX.
Chi a cento squadre a late,
Impallidir non sa:
Ma pih gloria ha nel fronte
Chi, alia ragion soggetto,
D’un sconsigliato affetto
Trionfator si ft.
I extract the following from my journal:
“ A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called
at our office; he informed me that he had been married twenty
years, had six children, and would probably have had twice as
many, had he not practised withdrawal, which he found, in every
instance efficacious. By this means he made an interval of two
or three years between the births of each of his children. Hav
ing at last a family of six, his wife earnestly desired to have no
more ; and on one occasion, when she imagined that the necessary
precautions bad been neglected, she shed tears at the prospect of
again becoming pregnant. He said he knew, in his own neigh
bourhood, several married women who were rendered miserable
on account of their continued pregnancy, and would have given
any thing in the world to escape, but knew not how.”
This gentleman corroborated the opinion I have suggested
(page 50,) that the habit of withdrawal had an influence similar
to that of temperance in diet. Ke had found it, he said, much less
exhausting than unrestrained indulgence.
Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friend^,
has since confirmed to me (as a fact proved to him by personal
experience) the above opinion. He likewise expressed his con
viction that the habit was greatly conducive to the preservation
of those first, fresh feelings, so beautiful, and, alas ! so evanes
cent,) under which the married usually come together.
.1
Tread—with armed thousands near—
And know not what it is to fear.
But greater far his meed of praise,
luster his claim to glory’s bays,
Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call,
Conquers himself, the noblest need of all.
R. D. O..
�APPENDIX.
In reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria
*
pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years
6ince, and which pathological derangement he thinks was attri
butable to the habit of withdrawal, I reply, that the confurrent testimony of all who can speak from experience on the
subject, disproves not of course the fact he cites, but the propriety
of attributing the effect produced to the cause in question. Pria
pism, it is well known, is frequently caused by sexual excess ; and
was probably so caused in the case alluded to. Such excess is
much less likely to take place, when withdrawal is practised, than
during unrestrained indulgence.
It now remains for me to notice a communication which I re
cently received from a medical gentleman residing iu Indiana, for
whose character I entertain much respect. It regards the phy
siological portion of the work, which the writer, Dr. S----- -, thinks
is altogether inaccurate.
He refers me to Burns’, Denman’s, and Dewee’s Midwifery,
and especially to an essay by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania
University, on Generation, in proof that all are not agreed that
the semen must enter the uterus in order to effect impregnation.
He instances a case published in the New-York Medical Reposi
tory, and another in the Western Quarterly Reporter, in which
impregnation was effected, though immediately previous to the
child’s birth the vagina was found only large enough to admit a
common knitting needle, and the medical attendant had, in con
sequence, to make an artificial passage. And he argues, on the
authority of this and other instances where there existed such
mechanical obstruction in the vagina, os tincae,or colimn uteri, as
to render the passage of the seminal fluid next to impossible, that
tha^ fluid does not enter the uterus at all, and, consequently, that
the doctrine on which the whole work is founded, is physiologi
cal! y false; and, as being false, is calculated to do much and cruel
mischief. There are two chief theories, he says, now generally
received on the subject, the absorbent and the sympathetic ; ac
cording to both of which, all that appears absolutely necessary to
impregnation is, that the semen should be deposited somewhere in
the vagina; perhaps, to be taken up by a set of absorbent vessels,
and by them conveyed to the ovum, which ovum is, in its turn
taken up by thefinibriated ends of the Fallopian tube, and thereby
deposited in the uterus: perhaps (but I confess this seems to me
a very poetical theory,) merely to produce simultaneous anft
sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret work
of nature.
�APPENDIX.
63
Now, my expression was, that “ almost all physiologists are
agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself, or of some volatile
particles proceeding from it, into the uterus, must precede con
ception.”* The favorers of the absorbent theory will not, I pre
sume, deny this ; the few advocates of the sympathetic may.
Nor am I tenacious as regards any theory whatever, on a subject
of which the arcana still remain shrouded in comparative mystery.
Enough for my purpose, that the condition indispensable to repro
duction is, (as Dr. S----- himself reminds us,) the deposition of
the sperm in the vagina. The preventive suggested in “ Moral
Physiology,” positively precludes the fulfilment of this condition ;
and it could only have been, I imagine, by confounding it with
the partial expedient of which I have spoken, (page 50,) that
my medical friend arrived at the conclusion to which I have here
alluded.
The only argument which I conceive can be fairly urged against
it by the physiologist,j- is that to which I have adverted and replied:
(last paragraph of page 49.)
* In proof that I have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote
what. I believe, is now considered the highest authority.
I “If the most recent works on Physiology are to be credited, the nterus, during
impregnation, opens a little, draws in the semen by inspiration, and directs it to
the ovarium by means of the Fallopian tubes, whose fimbriated extremity closely
embrace that organ.”—Magendie, p. 416, Philad. Ed.
SeealSd Blundell's and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, at Guy’s hospi
tal. See also Spallanzani’s experiments.
# I feel it to be my duty to add, that, since my arrival in England, I have heard
another physiological objection urged against this particular cheek ; namely, that
its influence on the female health is sometimes injurious. It has been suggested
that the deposition of sperm in the vagina cannot be dispensed with during the
.period of excitement, without producing mischievous consequeuces. In so far as
ttw may be a mere theoretical influence—a hazarded opinion, like so many other
opinions, as to “ what, in the nature of things, surely must be”—in this view of
it, I Conceive the objection entitled to little or no weight. But in so far as it may
be substantiated by facts, it is entitled to much weight. We want to know, not
what vague inference suggests, but what actual experience proves. If, unfortunattiy, experience should prove, that women, in availing themselves of this
eheck, do often, or do sometimes, lose their health, either in consequence of the
gtatifiertes being imperfect, or from any other cause, then the objection would
W fatal; and it would behove ns to enquire, whether some other check could
not be found, which even if less infallible, should be more innocent: sueb
�64
APPENDIX.
Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto
’eached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appendix
by farther quotations approbatory of the work, or corroborative
of the facts it details. Let “Moral Physiology” abide the
ordeal of public examination ; if found wanting, to be cast aside
and forgotten; but if deemed true and useful, to be remembered
and approved.
perhaps, as the insertion into the vagina, previously to coition, of a small,
.moistened sponge, to he immediately afterwards withdrawn : or such as is sugJ
gested in the following extract of a letter which I lately received from a gentle
man of worth and respectability, residing near Manchester:—
“ A mother, whose health was such as to make child-bearing painful and
dangerous to her existence, was desirous, after giving birth to two children, no
urther to increase her family. Her husband’s fondness forbad him to act con
trary to the wishes of his wife: he had, from some source or other, obtained the
information given in your book, and he endeavoured to practise upon it; but
alas ! he was not sufficiently master of his feelings on one or two occasions, and
Lis wife again found herself enceinte.
“ After suffering, during the usual period, all the pains she had before ex
perienced, her health becoming daily more debilitated, she gave, at the narrow
risk of losing her life, birth to a poor little idiot.
“ Since then, a female friend informed her, that, were she to adopt the pre
caution of giving a strong cough immediately after, emission by her husband,
pregnancy would be prevented. She adopted this expedient, and with success.
“ A dear friend of mine, intimate with the lady of whom I have been speaking,
communicated the fact to me, and further assured me, that several females or
her acquaintance had adopted the check and proved its efficacy.
« If, Sir, this.be a sure preventive, 1 think it more safe and natural than with
drawal ; and preferable besides, as placing in the hands of the woman; who has
more caution and more to suffer also than our sex, the power over her destiny.’’
*“ I place these objections and suggestions, a6 they arise, before the public, though
I confess my doubt in regard to the general efficacy of the latter expedient. Let
all such suggestions be canvassed, and taken for what they are worth. Thus, and;
only thus, can truth be elicited.—Note to the Ninth edition
�
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ROBERT DALE OWEN,
acthob of
"footfalls on
the boundabx of another wobld,”
BTC, BTC.
“ The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work.”
Bentham on Morals and Legislation.
" The diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be
prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language.”
John Stuart Mill.
A NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBOBN.
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*
*» The Frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor
mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hotel des Enfans trouves,
(Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting is by Vigneron, a
French artist of celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand
nollars for the Gallerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French
king.
The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution
was never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy,
and, above all, a beautiful tenderness to the feelings of those poor crea
tures who are thus compelled to avail themselves, for their offspring, of the
asylum it affords.. No obtrusive observation is made, no unfeeling question
asked : the infant charge is received in silence, and either trained and
supported until maturity, or, if circumstances, at any subsequent period,
enable the parents to claim their offspring, it is restored to their care.
There is surely no sect, of creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it can
systematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the
breasts of some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The benevo
lent founder and indefatigable supporter of this noble institution, was a
esuit. . Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after
the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow sectaries are forgotten 1
The case selected is one ofmild, of modified,—-I had almost said, of
favored misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation.
But even under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevo
lence extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who
reoart^s f°r a moment the abandoned helplessness of the deserted
child, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but will join in the
exclamation, <f Alasthat it should ever have been born
�PREFACE
I
TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
(Published in London,)
I am requested to permit and to revise an English reprint
of “Moral Physiology;” and I accede to the request,
because the same deep conviction of the importance of the
views and
recommendations therein contained, which,
nearly two years ago, first prompted their publication, has
been still confirmed to me, in the strongest manner, during
the lapse of that period.
Myself a husband and a proprietor of land, my stake in
society may absolve me, in the eyes of those who require
such securities, from the suspicion of a design against do
mestic virtue or social order. For the rest, let the work
speak for itself. It contains the plain statement of a sub
ject, which deserves to be approached in its broadest and
simplest sense; and to be dispassionately investigated, in
connexion with its own physical and moral influence on
men and women, without reference to favorite theory or
political system.
London, September, 1832.
R. D. O
��PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
(Published in New York.)
It may be proper to state, in few words, tlie immediate circumstances
which induced me to write and publish this treatise.
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him
two ingenious specimens of English typography. He had been requested by
a Brighton printer, who executed them, to present these, as specimens of
the progress of the art in Great Britain, to some of his brother craftsmen
in America. He gave them to me; I admired the ingenuity displayed in
the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented to some
printers’ society rather than to an individual. I therefore addressed them
to our Typographical Society in New-York, accompanied by a note, simply
requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in
England.
I thought no more of the matter until I received, the other day, my spe
cimens back again, with a long and angry letter, signed by three of the
members, accusing me of principles subversive of every virtue under
heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment in
the decalogue: and, more especially, of having given my sanction to a
work, as they expressed it, “ holding out inducements and facilities for
the prostitution of our daughters, sisters, and wives.”
I subsequently learned from one of the society, circumstances which some
what extenuate this childish incivility. A gentleman who busied himself
last year in making out a notable reply to the “ Society for the Protection
of Industry,” got up, at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the so
ciety, several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile,
entitled “ Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be
excessively indecent; and asked the society whether they would receive
any thing at the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a ten
dency so dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society
were (or affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee
to return the heretical specimens, with the letter to which I have alluded.
�VI
PREFACE,
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be
of pernicious influence. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read
to me, I might have misconceived its tendency. But he must be blind
indeed, who can read the pamphlet through, and then, (whether he ap
prove it or not.) a.tribute other than good intentions to the individual who put it forth.
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing
in Indiana, to publish it, but declined doing so My chief reasons were,
that I somewhat doubted its physiological correctness • that I did not con
sider its style atd tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the
New Harmonv Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this
country, only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the
curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of
the philanthropist, ol the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a
family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, that
my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well founded.
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a duty
to step forward and vindicate them ; and this the rather, because, unless I
give my own sentiments, I shall be understood as unqualifiedly endorsing
Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one admires more than I do the courage
which induced that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject;
and to him be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But
the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was
repulsive, (I will not say revolting) to my feelings on the first perusal; and
though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not
attributable, in a measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that
a similar, and even a more unfavorable impression, will be made on the
minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardised. Then
again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat in
correct as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error
might be of important consequence.
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from
similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.
r. d, a
New York, December, 1830.
�<»•
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
f
■
CHAPTER
■
' *
'
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me
to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from
the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly
prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many more
will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed its
publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the
public was better prepared to receive it: but the enemies
of reform have already foisted the subject in an odious
form, on the public; and I have no choice left. If, there
fore, I touch the honest prejudices of any, let it be borne in
mind, that the occasion is not of my seeking.
The subject 1 intend to discuss is strictly physiological,
although connected, like many other physiological subjects,
with political economy, morals, and social science. In dis
cussing it, I must speak as plainly as physicians and phy
siologists do. What I mean, I must say. Pseudo-civilised
man, that anomalous creature who has been not inaptly de
fined “ an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it
ill that I speak simply: I cannot help that.
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become
queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the penin
sula, famous for its manufactories of gloves and stockings.
The magistrates of the place, eager to evince their loyalty to
their new queen, presented her, on her arrival, with a sample
of those commodities for which their town was most remark
able. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received
the gloves very graciously; but, when the stockings were
presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and
severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious
pjece of indecency, “Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain
has no legs.” *
I never could sympathise with this major-domo delicacy
and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this pamphlet
aside at once.
* See “ Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Aunoy.
�8
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
If you have travelled and observed much, you will already
have learnt the distinction between real and artificial pro
priety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably
know, that when any one of the grand seignor’s wives is ill,
the physician is allowed only to see her wrist, which is thrust
through an opening in the side of the room; because it is
improper even for a physician to look upon another man's
wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than
*
propriety.
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know, that they consider a woman’s virtue sa
crificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on
the public road to speak to her lover ;f and if you have read
Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic
story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited
her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers,
who were determined their sister should not survive her
dishonor.
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you can
not be ignorant how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears it is,
to inquire of a husband after his wife’s health; and proba
bly you may know, that men have lost their lives to atone
for such an impropriety. You know, too, of course, that in
Eastern nations it is indecent for a woman to uncover her
face ; but perhaps you may not know, unless your travels
have extended to Abyssinia, that there the indecency consists
in uncovering the feet.J
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing in
public, without the slightest sense of impropriety ; but you
were doubtless told, that men could not be permitted a simi
lar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they should perform
their ablutions in private.
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries and
customs, I doubt not that he or she will read my little book
understandingly; and interpretit in the purity which springs
from enlarged and enlightened views ; or, indeed, from com
mon sense. If not—if you who now peruse these lines have
been educated at home, and have never passed the boundary
line of your own nation—perhaps of your own village—if you
have not learnt that there are other proprieties besides those
of your country; and that, after all, genuine modesty has
* See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey,
t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia,
t See Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
9
*ts legitimate seat in the heart, not in the outward form or
sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may chance to cast
these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered
stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in.my
simple words, or the Spanish magistrates honest offeiing,
but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers
impropriety in either. Yet, even though inexperienced, if
you be still young and pure-minded, you may read this
pamphlet through, and I shall fear from your lips, or in your
hearts, no unworthy misconstruction. .
Young men and women ! you who, if ignorant, are uncor
rupted also; you in whose minds honest and simple words
■call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you who think no
evil ; you who are still believers in human virtue and human
happiness ; you who, like our fabled first parents in their
paradise, are yet unlearned alike in the hypocritical conven
tionalities and the odious vices of pseudo-civilization ; you
with whom love is stronger than fear, and the law within the
breast more powerful than that in the statute-book; you
whose feelings are still unblunted, and whose sympathies
•till warm and generous ; you who belong to the better por
tion of your species, and who have formed your opinion of
mankind from guileless spirits like your own—young men
and women 1 it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is
by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have my treatise
and my motives judged.
Libertines and debauchees! this book is not for you. You
are unable to appreciate the subject of which it treats. Bring
ing to its discussion, as you must, a distrust or contempt, of
the human race—accustomed, as you unfortunately are, to
confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with debauchery,
your palled feelings and brutalized senses no longer suffice
to distinguish moral truth in its purity and simplicity. I
never discuss this subject with such as you ; because I
esteem it useless, and know it disagreeable, to do so. It has
been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a woman as
vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it is no less true,
that the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler tor the etiquette
of orthodox morality is the heartless rake. The little inter
course I have had with men of your stamp, warns me to
avoid the discussion of any species of moral heresy with
you. You approach such subjects in a tone and spirit re
volting alike to good taste and good feeling. You seem to
presuppose—from your own experience, perhaps—that the
hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are
�10
MOKAL PHYSIOLOG f.
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that vio
lcnce and vice are inherent in human nature, and that
nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world from
becoming a vast slaughter-house or a universal brothel.
You are led to judge your own sex and the other by the
specimens you have met with in haunts of mercenary pro
fligacy ; and, with such a standard in your minds, I niarvel
not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue,
but that which is forced in the prudish hot-bed of ceremoni
ous conformity. You willnot trust the natural soil, watered
from the free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun.
How should you? you have never seen it produce but weeds
and poisons. Libertines and debauchees ! cast my book
aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious
curiosity ; and, if you read it, you will probably only give
me credit for motives and impulses like your own.
And you, prudes and hypocrites ! you who strain at a gnat
and swallow a camel ; you whom Jesus likened to whited
sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, but within
are full of all unclcanness; you who affect to blush if the
ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or displayed
in crossing a stile, but will read indecencies enough, without
scruple, in your closets; you who, at dinner, ask to be helped
to the bosom of a duck, lest, by mention of the word breast,
you call up improper associations; you who have nothing
but a head and feet and fingers ; you who look demure by
daylight, and make appointments only in the dark—you,
prudes and hypocrites ! I address not. Even if honest in
your prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are so artificial
and confused, that you are not likely to profit by the present
discussion; if dishonest, I desire to have no communication
with you.
Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or libertines,
I pray you, follow my argument no farther. My heresies
will not suit you. As a prude, you will find them too honest;
as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, you will
call me a very shocking person ; in the latter, a quiz or a bore.
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded ; if you be
unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion ; if truth
be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your objectthen approach with me a subject the most important to man s
W'ell-being ; and approach it, as I do, in a spirit of dispas
sionate, disinterested, free inquiry. Approach it, resolving
to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. 1 ho
discussion is one to which it is every man’s and every wo •
�11
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
man’s duty, (and ought to be every one’s business,) to attend.
The welfare of the present generation, and—yet far more—of
the next, requires it; common sense sanctions it; and the t
national motto of my former country, “ Honi soit qui mal y <
pcnse,” * may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken,
and in which it ought to be received.
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what I _
am, who now address you. Truth is truth, if it fall from t
Satan’s lips; and error ought to be rejected, though preached
by an angel from heaven. Even as an anonymous work,
therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full and candid
examination from you. But, that you may not imagine I
am ashamed of honestly discussing a subject so useful and
important, I have given you my name on the title page.
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character is, or
has been. No man of sense or modesty unnecessarily ob
trudes personalities that regard himself, on the public. And,
most assuredly, it is neither to gratify your curiosity nor my
vanity, if I now do violence to my feelings, and speak a few
words touching myself. I do so, to disarm, if I can, preju
dice of her sting, thus obtaining the ears of the prejudiced ;
and to acquaint my readers, that they are conversing with
one whom circumstance and education have happily pre
served from habits of excess and associations of profligacy.
All those who have known the life and private habits of
the writer of this little treatise, will bear him witness, that
what he now states is true, to the letter. He was in
debted to his parents for habits of the strictest temperancesome would call it, abstemiousness—in all things. He never,
at any time, habitually used ardent spirits, wine, or strong
drink of any kind : latterly, he has not even used animal
food. He never entered a brothel in his life ; nor associated,
even for an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, whom
the brutal, yet tolerated vices of men, or their own unsus
picious or ungoverned feelings, have betrayed to misery and
* One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up
from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter belonging to a
lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his
courtiers with the words, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense ! ” or, paraphrased
in English, “ Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The senti
ment has become the motto of the English national arms. It is one
which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently applied in rebuking the
mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of this hypocritical and pro
fligate age.
�12
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
degradation. He never sought the company but of the intei
lectual and self-respecting of the other sex, and has no asso
ciations connected with the name of woman, but those of
esteem and respectful affection. To this day, he is even
girlishly sensitive to the coarse and ribald jests in which
young men think it witty to indulge at the expense of a
sex they cannot appreciate. The confidence with which
women may have honored him, he has never selfishly abused;
and, at this moment, he has not a single wrong with which
to reproach himself towards a sex, which he considers the
equal of man in all the essentials of character, and his su
perior in generous disinterestedness and moral worth.
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to awaken
the confidence of those whose confidence I value; enough,
assuredly to excite the ridicule, or the sneer, of him who
walks through life wrapped up in the cloak of conformity,
and laughs, among his private boon companions, at the
scruples of every novice, who will not, like himself, regard
debauchery and seduction (in secret) as manly and spirited
amusements.
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening your
attention, and enlisting in this inquiry your reason and your
better feelings, approach with me a subject the most interest
ing and important to you, to me, to all our fellow-creatures.
If you be a woman, forget that I am a man : if a man, listen
to me as you would to a brother. Let us converse, not as
men, nor as women, but as human beings, with common in
terests, instincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it
be possible, without prejudice and without passion. What
ever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I address 1lie
poet’s exhortation—here, far more strictly applicable, than in
the investigation to which he applied it—
“ Retire I the world shut out: thy thoughts call home;
Imagination’s airy wing repress;
Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir j
Wake all to reason j let her reign alone.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.
Among the various instincts which contribute to man's pre
servation and well-being, the instinct of reproduction holds a
distinguished rank. It peoples the earth; it perpetuates
the species. Controlled by reason and chastened by good
feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and
zest. Directed by selfishness, or governed by force, it is pro
lific of misery and degradation. Whether wisely or unwisely
directed, its influence is that of a master principle, that
colors, brightly or darkly, much of the destiny of man.
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish propensity ;
and the Shakers call it a “ carnal and sensual passion/’* I
see nothing in the instinct itself that merits such epithets.
Like other instincts, it may assume a selfish, mercenary, or
brutal character. But, in itself, it appears to me the most
social and least selfish of all our instincts. It fits us to give,
even while receiving, pleasure ; and, among cultivated beings,
the former power is ever more highly valued than the latter.
Not one of our instincts affords larger scope for the exercise
of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral sentiments
of our race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle,more
humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately
at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous lmpulses that honor and bless human nature. Its very power,
indeed, gives fatal force to its aberrations ; even as the waters
of the calmest river, when dammed up or forced from their
bed, flood and ruin the country : but the gentle flow and fer
tilising influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the in
stinct, when suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to
follow its own quiet channel.
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken of as
a low, selfish propensity, and, as such, that the discussion of
its nature and consequences should be almost interdicted
among human beings, is to me a proof ot the profligacy
of the age, and the impurity of the pseudo-civilized
mind. I imagine, that if all men and women were gluttons
• See “ A brief Exposition of the Principles of the United Society
calledShakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, Albany,
N.Y,, 1830,
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to
^peak of diet or temperance.
Were I an optimist, and had I accustomed myself to
judge and to admire the arrangements of nature, I should
he inclined to put forward, as one of the most admirable,
the arrangement according to which the temperate fulfil
ment of the dictates of this, as of almost all other instincts,
confers pleasure. The desire of offspring would probably
induce us to perpetuate the species, though no gratifica
tion were connected with the act. In the language of the
optimist, then, “ pleasure is gratuitously superadded.” But,
instead of pausing to admire arrangements and intentions, the
great whole of which human reason seems little fitted to ap
preciate or comprehend, I content myself with remarking,
that this very circumstance (in itself surely a fortunate one,
* inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of human happi
ness) has often been the cause of misery; and, from a bless
ing, has been perverted into a curse. Enjoyment has led to
excess, and sometimes to tyranny and barbarous injustice.
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from pleasure
of any kind, it would neither afford enjoyment nor admit of
abuse. As it is, the instinct is susceptible of either: just as
wisdom or ignorance governs human laws, habits and cus
toms. It behooves us, therefore, to be especially careful in
its regulation, lest what is a great good may become a great
evil.
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold light;
first, as giving the power of reproduction ; second, as afford
ing pleasure.
And here, before I proceed, let me call to the reader’s
mind, that it is the province of rational beings to bear utility
strictly in view. Reason recognises the romantic and un
earthly reveries of Stoicism, as little as she does the doctrines
of health-destroying and mind-debasing debauchery. She
reprobates equally a contemning and an abusing of pleasure
She bids us avoid asceticism on the one hand, and excess on
the other. In all our inquiries, then, let reason guide us.
and let utility be our polar star.
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the
*
'Shakers, touching the two-fold light in which the reproduc* I call them my friends, because, however little I am disposed to
accede to their peculiar principles, I have met, from among their body, a
great proportion of individuals who have taken with them my friendship
and sympathy.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
15
live instinct may be regarded. They commonly stand out
stoutly against the propriety of considering it except simply
as a means of perpetuating the species ; and they deny that it
may be regarded as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In
this 1 totally dissent from them. It is a much more noble,
because less purely selfish,instinct, than hunger or thirst; and,
though it differ from hunger and thirst in this,that it may re
main ungratified without causing death, I have yet to learn,
I that because it fe possible, it is therefore also desirable, to
mortify and repress it. I admit, to the Shakers, that in the
world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it, this instinct is
the source of much misery ; and that if I bad to choose between
the life of the profligate man of the world and that of the asce
tic Shaker, 1 should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
But, for admitting that the most social and kindly of human
instincts is sensual and degrading in itself, I cannot. I think
its influence moral, humanising, polishing, beneficent; and
that the social and physical education of no man or woman is
fully completed without it. Its mortification (though far less
injurious than its excess) is very mischievous. If it do
not give birth to peevishness, or melancholy, or incipient dis
ease, or unnatural practices, at least it almost always freezes
and stiffens the character ; checking the flow of its kindliest
emotions, and not unfrequently giving to it a solitary, anti
social, selfish stamp.
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the indul
gence of the instinct is justifiable (if, indeed, it be justifiable
at all) only as necessary to the reproduction of the species.
It is justifiable, in my view, just in as far as it makes man a
happier and a better being. It is justifiable, both as a source
of temperate enjoyment, and as a means by which the sexes
mutually polish and improve each other.
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and cannot re
concile his mind to this idea, he may as well close it at once.
I found all my arguments on the position, that the pleasure
derived from this instinct, independent of and totally distinct
from its ultimate object, the reproduction of our race, is good,
proper, worth securing and enjoying. I maintain, that its
temperate enjoyment is a blessing, both in itself and in its
influence on human character.
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold cha
racter, rests the present discussion. It sometimes happens,
nay, it happens every day and hour, that mankind obey it»
dictates, not from any calculation of consequences, but sim
ply from animal impulse. Thus many children who are
�16
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
brought into the world owe their existence, not to deliberate
conviction in their parents that their birth is desirable, but
simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in the mass,
have not learnt either to resist or control.
V
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly proper
and important one—whether man can obtain, and whether ■
he is benefitted by obtaining, control over this instinct Is
IT DESIRABLE THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE GRATIFIED WITH
OUT AN INCREASE TO POPULATION ? Or, IS IT DESIRABLE,
THAT, IN GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY WHE
THER OFFSPRING SHALL BE THE RESULT OR NOT ?
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be neces
sary to substantiate, that such control may be obtained with
out injury to the physical health, or violence to the moral
feelings; and also, that it may be obtained without any
leal sacrifice of enjoyment; or, if that cannot be, with as
little as possible.
This is the plain statement of the subject. It resolves
itself into two distinct heads: first, the desirability of such
control, and, secondly, its possibility.
In examining its desirability, we enter a wide field, a field
often traversed by political economists, by moralists, and by
philosophers, though generally, it will be confessed, to little
purpose. This may be, in a great measure, attributed rather
to their fear than their ignorance. The world would not
permit them to say what they knew. I intend that my
readers shall know all that I know on the subject; for 1
have ceased to ask the world’s leave to say what I think
and what I believe to be useful to the public.
I propose to consider the question in the abstract, and
then to examine it in its political and social bearings.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT.
Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control over
the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when its
gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall not?
But that men have not accustomed themselves to free and
dispassionate reflection, and that the various superstitions
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
17
of the nursery pervade the opinions and cramp the inquiries •
of after-life;—but for this, the very statement of the
question might suffice to obtain for it the assent of every
rational being. Nothing so elevates a man above the brute
creation, as the due control of his instincts. The lower animal
follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges
Himself; the bull fights, even to death, with his rival of the
pasture : the dog makes deadly war for a bone. They know
nothing of progressive improvement. The elephant or the
beaver of the nineteenth century, are just as wise and no
wiser, than the elephant or the beaver of two thousand years
ago. "Man alone has the power to improve, to cultivate, to
elevate his nature, from generation to generation. He alone
can control his instincts by reflection of consequences, and
regulate his passions by the precepts of wisdom.
It is strange, that even at this period of the world, we
should have to remind each other, that all knowledge of facts
is useful; or, at the least, that it cannot be injurious. The
knowledge of some facts may be unimportant; the know
ledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a puppet,
a glave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue.
Nor shall we know where to stop, if we follow up this prin
ciple. Shall we give our sons lessons in mechanics? but
they may thereby learn to pick locks. Shall we teach them
to read ? but they may thus obtain access to falsehood and
folly. Shall we instruct them in writing? but they may
become forgers.
Such, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark ages.
vVhen Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Lord Douglas, on
the discovery of Marmion’s treachery, the following excla
mation, it is strictly in accordance with the spirit and pre
vailing opinions of the times :
“ A letter forged 1 Saint Jude to speed
Did ever knight so foul a deed 1
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line
So swore I, and so swear I still,
Let my boy bishop fret his fill.”
The days are gone by when ignorance can be the safeguard
of virtue. The only rock-foundation for virtue is knowledge.
There is no fact, in physics or in morals, that ought to be
concealed from the inquiring mind. Let that parent who
B
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MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
thinks to secure lis sons’honesty or his daughters’innocence
by keeping back from them facts—let that parent know,
that he is building up their morality on a sandy founda
tion. The rains and the floods of the world’s influence shall
beat upon that virtue, and great shall be the fall thereof.
If, then, man can obtain control over this most important
of instincts, it is, in principle, right that he should know it.
If men, after obtaining such knowledge, think fit not to use
it; if they deem it nobler and more virtuous, to follow each
animal impulse, like the beasts of the field and the fowls of
the air, without a thought of its consequences, or an inquiry
into its nature—let them do so. The knowledge that they
have the power to act more like rational beings will not
injure, if it fail to benefit, them. They may set it aside, may
neglect it, may forget it, if they can. Only let them show
common sense enough to permit that others,who are more slow
to incur sacred responsibilities, and more willing to give
reason the control of instinct, should obtain the requisite
knowledge, and follow out their prudent resolutions.
If this little book were in the hands of every adult in the
United States, not one need profit by it, unless he saw fit.
Nor will any man admit, that he can possibly be injured by it.
Oh no 1 His virtue can bear any quantity of light. But then,
his neighbour’s, or his son’s, or his daughter’s!
This would lead me to discuss the social bearings of the
question. But, as conceiving it more in order, I shall first
speak of it in connexion with political economy.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL ECONOMY.
The population question, as it is called, has of late years
occupied much attention, especially in Great Britain. It
was first prominently brought forward and discussed there in
the year 1798, by Malthus, an English clergyman. Godwin,
Ricardo, Place, Mill, Thompson, Robert Owen, and other
celebrated cotemporary writers, have all discussed it, with
more or less reserve, and at greater or less length.
Malthus’ work has become the text book of a large poli
tico-economist party in England. His doctrine is that
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
]£)
“population, unrestrained, will advance beyonS the means of
subsistence.” He asserts, that, in most countries, population
at this moment presses against the means of subsistence;
and that, in all countries, it has a tendency so to do. He
recommends, as a preventive of the growing evil, celibacy
till a late age, say thirty years ; and he asserts, that unless
this “moral restraint” be exerted, vice, poverty and misery
must continue to be the checks to population. The ten
dency of such principles appears to me very mischievous;
though, upon the whole, the work of Mr. Malthus, by pro
voking inquiry, will, I doubt not, prove a source of good.
I have heard some of his disciples openly declare, that they
considered the crimes and wretchedness of society to be
necessary—to be the express ordainings of Providence in
tended to prevent the earth from being overpeopled. I
have heard it argued by men of rank, wealth and influence,
that the distinctions of rich and poor, and even of morality
and immorality, of luxury and want, will and must exist to
the end of the world ; that he who attempts to remove them
fights against God and nature ; and, if he partiaJly succeed,
will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase,
until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, and
men shall be compelled to prey on each other. It must bo
confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for the rich idler;
it is a healing salve to the luxurious conscience ; an opiate to
drown the still small voice of truth and humanity, which calls
to every man to be up and do his part towards the alleviation
of the human suffering that everywhere stares himin the face.
*
It is vain to argue with the defenders of the evils that be,
that, for the present, there is land and every other necessary
in abundance for all, if there were wisdom in the distribu
tion ; and that the day of ultimate overstocking is afar off.
They tell you, that day must come at last; and that the more
you do to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of popu
lation—the sooner it will come. And what reply can one
make to the argument in the abstract? I believe it to be
true, that population, unrestrained,f will double itself on an
* Let me not be understood as charging on Mr. Malthus himself a style
of reasoning he disclaims. I do but remind the reader how easilv weak
or selfish men may pervert his doctrine to mischievous purposes.
t By unrestrained, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or
destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral, pruden
tial or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c. are allclteckR
*o population. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventive
moral restraint, have I employed the word throughout this chapter.
B2
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
20
average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evidvnt
to a demonstration, that, if population were not restrained,
morally or immorally, the earth would at last furnish scarcely
foothold for the human beings produced.
Take the least rapid of the above rates of increase, and
say, that population, unrestrained, will double itself every
fifty years. That it has done so, (without reckoning the
increase from emigration,) in many parts of this continent
is certain.
Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to po
pulation, viz. want, war, vice, and misery, removed by
rational reform, and if we assume the present population of
the world at one thousand millions, we shall find the rate
of increase as follows:—At the end of
100 years, there would be four thousand millions.
200 —------------------------ sixteen thousand millions.
300 -------------------------- sixty-four thousand millions.
400 --------------------------- two hundred and fifty-six thou
sand millions.
And so on, multiplying by 4 for every hundred years. So
that, in 500 years, if we imagine unchecked increase, there
would be more than a thousand times as many as at present;
and in 1,000 years, upwards of a million times as many
human beings as at this moment.
It is evident, then, to demonstration, that there is notspace
on this earth for population, under any circumstances, to in
crease unrestrained, during more than a very few hundred
years. We are thus compelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner
or later, some restraint or other to population mast be em
ployed ; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic ex
pounders, that if no other better restraint than vice and
misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they are
the lot of man, from generation to generation.
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a ques
tion—whether there shall be a restraint to population or not.
There must be; unless indeed we imagine communication
opened with other planets, so that we may people them.
In the nature of things, there must be a check, of some
kind. The only question is, what that check shall be—
whether, as heretofore, the check of war, want, profligacy,
misery; or a “ moral restraint,” suggested by experience
and sanctioned by reason.
Let those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, be
told, that though they may postpone the question, no human
power can evade it. It must come up. Had the friends of
reform been left to choose their own time it might, perhaps
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
21
With advantage, have been postponed. And it is an imagi
nable case, that prejudice might delay it until a general
famine or a universal civil war became the frightful checks.
But will any man of common sense argue the propriety of
suffering such a crisis to approach?
Malthus saw this. He saw that some check must exist;
and, whatever some of his disciples might say, he did not
intend to be considered the apologist of vice and misery
His theory, indeed, supplied specious arguments to those
who assert, with the ingenious author of the Fable of the
*
Bees, that “ private vices are public benefits
and fur
nished a comfortable excuse for supine contentment witji a
vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus him
self declares the only proper check to be, the general prac
tice of celibaey to a late age. He employs all his eloquence
to persuade men and women that they ought not to marry
till they are twenty-eight or thirty years of age ; and that, if
they do, they are contributing to the misery of the world.
Now, Mr. Malthus may preach for ever on this subject.
Individuals may indeed be found, who will look to distant
consequences, and sacrifice present enjoyment; even as indi
viduals are found to become and remain Shaking Quakers:
but to believe that the mass of mankind will abjure, through
the ten fairest years of lite, the nearest and dearest of social
relations ; and during the very holiday of existence, will live
the life of monks and nuns—all to atone for a mal-administration of the earth’s resources, or to avert an ultimate catas
trophe which is confessedly some hundreds of years distant—
to believe this, requires a faith, which no accurate observer
of mankind possesses.
This weak point the aristocratic expounders of Malthus’
doctrines were not slow to discover. They broadly asserted,
that such “moral restraint” would never be generally prac
tised. They asked, whether a young woman, to whom a
comfortable home and a pleasant companion were offered,
would refuse to accept them, on this theory of population ;
whether a young man who had a fair (or even but a very
indifferent) prospect of maintaining a family, would doom
himself to celibacy, lest lhe world should be overpeopled.
And they put it to the advocates of late marriages, whether,
in one sex at least, the recommendation, if even nominally
followed, would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess
• Mandeville
�22
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
and degrading- associations ; thus resolving the check at last
into vice and misery. As experience answers these ques
tions in the negative, is it not clear, (they proceeded exultingly to ask,) that vice and misery are the natural lot of man;
and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague ourselves
about them, or to attempt, by their suppression, to contro
vert the decrees of God 1
It was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so heart
less an argument. It was easy to ask, whether even the
apparent hopelessness of the case formed any legitimate apo
logy for supine indifference ; or whether, where we cannot
cure, we are absolved from the duty of alleviating. But it
was not very easy fully and fairly to meet the whole question.
It was idle to deny that preaching would not put off mar
riage for ten years: and if no other species of moral restraint
than ten years Shakerism could be proposed, it did ap
pear evident enough, that moral restraint would be by the
mass neglected, and that the physical checks of vice and
misery must come into play at last.
I pray my readers, then, distinctly to observe, how the
matter stands. Population, unrestrained, must increase
beyond the possibility of the earth and its produce to support.
At present ft is restrained by vice and misery. The only
remedy which the orthodoxy of the English clergyman
permits him to propose, is, late marriages. The most en
lightened observers of mankind are agreed, that nothing con
tributes so positively and immediately to demoralize a nation,
as when its youth refrain, until a late period, from forming
disinterested connexions with those of the other sex. The
frightful increase of prostitutes, the destruction of health,
the rapid spread of intemperance, the ruin of moral feelings,
are, to the mass, the certain consequences. Individuals
there are, who escape the contagion; individuals whose
better feelings revolt, under any temptation, from the mer
cenary embrace, or the Circean cup of intoxication ; but these
are exceptions only. The mass will have their pleasures, the
pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought affection,
and of good taste and good feeling, if they can ; but if they
cannot, then such pleasures (alas! that language should be
perverted to entitle them to the name!) as the sacrifice of
money and the ruin of body and mind can purchase.
*
* Lawrence, the ingenious author of the “ Empire of the Nairs,”
says, shrewdly enough: “ Wherever the women are prudes* the men
will be drunkards."
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
'
23
But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition
fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a latt
age those disinterested sexual connexions which can alone
save youth from .vice ; but it is ineradicable. Men and
women will scarcely pause to calculate .‘he chances they have
of affording support to their children ere they become
parents : how, then, should they stop to calculate the chances
of the world’s being overpeopled ? Mr. Malthus may say what
he pleases, they never will make any such calculation; and
it is folly to expect they should.
Let us observe, then: unless some less ascetic and more
vracticable species of “ moral restraint” be‘introduced, vice and
misery will ultimately become the inevitable lot of man. He
can no more escape them, than he can the light ot the sun,
or the stroke of death.
What an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our in
quiry 1 Here is an argument put forth, wLMi is all but an
apology for the apathy that prevails among the rich and the
powerful—among governors and legislators—in regard to
human improvement. How important, how essential for the
interests of virtue that it should be refuted! How beneficent
that knowledge, wtich discloses to us some moral practi
cable check to population, and relieves us from the despairing
conclusion, that the irrevocable doom of man is misery, with
out remedy and without end ! In the absence of such know
ledge, truly the prospects of the world were dark and cheer
less. Philanthropy herself pauses, when she begins to fear
that all her exertions are to result inhopetess disappointment.
And yet—such is this world—even the ablest opponents of
Malthus stop short when they come to the question, and
leave an argument unanswered, which a dozen pages might
suffice for ever to set at rest.
Let one of the most intellig nt of these opponents—a man
of sterling talent—let Mill, be well-known political econo
mist, and author of “ British L.'dia,” speak for himself:
“ What are the best means of checking the progress of
population, when it cannot go on unrestraired without pro
ducing one or other of two most undesirable effects, either
drawing an undue portion of the population to the mere
raising of food, or producing poverty and wretchedness, it is
not now the time to inquire. It is, indeed, the most important
practical problem to which the wisdom of lhe politician and the
tliorali^ can be applied. It has, till this time, been miserably
evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as
well as by these who were called on by lheir situation to find
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
24
a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the.
superstitions of the nursery were disregarded, and the principle
of utility hept steadily in view, a solution might not be very
difficult to be found; and the means of drying up one of the
most copious sources of human evil—a source which, if all
other sources were taken away, might alone suffice to retain the
great mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be
neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.”—Art. Colony,
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen oi
one of the most admired writers of the present day; a man
celebrated throughout Europe, for his works on political
economy, and whose writings are not unknown on this side
the Atlantic. He considers the question now under discus
sion to involve “ the most important problem to which the
wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.” This
question, he admits, has ever been “ miserably evaded.”
Yet even a man so influential and clear-sighted as Mill,
must, himself yield to the weakness he reprobates; must speak
in parables, as the Nazarene reformer did before him; and,
even while commenting on the “ miserable evasion” of a
subject so engrossingly important, must imitate the very
evasion he despises.
*
I will not imitate it. I am more independently situated
than was the English economist; and I see, as clearly as he
does, the extreme importance of the subject. What he saw
and declared ought to be said, I will say.
Before concluding this chapter, let me distinctly state an
opinion, from which Mr. Malthus himself, if I read his doc
trine aright, will hesitate to dissent. I am convinced, that,
at this moment, there is nothing approaching to an excess
of population, absolutely considered, in a single country of
Europe. Iniquitous laws, false education, and a vicious
order of things, are continually producing effects, which are
erroneously attributed to over-population; effects which
spring, not from the number, but from the ignorance, of men.
Monopolies favour the rich, imposts oppress the poor, com
mercial rivalry grinds to the dust the victims of an over
grown system of competition. To such causes as these, ana
not to positive excess of people, at the time being, is the dis
tress, more or less felt over the civilized world, to be attri
buted. Still, it is undeniable that the most perfect system of
* I speak here, as regretting the circumstance, not as censuring the
individual. It is probable, that had Mr. Mill spoken more plainly, his
essay would have been refused admission into the Encyclopasdia.
�OPAL. PHYSIOLOGY.
25
political or social economy in the world could not, of itself,
prevent the ultimate evils of superabundant population. A nd,
it is no less certain, that, in the meantime, the pressure ol a
large family on the labouring man greatly augments his
difficulties, and often deprives him of that leisure which he
might employ in devising means to better his condition, in
stead of leaving public, business in the hands of political
gamblers.
Vice-bringing laws and customs ought to be—must be
changed ; but while the grass is growing, let us prevent the
horse from starving, if we can
Thus (and I am desirous it be distinctly understood) a
solution of the population question is here offered, as an
alleviation of existing evils, not as a cure for them ; as a pal
liative, not as a remedy, for the national disease. Population
might be but a tenth part of what it is, and unjust legislation'
and vicious customs would still give birth, as they now do, to
extravagance and want. It is true, and ought to be remem
bered, that the check I propose, by diminishing the number
of laborers, will render labor more scarce and consequently
of higher value in the market; and in this view, its political
importance is considerable: but it may also be doubted
whether our present overgrown system of commercial compe
tition be not hurrying the laborer towards the lowest rate of
wages, capable of sustaining life, too rapidly to be overtaken,
except in individual cases, even by a prudential check to
population. I do not, then, expect political wonders from my
little work. Economy in living is, like the parental foresight
of which I speak, in itself an excellent thing, and ought
to be recommended to all ; but he who expects, by the one
recommendation or the other, to eradicate the ills of poverty,
expects an effect from inadequate causes.
The root
of the evil lies far deeper than this ; and its remedy must be
of a more radical nature. This is not the place, however,
to enter on such a discussion. The great importance of the
present work I conceive to lie more in its m«raZ and social,
than in its political, bearings. It is addressed to each
individual, rather as the member of a family, than the
citizen of a state.
Enough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to deter
mine the question, whether it is, or is not, desirable, in a
political point of view, that some check to population be
sought and disclosed—some “moral restraint” that shall
not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, like late
marriages, be ascetic and immacticable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
CHAPTER V.
THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAL BEARINGS.
This is by far the most important branch of the question.
The evils caused by an absolute overstocking; of the world, if
inevitable, are distant; and an abstract statement of the sub
ject, however unanswerable, does not come home to the
mind with the force of detailed reality.
What would be the probable effect, in social life, if man
kind obtained and exercised a control over the instinct of
reproduction?
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend
it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilising; that
it would prevent many crimes and more unhappiness; that
it would lessen intemperance and profligacy ; that it would
polish the manners and improve the moral feelings; that it
would alleviate the burden of the poor, and the cares of the
rich ; that it would most essentially benefit the rising gene
ration, by enabling parents generally more carefully to
educate, and more comfortably to provide for, their offspring.
I proceed to substantiate these positions.
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married
persons. Is it not notorious, that their families often
increase beyond what a regard for the young beings
coming into the world, or the happiness of those who give
them birth, would dictate ? In how many instances does the
hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a
poor family, remain slaves throughout their lives, tugging at
the oar of incessant labor, toiling to live, and living only
to die; when, if their offspring had been limited to two or
three, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative
affluence! How often is the health of the mother, giving
birth every year, perchance, to an infant—happy, if it be not
twins '.—and compelled to toil on, even at those times when
nature imperiously calls for some relief from daily drudgery
—how often is the mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life,
thus sacrificed ! Or, when care and toil have weighed down
the spirit, and at last broken the health of the father, how
often is the widow left, unable, with the most virtuous inten
tions, to save her fatherless offspring from becoming de
graded objects of charity, or profligate votaries of vice !
Fathers and mothers! not you who have your nursery and
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
27
your nursery maids, and who ieave your children at home
to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in the hot ball■room ; but you, by the labor of whose hands your children
are to live, and who, as you count their rising numbers, sigh
ttotoink how soon sickness or misfortune may lessen those
wages, which are now but just sufficient to afford them
bread—fathers and mothers in humble life ! to you my
argument comes home, with the force of reality. Others may
impugn—may ridicule it. By bitter experience you know
and feel its truth.
It will be said, that the state ought to provide for the effi
cient guardianship and education of all the children of the
land. No one is less inclined to deny the position than I.
But it does not provide for these. And if it did, a periou
must come at last, when even such an act of justice would
be no relief from the evils of over-population.
,
Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are
many women so constituted that they cannot give birth to
healthy—sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable—
is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet
this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the
contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never
to become parents; because, in so doing, they transmit to
their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that
worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life
of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the
world suffers by it. That a human being qsould give
birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary,
disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly
to expect that we can ever induce all such persons to live the
lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary. All that duty requires
of them is, to refrain from becoming parents. Who can
estimate the beneficial effect which rational, moral restraint
may thus have on the physical improvement of our race,
throughout future ages ! Were such virtue as this generally
cultivated, how soon might the very seeds of disease die out
among us, instead of bearing, as now, their poison-fruit,
from generation to generation! and how far might human
beings, in succeeding times, surpass their forefathers in
health, in strength and in beauty!
This view of the subject is, to the physiologist, to the phi
losopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most
interesting one, “ So long’’’ to use the words of an eloquent,
tocturer, now in this city, “ as the tainted stream is unhesi*
'* Mr. Graham, whose excellent discourses on temperance have excited!
�28
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
tatingly transmitted through the channel of nature, from
parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which
‘ visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the
third and fourth generations? ” And so long, I would add,
will mankind (wise and successful whenever there is question
of improving the animal races) be blind in perceiving, and
listless in securing, that far nobler object, the physical, and
thereby (in a measure) the mental and moral improvement
of our own.
1 may seem an enthusiast—but so let me seem then,—when
I express my conviction, that there is not greater physical
disparity between the dullest, shaggiest race of dwarf draught
horses, and the fiery-spirited and silken-haired Arabian, than
'between man degenerate as he is, and man perfected as he
might be : and though mental cultivation in this counts for
much, yet organic melioration is an influential—an indis
pensable accsseary.
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most
plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents should
have the power to limit their offspring, whether they choose
*
to exercise it or not? Who can lose by their having this
power? and how many mrr/y gain ! may gain competency for
themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and
provide for their children! How many may escape the jar
rings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an over
grown family too often causes in the domestic circle !
It sometimes happens that individual instances come home
to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning.
I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately
under my cognizance.
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of
the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of
the western states, a letter, requesting to know whether I
could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly
interested him, and which regarded a young woman for
whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father.
so much interest, and made so many converts, lately, in New York,
Philadelphia, and other cities of the Union.
* It may possibly be argued, that all married persons have this power
already ; seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than the
unmarried ; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the Shakers
do. But this Shaker remedy is, as every one knows, utterly impi acticable
as a general rule; and it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if
’t were practicable.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
29
In explanation of the circumstances he enclosed me a copy
of a letter which she had just written to him, and which
I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from
its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate
situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life,
find themselves placed, I have never read.
“ Dear Sir,
L * * * Kentucky, May 3, 1829.
“ The friendship which has existed between you and my
father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected kindness
you used to express towards me when you resided in our
neighbourhood, during my childhood ; the lively solicitude
you have always seemed to feel for my welfare, and your
benevolent and liberal character, induce meto lay before you,
in a few words, my critical situation, and ask for your kind
advice.
“ It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young mechanic
of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing manners,
and agreeable features, excessively fond of our children and
of me; in short, eminently well qualified to render him
self and family and all around him happy, were it not for the
besetting sin of drunkenness. About once in every three or
four weeks, if he meet, either accidentally, or purposely, with
some of his friends, of whom,either real or pretended, his good
nature and liberality procure him many, he is sure to get in
toxicated, so as to lose his reason ; and, when thus beside
himself, he trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to
his disadvantage, that he has almost reduced himself and
family to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his
own, but obliged to work journey work.
“We have not been married quite four years, and have
already given being to three dear little ones. Under present
circumstances what can I expect will be their fate and mine?
I shudder at the prospect before me. With my excellent con
stitution and industry, and the labor of my husband, I feel
able to bring up these three little cherubs in decency, were
I to have no more : but when I seriously consider my situa
tion, I can see no other alternative left for me, than to tear
myself away from the man who, though addicted to occasional
intoxication, would sacrifice his life for my sake; and for
whom, contrary to my father’s will, I successively refused the '
hand and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher; or continue
to witness his degradation, and bring into existence,in all pro
bability, a numerous family of helpless and destitute children, .
who, on account of poverty, must inevitably be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice and misery.
�30
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
“ The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father
for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for
advice or anything else. Aly husband being somewhat
sceptical, my father attributes Ins intemperance to his infi
delity ; though my brother, as you know, being a member of
the same church with my father, is, nevertheless, though he
does not fool away his property, more of a drunkard than my
husband, and ranks among the faithful. You will therefore
plainly see, that for these and other reasons, 1 stand the more .
in need of your friendly advice; and I do hope, and believe ■■
you will give me such advice and counsel as you would to
your own daughter, had you one in the same predicament that
I am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the gratitude
of your friend,
M. W.”
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as this?
Every one must be touched with the amiable feeling and
good sense that pervade the letter. Every rational being,
surely, must admit, that the power of preventing, without
injury or sacrifice, the increase of a family, under such cir
cumstances, is a public benefit and a private blessing.
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plausible re
ply to these facts and arguments—will it be asserted, that the
thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? I deny it; and I point
to France, in justification of my denial. Where will you find,
on the face of the globe, a more polished, or more civilised
nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any
rudeness, coarseness, or indecorum? You will find none. The
French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. Yet,
as every intelligent traveller in France must have remarked,
there is scarcely to be found, among the middle or upper
■classes, (and seldom even among the working classes,) a
large family; seldom more than three or four children. A
French lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in
common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as innocently,
whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to the contrary)
as she would proffer any common remark about the weather:
“ I have three children ; my husband and I think that is as
many as we can do justice to, and I do not intend to have
any more.”*
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller who
has visited Paris, and been admitted to the domestic life of
* Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and sim
plicity of such an observation ? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is in
their own minds, not in the words of the French mother.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
31
its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However heterodox,
then, my view of the subject may be in this country, 1 am
supported in it by the opinion and the practice of one of the
most refined and most socially cultivated nations in the
world.
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, is
immoral ? Again I appeal to France. I appeal to the details
of the late glorious revolution—to the innumerable instances
of moderation, of courage, of honesty, of disinterestedness, of
generosity, of magnanimity, displayed on the memorable
“ three days,” and ever since; and I challenge comparison
between the national character of modern France for virtue,
as well as politeness, and that of any other nation under
heaven.
It is evident, then, that, to married persons, the power of
limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most desir
able. It may often promote the harmony, peace, and com
fort of families ; sometimes it may save from bankruptcy and
ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the mother from premature
death. In no case can it, by possibility, be worse than super
fluous. In no case can it be mischievous.
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we were
taught to consult, in every thing, rather the welfare of those
we love than our own, how strongly would these arguments
be felt! No man ought even to desire that a woman should
become the mother of his children, unless it was her express
wish, and unless he knew it to be for her welfare, that she
should. Her feelings, her interests, should be for him in this
matter an imperative law. She it is who bears the burden,
and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely
it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether
any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual,!
cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of/
twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her con
stitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No man
ought to require or expect it.
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morality?
Alas ! that what ought to be a matter of every day practice—
a common-place exercise of the duties and charities of life,
■* —a bounden duty—an instance of domestic courtesy too
universal either to excite remark orto merit commendation—
alas ! that a virtue so humble that its absence ought to be re
proached as a crime, should, to our selfish perceptions, seem
iu.t a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation !
But I pass from the case of married persons to that of
�32
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
young men and women who have not yet formed a matrirno.nial connexion.
In the present state of the world, when public opinion
stamps with opprobrium every sexual connexion which has
not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, almost all
young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to
marry. The heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that
does not find some object on which to bestow its affections.
Early marriages would be almost universal, did not pruden
tial considerations interfere. The young man thinks, “ I
must not marry yet. I cannot support a family. I must
make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement
afterwards.”
And so he sets about making money, fully and sincerely
resolved, in a few years, to share it with her whom he now
loves. But passions are strong, and temptations great.
Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of
those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a depen
dence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then
curses for being- what she has made them. There his health
and his moral feelings alike make shipwreck. The affections
he had thought to treasure up for their first object, are chil
led by dissipation and blunted by excess, He scarcely re
tains a passion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profli
gacy and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished;
his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and re
solves of his youth ?
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone—and for ever I
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He laughs
at the romance of his youth, and marries a fortune. If
gaudy equipages and gay parties confer happiness, he is
happy. But if these be only the sunshine on the stormy
ocean below, he is a victim to that system of morality, which
forbids a reputable connexion until the period when provi
sion has been made for a large, expected family. Had he
married the first object of his choice, and simply delayed
becoming a father until his prospects seemed to warrant it,
how different might have been his lot? Until men and wo
men are absolved from the fear of becoming parents, except
when they themselves desire it, they will continue to form
�33
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
mercenary and demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissi
pation the happiness they might have found in domestic life.
I know that this, however common, is not a universal case.
Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family are incurred,
at all risks; and who shall say how often a life of unremit
ting toil and poverty is the consequence ? Sometimes—if even
rarely—the young mind does hold to its first resolves. The
youth plods through years of cold celibacy and solitary
anxiety : happy, if before the best hours of life are gone and
its warmest feelings withered, he may return to claim the
reward of his forbearance and his industry. But even in
this comparatively happy case, shall we count for nothing the
years of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is pur
chased ? The days of youth are not too many, nor its affec
tions too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object require
it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But is this in
itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us, that such sacri
fice is a dead loss—to the warm-hearted often a grievous one?
Does not wisdom bid us temperately enjoy the spring-time
of life, “ while the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh when we shall say, ‘ We have no pleasure in them
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thus sacri
fices the present for the future, chooses wisely between two
evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is true. But let us not
imagine the lesser evil to be a good. It is not good for man
to be aione. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should be condemned to Shakerism. It is a vio
lence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A
life of rigid celibacy, though greatly preferable to a life of
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness,
restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are
among the least of these. The ipind is unsettled, and the
judgment warped. Even the very instinct which is thus
mortified, assumes an undue importance, and occupies a por
tion of the thoughts, which does not, of right or nature, belong
to it; and which, during a life of satisfied affection, it would
not obtain.
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice or
*
* For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no tempta*
lion, and therefore no existence, were not men and women unnaturally
and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in monasteries
and convents ; and has been perpetuated by the more or less antisocial and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each
ether,inalmost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the
�34
1
‘
moral physiology.
disease, or even insanity, lias been tbe result of asceftca.
mortification. I speak of every-day cases ; and I am well
convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the present state
of the world, to select and adhere to this alternative,) yet no
man or woman can live the life of a conscientious Shaker,
without suffering, more or less, physically, mentally, and
morally. This is the more to be regretted, because the very
noblest portion of our species—the good, the pure, the highminded, and the kind-hearted—are the chief victims.
Thus, ^nasmuc’1 as the scruple of incurring heavy respon
sibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and en
courages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge
which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in the pre
sent state of things, save much unhappiness, and prevent
many crimes. Young persons sincerely attached to each other,
and who might wish to marry, might marry early; merely
resolving not to become parents until prudence permitted it.
The young man, instead of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation,
would enjoy the society and the assistance of her he had
chosen as his companion ; and the best years of life, whose
pleasures never return, would not be squandered in riot
or lost through mortification.
If, in virtue of these recommendations, early marriages
became common, and parents were accustomed to limit the
number of their offspring, they would have the best chance
of forming their children’s characters, watching their pro
gress, even to manhood, and seeing them settled in the
world ; instead of leaving them, while young and inexpe
rienced, as they who become parents at a late age must
expect to do, to the mercy of fortune and the guidance of
strangers.
My readers will remark, that all the arguments I have
hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present order of
things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No
one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject, to
present false situation of society, we must set down to the black account
the wretched, wretched consequences, (terminating not unfrequently in
incurable insanity,) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern
civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a
lamentable extent, both in this country and England. If the recorts
*
mendations contained in this little treatise were generally followed, it
would probably disappear in a single generation.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY,
35
admit and approve them. The marriage laws mi ht all re
main for ever as they are ; and yet a moral check to popula
tion would be beneficent and important.
But there are other cases, it will be said, in which the
knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If young
women, it will be argued, were absolved from the fear of
consequences, they would rarely preserve their chastity.
Unlegalized connexions would be common and seldom de
tected. Seduction would be facilitated. Let us carefully
i examine this argument.
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics,
Shelley, that “ Seduction, which term could have no mean
ing in a rational society, has now a most tremendous one.”
It matters not. how artificial the penalty which society has
chosen to affix to a breach of her capricious decrees. Society
has the power in her own hands; and that moral Shylock,
Public Opinion, enforces the penalty, even though it cost
the life of the victim. The consequences, then, to the poor
sufferer, whose offence is but an error of judgment or a weak
ness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were
indeed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who,
for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately entail
a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, perhaps, was
her misplaced confidence in a hypocrite, is not one whit
excused by the folly and injustice of the sentence.j- Some
poet says,
“ The man. who lays his hand upon a woman
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.”
How, then, shall we regard him who makes it a trade to
win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her generous confi
dence, and then, when the consequences become apparent,
abandon her to dependence, and the scorn of a cold, a selfrighteous and a wicked world; a world which will forgive
* Letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of December 5, 1818.
+ Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unreasoning—
sometimes even generous imprudence of youthful passion, and the calcu
lating selfishness of the matured and heartless libertine. It is a melant^ich®ly truth, that pseudo-civilization produces thousands of seducers by
profession, who, while daily calling the heavens to witness their eternal
affections, have no affection for any thing on earth but their own profli
gate Reives. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my
t&scrvations apply.
a
�36
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
any thing but rebellion against its tyranny, and in whose
eyes it seems the greatest of crimes to be unsuspecting and
warm-hearted !
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduction
thier sting, and stamps to the world its victim ? Why is it,
that the man goes free and enters society again, almost
courted and applauded ; while the woman is a mark for the
finger of reproach, and a butt for the tongue of scandal ? Is
it not chiefly because she bears about her the mark of what
is called her disgrace ? She becomes a mother ; and society
has something tangible against which to direct its anathe
mas. Mine-tenths, at least, of the misery and ruin which are
caused by seduction, even in the present state of public
opinion, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the unfeel
ing selfishness of him who fears to become a father, adminis
ters some noxious drug to procure abortion ; perhaps—
for even such scenes our courts of justice disclose!—perhaps
the frenzy of the wretched mother takes the life of her in
fant, or seeks in suicide the consummation of her wrongs
and her woes ! Or, if the little being live, the dove in the
falcon’s claws is not more certain of death than we may be,
that society will visit, with its bitterest scoff’s and reproaches,
the bruised spirit of the mother and the unconscious inno
cence of the child.
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part? If we
cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfishness and the
world’s cruelty" entail on a sex, which it ought to be our pride
and honor to cherish and defend; let us prevent as many as
we can. If we cannot persuade society to revoke its unmanly
and unchristian * persecution of those who are often the best
and gentlest of its members—let us, at the least, give to wo
man what defence we may, against its violence.
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of his
child, whether, if she were induced to form an unlegalised
connexion, her pregnancy would not be a frightful aggrava
tion? I appeal to him, whether any innocent preventive
which shall save her from a situation that must soon disclose
all to the world, would not be an act of mercy, of charity, of
philanthropy—whether it might not save him from despair,
and her from ruin? The fastidious conformist may frow£
upon the question, but to the father it comes home; and.,
• Jesus said unto her,“ Neither do I condemn thee.”—viii. 11
�moral physiology.
37
whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the
soundness and the force of the argument it conveys.
*
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality will
still demur to the positions I defend. They will perhaps tell
me, as the Committee of a certain Society in this city lately
did, that the power of preventing conceptions “ holds out
inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their
daughters, their sisters, and their wives.
* What is the actual state of society in Great Britain, and even in thii
republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative delicacy, should so
fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction, a simple, moral, effectual
check to population? Are her sons all chaste and temperate, and her
daughters all passionless and pure ? I might disclose, if I would, in this
very city of New York—and in our neighbor city of Philadelphia—
scenes and practices that have come to light from time to time, and that
would furnish no very favorable answer to the question. I might ask,
whether all the houses of assignation in these two cities are frequented
b y the known profligate alone ? or, whether some of the most outwardly
respectable fathers—ay, mothers of families—have not been found in
resorts frequented and supported only by “ good society’'’ like them
selves ?
As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence delivered before
a “ Committee of the House of Commons, on Laborers’ Wages,” by
Mr. Henry Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large land-owner, in
the county of Surry, in which the following question and answer occur
Q. “ What is the practice you allude to of forcing marriages ?” A. “ I
believe nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws
tend to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being
married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking
place throagh a calculation for future support.” Mr. Drummond’s
assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses; and
from what I have myself learnt in conversation with some of the chief
manufacturers of England, I am convinced, that the statement, as regards
the working population in the chief manufacturing districts, is scarcely
exaggerated.
I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling Hospital
in Dublin now stands, formerly went by the name of “ Murderer’s
Lane,” from the number of ch-’’d murders that were perpetrated in the
vicinity.
I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, that,
even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are not unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, in public,
would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book.
But why multiply proofs? The records of every court of justice, nay,
the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing room, sufficiently marks the
leal character of this prudish and p'narisaical world.of ours.
t See Letter of the Gommittee of the Typographical Socletv ‘ib Robert
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
38
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and their
daughters, a poor compliment!
Is, then, this vaunted
chastity a mere thing of circumstance and occasion ? Is
there but the difference of opportunity between it and prosti
tution ? Would their wives, their sisters, and their daugh
ters, if once absolved from the fear of offspring, become
prostitutes—sell their embraces for gold, and descend to a
level with the most degraded? In truth, they slander their
own kindred; they libel their own wives, sisters, and
daughters. If they spoke truth—if fear were indeed the only
safeguard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I
place on a virtue like that I and small would I esteem his
offence, who should attempt or seduce it.
*
Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of the 29th of
September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 9th of Oqfepber,
1830.
For a statement of the circumstances connected with that letter, and
which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the present treatise,
see Preface to the New York edition.
* I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to what
principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow out of a fear of
offspring; so that, if released from such fear, prostitution would follow.
I can readily comprehend that the unmarried may be supposed careful
to avoid that situation to which no legal cause can be assigned ; but a
wife must be especially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal
cause ; and a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whe
ther the true cause be assigned or not. This safeguard to married
chastity, therefore, to which the gentlemen of the Typographical Com
mittee seem to look with so implicit a confidence, is a mere broken reed ;
and has been so ever since the days of Bathsheba.
Yet conjugal chastity is that which is especially valued. The incon
stancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dishonor of a
sister. In that case, then, which the world usually considers of the
highest importance, the fear of offspring imposes no check whatever. It
cannot make one iota of difference whether a married woman be knowing
in physiology or not; except perhaps, indeed, to the husbands advan
tage ; in cases where the wife’s conscience induces her at least to guard
against the possibility of burthening her legal lord with the care and sup
port of children that are not his. Constancy, where it actually exists, is
the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance. And if in
the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something else, why not in all
other cases, where constraint may be considered desirable ? Shall men
trust in the greater, and fear to trust in the less? Whatever any one
may choose to assert regarding his relatives’ secret inclinations to pro
fligacy, these arguments may convince him, that if he have any safeguard
at present, a perusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it.
’Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, should be
�M01UL PHYSIOLOGY.
39
That chastity which is worth preserving is not Ihc chastity
that owes its birth to fear and ignorance. If to enlighten a
woman regarding a simple physiological fact will make her
a prostitute, she must be especially predisposed to profli' gacy. But it is a libel on the sex. Few, indeed, there are,
, who would continue so miserable and degrading a calling could they escape from it. For one prostitute that is made
by inclination, ten are made by necessity. Reform the laws
—equalize the comforts of society, and you need withhold no
knowledge from your wives and daughters. It is want, not
knowledge, that leads to prostitution.
For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daughter,
or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It should
be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate to them all
I knew myself: and I should hold it an insult to their under
standings and their hearts to imagine, that their virtue would
diminish as their knowledge increased. Would we but trust
human nature, instead of continually suspecting it, and
guarding it by bolts and bars, and thinking to make it very
chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what a different world
we should have of it! The virtue of ignorance is a sickly
plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to
be scorched and blasted even by the free light of heaven ; of
precarious growth ; and even if at last artificially matured, of
little or no real value.
I know that parents often think it right and proper to
withhold from their children, especially from their daughters,
facts the most influential on their future lives, and the know
ledge of which is essential to every man and woman’s well
being. Such a course has ever appeared to me ill-judged
and productive of very injurious effects. A girl is surely no
whit tlie better for believing, until her marriage night, that
■ children are found among the cabbage leaves in the garden
The imagination is excited, the curiosity kept continually on
the stretch ; and that which, if simply explained, would have
been recollected only as any other physiological phenome
non, assumes alf the rank and importance and engrossing
interest of a mystery. Nay, I am well convinced, that mere
Curiosity has often led ignorant young people into situations,
from which a little more confidence and openness on the part
of their parents or guardians, would have effectually secured
| them.
willing thus to vilify their relatives’ character and motives, without first
carefully examining whether any thing was gained to theii cause, after
all, by the ’'i'Pic-uion
�•A
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was
taught and believed that all the imaginations and all the
thoughts of man are only evil continually, when it was
deemed right and proper to secure the submission of the
mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how to
read and write—in those days, it was all very well to shut up
the physiological page, and tell us, that on the day we read
therein we should surely die. But those times are past. In
this nineteenth century men and women read, think, discuss,
inquire, judge for themselves. If, in these latter days, there
is to be virtue at all, she must be the offspring of knowledge
and of free inquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We
cannot prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we
would ; we ought not, even if we could.
This book will make its way through the whole United
States. Curiosity and the notoriety which has already been
given to the subject, will suffice at first to obtain for it cir
culation. The practical importance of the subject it treats
will do the rest. It needed but some one to start the stone;
its own momentum will suffice to carry it forward.
But, if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why
should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No man
thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels certain that
bis virtue can stand any degree of knowledge. And is it not
the height of egregious presumption in each to imagine that
his neighbor is so much weaker than himself, and requires a
bandage which he can do without? Most of all, it is pre
sumptuous to suppose, that that knowledge which the man
of the world can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young
and lhe pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that
suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. Speak
to them openly. Show them that yot- respect them, by
treating them with confidence; and they will quickly learn
to respect and to govern themselves. Enlist their pride
in your behalf; and you will soon see them make it their
boast and their highest pleasure to merit your confidence.
But watch them, and show your suspicion of them but once,
and you are the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as
long as bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The
world was never made for a prison-house; it is too large
and ill-guarded : nor were parents ever intended for gaol
keepers ; their very affections unfit them for the task.
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a family
among whom there are no secrets and no reserves ; where
the young people confide every thing to their elder friends—
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY
for such to them arc their parents—and whine the parents
trust every thing to their children; where each thought is
communicated as freely as it arises; and all knowledge
given as simply as it is received. If the world contain a
prototype of That Paradise, where nature is said to have
known no sin or impropriety, it is such a family. And if •'
there be a serpent that can poison the innocence of its in- 5
mates, that serpent is Suspicion,
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guardian and
companion of young beings whose innocence shall speak to
me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; of young beings
who shall never imagine that there is guilt in their thoughts,
or sin in their confidence ; and to whom, in return, I may
impart every important and useful «fact that is known to
myself. Their virtue should be of that hardy growth, which
all facts tend to nourish and strengthen.
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human
nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accordance
with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it to them,
whether they have not felt themselves encouraged, improved,
strengthened in every virtuous resolution, when they were
generously trusted, and whether they have not felt abashed
and degraded when they were suspiciously watched, and
spied after, and kept in ignorance. If they find such feelings
in their own hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine,
that they only can be won by generosity, or that the nature
of their fellow-creatures is different from their own.
There are other considerations connected with this subject,
which farther attest the social advantages of the control I
advocate. Human affections are mutable, and the sincerest
of mortal resolutions may change.
*
Every day furnishes
instances of alienations, and of separattons; sometimes
almost before the honey-moon is well expired. In such
cases of unsuitability, it cannot be considered desirable
that there should be offspring; and the power of refraining
from becoming parents until intimacy had, in a measure,
established the likelihood of permanent harmony of view
and feelings, will be confessed to be advantageous.
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe to
* Le premier serment que se firent deux etres de chair, se fut au
ied d’un rocher, qui tombait en poussiere; ils attesterent de leur conpance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le meme: tout passait en eux, et
stutour d’eux ; et ils croyaient leurs coeurs affranchis de vicissitudes. O
afaiise a’, touiours enfans! —Diderot Jacques et son Maitre.
t
�42
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this little treatise, permit me not to meet every argument in
detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put forward. If
the world were not actually afraid to think freely or to listen
io the suggestions of common sense, three fourths of what
has already been said would be superfluous for most of
;
*
the arguments employed would occur spontaneously to any
rational being. But the mass of mankind have still, in a
measure, every thing to learn on this and other moral sub
jects. The world seems to me much to resemble a company
of gourmands, who sit down to a plentiful repast, first very
punctiliously saying grace over it; and then, under sanction
of the priest’s blessing, think to gorge themselves with im
punity ; as conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin.
So it is with popular customs and popular morality. Every
thing is permitted, if external forms be but respected. Le
gal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned excess no
profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the form, the
virtue to the outward observance. The world troubles its
head little about whether a man be honest or dishonest, so
he knows how to avoid the penitentiary and escape the
gallows. In like manner, the world seldom thinks it worth
while to enquire whether a man be temperate or intemperate,
prudent or thoughtless. It takes especial care to inform
itself whether in all things he conforms to orthodox require
ments ; and, if he does, all is right. Thus men too often
learn to consider an oath an absolution from all subsequent
decencies and duties, and a full release from all after re
sponsibilities. If a husband maltreat his wife,, the offence is
venal: for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an
honest vfoman.” If a married father neglect his children,,
it is a trifle ; for grace was regularly said, before they were
born.
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to
throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings,
and much of the indifference and carelessness of each others’
feelings that are exhibited in married life, might be traced to
the almost universal custom (in this country, though not in
France) of man and wife continually occupying the same
bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too fre
quent familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms
and pleasures, and diminish the respectful regard and defer
ence, which ought ever to characterize the intercourse or
□uman beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things
Jo forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky
�43
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
ideaas this, ten to one the married portion of the community
would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent inter
meddler in their most legitimate rights and prerogatives.
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason.
After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me
short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be
right and proper, that we should reproduce our species with
out calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether
nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the
thermometer is at 96, we should drink greedily of cold
water, and drop down dead in the streets ? Let the world
be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities,
she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that,
when we hesitate to exercise that power, we descend to a
level with the brute creation, and become the sport of for
tune—the mere slaves of circumstance.
*
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while
to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to
excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recom
mend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where chil
dren cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man;
since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might pro
vide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all ought
to be so circumstanced ; but all are not. And there would
be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man go and take
by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbor’s
store, because he ought to be able to purchase it, as to en
courage him to go on producing children, because he ought
to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every
nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results
from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so,
let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which
grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden
on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and
Ignorance the next.
* Some German poet, whose name has escaped me, says,
“ Tapfer ist der Lowensieger,
Tapfer ist der Weltbezwinger,
.
Tapferer, wer sich selbst bezwang!”
u
<f Brave is the lion victor,
Brave the conqueror of a world,
Braver he who controls himself!”
It ia a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present discussion-
�44
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the va
rious arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect
how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected
with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind,
that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important
that we should know how to control and govern it; that,
when we oblain such control, we may save ourselves, and
what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our com
panions and our offspring, from suffering or misery ; that, by
such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions,
instead of becoming profligate or ascetics; that, by it, early
marriage is deprived of its heaviest, consequences, and seduc
tion of its sharpest sting; that, by it, man may be saved from
moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonor: that by it
the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead
of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all
this, and then let them say, whether the possession of such
control be not a blessing to man.
,______ _
•
,, ffniUitiia. ot buoni
-id joun«o rroib
<■', H-. rmi-:
CHAPTER VI.
/
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNECTION
WITH PHYSIOLOGY.
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of
obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak
of its practicability.
As, in this world, the value of labor is too often estimated
almost in proportion to its inutility; so, in physical science,
contested questions seem to have attracted attention and en
gaged research, almost in the inverse ratio of their practical
importance. We have a hundred learned hypotheses for one
decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands of
volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as
many dozens to record ascertained facts.
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the sub
ject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories of genera
tion which ancient and modern physiologists have put forth.
I shall not inquire whether the future human being owes its
first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen assert, and Buffon
very ingeniously supports, to the union of two life-giving
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
45
fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent, and!
composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring;
or whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposea
in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps
only by the aura seminalis: or whether, according to the
theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future man
first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which the ovum,
becomes merely the nourishing receptacle, or whether,, as
the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more
correct hypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will
have it, the embryo beings (too wondex fully organized’
*
to be supposed the production of any mere physical phe
nomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the hands
of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these
little germs, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the ani
mal functions, but still self-existent, and awaiting only
the insinuation of some subtle essence into their microscopic
pores, to come forth as human beings. Still less am I
inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their
inquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the
foetus, or pre-exists in the semen, and becomes, as it were,
the architect of its future residence, the body; f or to attempt
a refutation of the hypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist, J
who asserts, (and adduces the infinite indivisibility of matter
in support of the assertion,) that the actual germs of the
whole human race, and of all that are yet to be born, existed
in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty
other hypotheses, as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed
by those who seem to make it a point of honor to leave no
fact unexplained by some imagined theory ; and come at
once to positive experience and actual observation.
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not
spend some small portion of the time and industry which,
has been wasted on theoretical research, in collecting and
collating the actual experience of human beings. But this
task, too difficult for the ignorant, has generally been
thought too simple and common-place for the learned. To
* See “ Histoire de l’Academie des Sciences,” for the year 1679,
page 279.
t Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is outrage
ous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on diet, he tells us,
“ Si quis non credat animam, anima misceri, demens est” TertulliaO
tvarmly supports the orthodoxy of this opinion.
| Bonner, I believe.
�46
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not thought
fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate
their personal experience on the important subject now
under consideration—to these causes are attributable the
great and otherwise unaccountable ignorance which so
strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men, as
to the power which man may possess over the reproductive
instinct. Some physicians deny that man possesses any such
power. And yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and
research had been employed to investigate this momentous
fact, which has been turned to the building up of idle
theories, no commonly intelligent individual would be igno
rant of the truth.
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the
most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on
this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not per
mit them to offer publicly in their works ;) and they all con
cur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation
positively proves, that man may have a complete control over
this instinct; and that men and women may, without injury
to health, or violence to the moral feelings, and with very
little diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the grati
fication of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents.
It has chanced to me, also, to gain the confidence of several
individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve,
their own experience ; and all this has been corroborative of
the same opinion.
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively to the de
tails of a subject, which will then only be fully understood
when men acquire sense enough simply and unreservedly
to discuss it, I may venture to assure my readers, that the
main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such facts in
proof of this as may occur to me in the course of the inves
tigation.
However various and contradictory the different theories
of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, that the
entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile particles
proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede conception. This it was that probably first suggested the possibi
lity of preventing conception at will.
Among the modes of preventing conception which may
have prevailed in various countries, that which has been
adopted, and is now practised, by the cultivated classes on
the continent of Europe, by the French the Italians and I
!
*
■
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
47
Relieve, by the Germans and Spaniards, consists of complete
Withdrawal, on the part of the man, immediately previous to
emission. This is, in all cases, effectual. It may be objected,
that the practice requires a mental effort and a partial sacri
fice. I reply, that, in France, where men consider this, (as
it ought ever to be considered, when the interests of the other
sex require it,) a point of honor—ally oung men learn to make
the necessary effort; and custom renders it easy and a matter
J of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trifling (and it is but a
very trifling) diminution of physical enjoyment be suflered
to outweigh the most important considerations connected
with the permanent welfare of those who are the nearest and
dearest to us? Shall it be suffered to outweigh the risk of
incurring heavy and sacred responsibilities, ere we are pre
pared to fulfil them ? Shall it be suffered to outweigh a regard
for the comfort, the well-being—in some cases, the life, of
those whom we profess to love? The most selfish will hesitate
deliberately to reply, in the affirmative, to such questions as
these. A cultivated young Frenchman, instructed as he is,
even from his infancy, carefully to consult, on all occasions,
the wishes, and punctiliously to care for the comfort and wel
fare, of the gentler sex, would learn, almost with incredulity,
that, in other countries, there are men to be found, pretend
ing to cultivation, who were less scrupulously honorable on
this point than himself. You could not offer him a greater
insult than to presuppose the possibility of his forgetting
himself so far as thus to put his own momentary gratification,
for an instant, in competition with the wish or the well-being
of any one to whom he professed regard or affection.
I know it will be argued, that men in the mass are not
I sufficiently moral to adopt this recommendation; because they
will not make any voluntary sacrifice of animal enjoyment,
however trifling. I do not see that. Hundreds of voluntary
* A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes, would as soon bear
to be called a coward, as to be accused of causing the pregnancy of a
woman who did not desire it ■, and that, too, whether the matrimonial
’ law had given him legal rights over her person or not. Such an imputa
tion, if substantiated, would shut him out for ever from all decent society ;
and most properly so. It is a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated
as such.
When we begin to look to genuine morality, instead of empty or onenk fcve forms, these are the principle, of honor we shall implant in our chil
dren’s minds : and then we shall have a world of courtesy and kindneSF^
instead of a scene of legal outrage, or hypocritical profession.
�48
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
sacrifices are daily made to fashion—to public opiniou. Let
but public opinion bear on this point in other countries, as it
does among the more enlightened classes in France, and
similar effects will be produced.
The matter is a trifle. The mere act of animal satisfaction,
counts with any man of commonly cultivated feelings, as but
a small item in the aggregate of enjoyment which satisfied
affection aifords; and, surely, whether that act be at ali
times attended with the utmost degrees of physica pleasure
or not, must, even with the felfish, be a secondary and unim
portant consideration. His moral sentiments must be espe
cially weak or uncultivated, who will not admit, that it is the
gratification of the social feelings—the repose of the affec
tions—which, at all times, constitutes the chief charm of
human intercourse.
The least injurious among the present checks to popula
tion, celibacy, is a mortification of the affections, a violence
done to the social feelings, sometimes a sacrifice even of the
health. Not one of these objections can be urged to the
trifling restraint proposed.
As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as being
unnatural, it is just as unnatural, and no more so, than to
refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, perhaps,
more than a pint of water at a draught, which prudence tells
us is enough, while inclination bids us drink a quart. All
thwarting of any human wish or impulse may, in one sense,
be called unnatural; it is not, however, oft-time the less pru
dent and proper, on that account. Then, too, if this trifling re
straint is to be called unnatural, what shall we say of celibacy ?
As to the practical efficacy of this simple preventive, the
experience of France, where it is extensively practised,
might suffice in proof. I know, at this moment, several
married persons who have told me, that, after having had
as many children as they thought prudent, they hail for years
employed this check, with perfect success. For the satisfaction
of my readers, I will select one particular instance.
I knew personally and intimately for many years, a young ,
man of strict honour, in whose sincerity I ever placed confi- 1
dence, and who confided to me the particulars of his situation. ■,
He was just entering on life, with slender means, and his I
circumstances forbade him to have a large family of chil
dren. He, therefore, having consulted his young wife, prac
tised this restraint, I believe for about eighteen months, and
with perfect success. At the expiration of that period, theij
situation being more favourable, they resolved to become
�MOKAL PHYSioluGY.
4.9
parents; and, in a fortnight after, the wife found herself
pregnant. My friend told me, that though he felt the partial
privation a little at first, a few weeks’ habit perfectly re
conciled him to it; and that nothing but a deliberate con
viction that he might prudently now become a parent,
and a strong desire on his wife’s part to have a child, in
duced him to alter his first practice. I believe I was the
only one among his friends to whom he ever communicated
the real state of the case; and I doubt not there are, even
in this cotf-^try, hundreds of similar cases which the world
never learns any thing about. Hence the doubts and igno
rance which exist on the subject.
I add another instance. A short time since, a respectable
and very intelligent father of a family, about thirty-five
years of a<re, who resides west of the mountains, called at
our office. Conversation turned on the present subject, and
I expressed to him my conviction, that this check was effec
tual. He told me he could speak from personal experience.
He had married young, and soon had three children. These
he could support in comfort, without running into debt or
*
difficulty; but, the price of produce sinking in his neigh
bourhood, there did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a
large family. In _ .'sequence, he and his wife determined to
limit their offspring to three. They havo accordingly em
ployed the above check for seven or eight years; have had
no more children; and have been rewarded for their pru
dence by finding their situation and prospects improving
every year. He confirmed an opinion I have already ex
pressed, by stating, that custom completely reconciled him
to anv slig1,i privation he might at first have felt. I asked
him, whether his neighbors generally followed the same
practice. H" replied, that he could not tell; for he had not
thought it prudent to speak with any but his own relations on
the subject, one or two of whom, he knew, had profited by his
advice, and afterwards expressed to him their gratitude for
the important information.
It is unnecessary farther to multiply instances. The fact
that this check is in common practice, and known to be effi
cacious, in France, is alone sufficient evidence of its practi
cability and safety.
I can readily imagine, that there are men, wSo, in parr
from temperament, but much more from the continued habit
of unrestrained indulgence, may have so little command
over their passions, as to find difficulty in practising it; and
some, it may be, who will declare it to be impossible. If any
D
�50
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
there be to whom itzs impossible, (which I very much doubt,
I am at least convinced that the number is exceedingly small;
not a fiftieth part of those who may at first imagine such to be
their case.
I may add, that partial withdrawal is not an infallible pre
ventive of conception.
Other modes of prevention have been employed. I have
selected this, because I judge it to be at once the most simple,
and the most efficacious. Those who have employed it for
ys»ars, seem to concur in the opinion that it. is, as regards its
influence on health, innocent: it has even been said to
*
produce on the human system an influence similar to that of
temperance in diet; but this I doubt. As regards any moral
impropriety in its use, enough methinks has already been said,
to convince all except those who will not be convinced, that
to employ it, in all cases where prudence or the well-being
of our companions requires it, is an act of practical virtue.
It may be said, and said truly, that this check places the
power chiefly in the hands of the man, and not, where it
ought to be, in those of the woman. She, who is the sufferer,
is not secured against the culpable carelessness, or perhaps
the deliberate selfishness, of him who goes free and unblamed
whatever may happen. To this, the reply is, that the best and
only effectual defence for women is to refuse connexion with
any man void of honor. An (almost omnipotent) public opinion
would thus be speedily formed: one of immense moral utility,
by means of which the man’s social reputation would be
placed, as it should be, in the keeping of women, whose
moral tact and nice discrimination in such matters is far
superior to ours. How mighty and beneficent the power
which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and
rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extir* Experience, extensive and carefully recorded, can alone verify, as
in a matter so important ought to be verified, the opinion here expressed
touching the innocence to health of the preventive recommended. No
one is justified in speaking positively on such a subject, until he has
accumulated a greater mass of facts than I, or perhaps any other indi
vidual, have yet had the means of ascertaining. The subject once
agitated, such facts will gradually come to light. <n the mean time let
us bear in mind, that the truth and importance of th abstract principle
*
rest not on the accuracy of the physiological items here adduced. A
preventive check to population is a thing in itself good and desirable, or
it is the reverse. If good and desirable, men and women will ultimately
perceive it to be so, and will search and experiment until they discover
what practice is best. Of this, as of other branches of physical science,
time alone can elucidate and substantiate the details.
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
51
pation of those selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now dis
grace and brutify our species, it is difficult even to imagine.
In the silent, but resistless progress of human im
provement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We
are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and
of brute force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated
refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to
benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the
spirit of justice : and, day by day, men and women become
more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred
duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and
less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no
human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or how
rapidly it may come, is a question ; and depends, in some
degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should this little
book prove one among the number of circumstances to ac
celerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be
repaid, ten times over, for the trifling labor it has cost
him.
In conclusion, it may be useful to state to the reader the
following facts. A knowledge of this and other checks to
population has been, for many years, extensively disseminated
in most of the populous towns in Great Britain by hundreds
of thousands ofhand-bills which were gratuitously distributed
from benevolent motives. The men who were first instru mental
in making them known in England are all elderly men,fathers
of families of children grown up to be men and women ; men
of unquestioned integrity and moral character; many of them
men of science, and some of them known as the first political
economists of the age. Beside the allusion to thesubjectalready
given from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is adverted to in
Place’s “ Illustrations of the principles of Population;” in Mill’s
“ Elements of Political Economy in Thompson’s “ Distri
bution of Wealth,” and probably in other works with which
I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly) broach ed in
several English newspapers, and was preached in lectur es to
the laboring classes, by a benevolent man, at Leeds. I do
not believe the subject has ever been touched upon, ex
cept by men of irreproachable moral character, and gene
rally of high standing in society. The chief difference
between this little treatise, and the allusions made by the
distinguished authors above mentioned, is, that what public
opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture to say
plainly.
~
D 2
�52
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the
facts I have stated. Though, in the present state of public
opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof,
yet it is evident that I can have no motive whatever to mislead
or deceive. I shall consider it a favor if any individuals who
can adduce, from personal experience, facts connected with
this subject, will communicate them to me.
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “ Esquisse des
progres de I’esprit humain,” -very distinctly alludes to the safety and
facility with which population might be restrained, “ if reason should
but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of
superstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity cor
rupting and degrading, not purifying or elevating.” See his Esquisse,
pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822. Malthus (see his “ Essays on Popu
lation,’' Book III. chap. 1.) “professes not to understand the French
philosopher.” No Frenchman could misunderstand him.
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
That most practical of philosophers, Franklin, interprets
chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly temperate satisfac
tion, without injury to others, of those desires which are natural
to all healthy adult beings. In this sense chastity is the first
of virtues, and one most rarely practised, either by young
*
men or by married persons, even when the latter most scru
pulously conform to the letter of the law.
*
The promotion of such chastity is the chief object of tne
present work. It is all-important for the welfare of our
race, that the reproductive instinct should never be selfishly
indulged ; never gratified at the expense of the well-being of
our companions. A man who, in this matter, will not con
sult, with scrupulous deference, the slightest wishes of the
other sex ; a man who will ever put his desires in competi
tion with theirs, and who will prize more highly the pleasure
lie receives than that he may be capable of bestowing—such
a man, appears to me, in the essentials of character, a brute.
* My father, Robert Owen’s definition of chastity is also an excellent
and an important one: “PROSTITUTION, Sexual intercourse without
affection: CHASTITY, Sexual intercourse with affection.”
�MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
53
The brutes commonly seek the satisfaction of their propen
sities with straight-forward selfishness, and never calculate
whether their companions are gratified or teased by their im
portunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely
to theirs than by imitating them in this.
Again. There is no instinct in regard to which strict tem
perance is more essential. All our animal desires have
hitherto occupied an undue share of human thoughts; but
none more generally than this. The imaginations of the young
and the passions of the adult are inflamed by mystery or
excited by restraint, and a full half of all the thoughts and
intrigues of the world has a direct reference to this single
instinct. Even those who, like the Shakers, “ crucify the
flesh,” are not the less occupied by it in their secret thoughts;
as the Shaker writings themselves may afford proof. Neither
human institutions nor human prejudices can destroy the
instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content ration
ally to control and wisely to regulate it.
It is a question of passing importance, IIow may it Dest
he regulated?” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish chastity.
Assuredly not by the world’s favorite regulator, ignorance.
No. Do we wish to bring this instinct under easy govern
ment, and to assign it only its due rank among human senti
ments ? Then let us cultivate the intellect, let us exercise
the body, let us usefully occupy the time, of every human
being. What is it gives to passion its sway, and to desires
their empire, now ? It is vacancy of mind; it is listlessness
of body ; it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual;
a hardy race are seldom love-sick ; an industrious race have
no time to be sentimental. Develope the moral sentiments,
and they will govern the physical instincts. Occupy the
mind and body usefully, intellectually ; and the propensities
will obtain that care and time only which they merit. Upon
any other principle we may doctor poor human nature for
ever, and shall only prove ourselves empirics in the end.
Mortifications, vestal vows, mysteries, bolts and bars, prud
ish prejudices—these are all quack-medicines; and are only
calculated to prostrate lhe strength and spirits, or to heighten
the fever, of the patient. If we will dislodge error and pas
sion, we must replace them by something better. They say
that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. Least of all can it exist
in the human mind. Empty it of one folly, cure it of one
vice, and another flows in to fill the vacancy, unless it find it
already occupied by intellectual exorcise and common sense
�54
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY.
Husbands and fathers! study Franklin’s definition of chas
tity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on the
stretch to watch and guard: reflect whether it be not pleasan
ter and better, to enlighten and trust.
Honest ascetics ! you have striven to mortify the flesh;
ask yourselves whether it be not wiser to control it. You have
sought to crucify the body ; consider whether it be not more
effectual to cultivate the mind.
Have you succeeded mi
spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not, inquire whether
every human propensity, duly governed, be not a benefit and
a blessing to the nature in which it is inherent.
Human beings, of whatever sex or class I examine dispas
sionately and narrowly the influence which the control here
recommended will produce throughout society. Reflect
whether it will not lighten the burdens of one sex, while it
affords scope for the exercise of the best feelings of the other.
Decide whether its tendency be not benignant and elevating;
conducive to the exercise of practical virtue, and to the per
manent welfare of the human race.
�APPENDIX
TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
Reception of the Work by the Public. Opinion of a talented Author. Opinion
of a Physician and Professor. Letter from a Mechanic. The work never in
tended as a political panacea. Transmission of hereditary disease. Letter on
the subject. Letter from a French gentleman. Physiological argument in fa
vor of temperance. Experience of two members of the Society of Fri ends
Objection of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them
Weighty objections. Suggestion in a letter from Manchester.
New-York, June 25, 1831
Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication of
“ Moral Physiology
and already I am called upon to pre
pare a fifth edition. If I am pleased (as what author is not) to
see that my labors are appreciated by the public, I am also
reminded of the additional obligations I lie under, to render the
little treatise as complete and as free from error and inaccuracy
as possible.
I have therefore carefully revised the work, and made such
amendments as have suggested themselves during these seven
months. And as, in the course of that time, I have received a mul
titude of communications (some verbal.but chiefly by letter) on ths
subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of Appendix,
such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, as seem
<.0 me interesting and useful.
I expected much opprobrium from the work ; and have been
not a , little surprised to find my expectations agreeably dis
�APPENDIX.
56
appointed. Never, in my life, have I written any thing that so
nearly united the suffrages of all whose opinion I care for, or
which has been suffered to spread more quietly by our opponents.
Jn this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they abused it, it
might have been the Appendix to the twentieth, not to the fifth,
edition I should now be writing.
The sentiments of approval which have reached me from vari
ous quarters, have, in the expressive language of the Old Book,
“ strengthened my hands and encouraged my heart;” for,
though the world’s opinion be worth little, there are individualsin
it whose opinion is worth much; and though a consciousness of
rectitude may support a man against all opinions, yet it is plea
sant to find, now and then, in one’s progress, concurrent senti
ments from those we esteem.
I imagine that it may afford similar encouragement, in a de
gree, to any of my readers who may chance to approve what they
read, if I quote for them a few of these opinions. I begin by se
lecting for the purpose two, which come from men both known to
me, as to the American public, only by their writings. Could I
give the names of the writers, these w ould be sufficient to secure
for their opinions a weight which no anonymous sentiments can
obtain. But, in the present state of public opinion, I do not feel
myself at liberty to do so. My readers must therefore be content
to take my word for it, that both the writers are gentlemen who
nave displayed in their works talents of a high order, and whose
personal acquaintance I should highly value.
I extract from the first letter the following:
“ I am greatly obliged to you for sending me your ‘ Moral Phy
siology.’ I have read it with pleasure and instruction. I see not
why you should anticipate censure, from any quarter, for its pub
lication. It contains no sentiment or doctrine which strikes me
unfavorably, or which any person could wish suppressed. Had
the same thoughts occurred to me, I should have entertained
them, and possibly published them, without the least suspicion of
offence to delicacy or good morals.
“ I fully concur with you, that truth can do the world no harm.
Nor do I doubt that he would be deemed a benefactor, (even an
exceedingly great benefactor,) who can teach man how to limit
his powers of reproduction without abridging his enjoyments.”
Again, the same correspondent says :
“ The value of the pow'er to limit offspring is, I think, very se
parable from any theory which involves consequences arising from
�APPENDIX.
67
the extent of population which the earth can sustain. The liini.
tation is a matter which concerns the present comfort of indivu
duals, in their private capacity; while the extent of the earth’
ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts of speculatists and
politicians. I say this, because I am not troubled by the spectre
of Malthus.”
This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical
view of the subject. The political economy of the question ought
ever to be kept separate from its moral bearings. The conse
quences involved by the former, are distant, and may be called
theoretical; while those resulting from the latter, are immediate,
and of daily recurrence in practice. If there were no tendency
whatever in the human race to increase beyond its present num
bers, the question would still be one of vital interest, and the con
sequences it involves would still be of surpassing importance to
man in his social and domestic relations. The more I reflect on
the subject, the more thoroughly convinced I am, that man can
never attain to any thing like social cultivation, without a know
ledge of the means to limit, at pleasure and without much sacri
fice of enjoyment, his power of reproduction. And I cannot but
think, that all who have seen much of the civilised world, and
carefully traced out the various causes of the vices and miseries
that pervade it, will, upon reflection, concur with me in the
opinion.
The second writer of whom I spoke (an eminent physician and
professor) says:
“ I have received your ‘ Moral Physiology.’ Your boldness
and independence are entitled to great respect. It is a very im
portant question, and ought to be brought forward, that the pub
lic opinion concerning it may be based on the only proper ground,
full and free and patient public discussion. Your method of hand
ling the subject I approve. Place, the political economist, sug
gests the remedy more boldly than any other.”
The next communication from which I shall copy is from a
young man of excellent character, living in a neighbouring state,
and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. After sug
gesting to me the propriety of re-publishing some English works
now out of print, he proceeds as follows :
“-------- , February 23, 1831.
Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, I should
nnt have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of approba
tion, due to your last work ; but I cannot let slip this opportunity
�58
APPENDIX.
of endeavouring to express how much I feel indebted to you for
its publication.
“ To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should
also know something of my situation in life : and when it is de
scribed, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two-thirds of
the journeymen mechanics of this country.
“ I have been married nearly three years, and am the father of
two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own in
dustry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to look
forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the prospect
of an increasing family and reduced wages: apparently the inevi
table lot of the generality of working men. Under these circum
stances, I saw W. Jackson’s article in the Delaware Free Press •
but my feelings as a freeman (nominally) revolted at it, and I
must say that I felt greatly pleased when I found that his’ system
did not meet your approbation. You had spoken upon the sub
ject, but, like the Nazarene Reformer, you spoke in parables.
‘ Every Woman’s Book’ I could not see ; and, had not Dr. Gibbons afforded me an example of how much you might be misre
presented, I might have been tempted to believe the slanders cir
culated regarding you.
“ I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their
own course, when your ‘ Moral Physiology’ made its appearance.
“ I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open be
fore me. I found myself, in this all-important matter, a free
agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could
have said to you, as Selim said to Hassan,
‘ Thou’st hewed a mountain’s weight from off my heart.
*
My visions of poverty and future distress vanished ; the present
seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared no
longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I can
describe, the revolution of my feelings.
“ I have since endeavoured to circulate the little book as
widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue to
do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made its
appearance since the publication of Paine’s ‘ Common Sense
and convinced that, by so doing, I shall render you the most
acceptable return, in my power to make, for the benefit you have
conferred upon me as an individual
G.”
The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, I have
selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas ! a rare, ex
�APPENDIX.
59
ample, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to inipar‘
existence, where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary
to render that existence happy
“----------- , March 23, 1831.
*
% “ I use no meat, unless eggs may be considered such; I drink
neither tea, coffee, nor any thing more exciting than milk and
water; and, like yourself, I am fully satisfied, having no craving
after the luxuries of the table. With regard to ‘ Moral Physio
*
logy, let the following facts speak :
** I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan.
When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly for
the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a
good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The check spoken
of in your book (withdrawal) presented itself to my mind. And
for seven years that I have now been married, lhave continued to
practise it. I was successful in business, and acquired the means
of maintaining a family; but still I have refrained, because my
constitution is such an one as I think a parent ought not to transmit
to his offspring. I prefer refraining from giving birth to sentient
beings, unless I can give them those advantages, physical as well
as moral and intellectual, which are essential to human happiness.
“ One thing I have observed, that since I have adopted a simple
diet, and laid by all artificial stimuli, not only is my health better
and my mind more clear, but I can abstain, at will, without in
jury or inconvenience, from sexual connexion for any length of
time;’ and this without having, in the least, lost any power in
that respect.
T.”
* We applaud as a marvel, the continence of Scipio. Such continence—and
amid circumstances far more trying—is habitually found (under no other re
straint than that of public opinion) among the native Indians of our continentA friend of mine, whose family was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians some
fifty years ago, informed me, that four young women (two of them of considera
ble beauty) who were made prisoners on that occasion, were not once, during a
residence of several years, addressed, even with the remotest degree of sexual im
portunity, by an Indian, old or young, though living with them in the same wig
wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related this
fact to me; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were sa
vages.
4 How common would be such 'virtue among ourselves, but for the artificial
Stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which custom and Jaw make prevalent amonv
as.
R. D. O.
�60
APPENDIX.
From the letter of in aged French gentleman, who holds a
public office in the western country, I translate the following •
and I would that every young man and woman in these United
States could read it:
•‘I have read your little work with much interest, and desire
that it may have a wide circulation, and that its recommendations
may be adopted in practice. If you publish a third edition, I
could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the greatest
importance, especially to young married persons. Many women
are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the reproductive instinct
the exhaustion to the man is much greater than to the woman:
a fact most important to be known, the ignorance of which has
caused more than one husband to forfeit his health, nay, his life.
Tissot tells us, that the loss by an ounce of semen is equal to that
by forty ounces of blood ; and that in the case of the healthiest
*
man, nature does not demand connexion oftener than once a
month.!
“ How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly
and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, would
watch over and and preserve their partners’ healths, instead of
exciting them to over-indulgence 1
“ I send you a copy of Italian verses,; appropriate, like the
German stanza you have quoted in your work, to the above re
marks :
(
* Merta gli allori al crine
Chi scende in campo arinato,
• This of course must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, than
of accurate calculation.
r. d. O.
F- t And I doubt whether she permits it without more or less injury, to the average
of constitutions, oftener than once a week. I am convinced that atty young man who
will carefully note and compare his sensations, will become convinced, that tem
perance forbids such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice a week; and
that he trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. How immea
surably important that parents should communicate to their sons, but especially
to their daughters, facts like these!
t For the English reader, 1 have attempted the following imitation of the above
lines:
Crown his brows with laurel wreath,
Who can tread the field* of death—
�6h
APPENDIX.
Chi a cento squadre a late,
Impallidir non sa:
Ma pih gloria ha nel fronte
Chi, alia ragion soggetto,
D’un sconsigliato affetto
Trionfator si ft.
I extract the following from my journal:
“ A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called
at our office; he informed me that he had been married twenty
years, had six children, and would probably have had twice as
many, had he not practised withdrawal, which he found, in every
instance efficacious. By this means he made an interval of two
or three years between the births of each of his children. Hav
ing at last a family of six, his wife earnestly desired to have no
more ; and on one occasion, when she imagined that the necessary
precautions bad been neglected, she shed tears at the prospect of
again becoming pregnant. He said he knew, in his own neigh
bourhood, several married women who were rendered miserable
on account of their continued pregnancy, and would have given
any thing in the world to escape, but knew not how.”
This gentleman corroborated the opinion I have suggested
(page 50,) that the habit of withdrawal had an influence similar
to that of temperance in diet. Ke had found it, he said, much less
exhausting than unrestrained indulgence.
Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friend^,
has since confirmed to me (as a fact proved to him by personal
experience) the above opinion. He likewise expressed his con
viction that the habit was greatly conducive to the preservation
of those first, fresh feelings, so beautiful, and, alas ! so evanes
cent,) under which the married usually come together.
.1
Tread—with armed thousands near—
And know not what it is to fear.
But greater far his meed of praise,
luster his claim to glory’s bays,
Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call,
Conquers himself, the noblest need of all.
R. D. O..
�APPENDIX.
In reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria
*
pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years
6ince, and which pathological derangement he thinks was attri
butable to the habit of withdrawal, I reply, that the confurrent testimony of all who can speak from experience on the
subject, disproves not of course the fact he cites, but the propriety
of attributing the effect produced to the cause in question. Pria
pism, it is well known, is frequently caused by sexual excess ; and
was probably so caused in the case alluded to. Such excess is
much less likely to take place, when withdrawal is practised, than
during unrestrained indulgence.
It now remains for me to notice a communication which I re
cently received from a medical gentleman residing iu Indiana, for
whose character I entertain much respect. It regards the phy
siological portion of the work, which the writer, Dr. S----- -, thinks
is altogether inaccurate.
He refers me to Burns’, Denman’s, and Dewee’s Midwifery,
and especially to an essay by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania
University, on Generation, in proof that all are not agreed that
the semen must enter the uterus in order to effect impregnation.
He instances a case published in the New-York Medical Reposi
tory, and another in the Western Quarterly Reporter, in which
impregnation was effected, though immediately previous to the
child’s birth the vagina was found only large enough to admit a
common knitting needle, and the medical attendant had, in con
sequence, to make an artificial passage. And he argues, on the
authority of this and other instances where there existed such
mechanical obstruction in the vagina, os tincae,or colimn uteri, as
to render the passage of the seminal fluid next to impossible, that
tha^ fluid does not enter the uterus at all, and, consequently, that
the doctrine on which the whole work is founded, is physiologi
cal! y false; and, as being false, is calculated to do much and cruel
mischief. There are two chief theories, he says, now generally
received on the subject, the absorbent and the sympathetic ; ac
cording to both of which, all that appears absolutely necessary to
impregnation is, that the semen should be deposited somewhere in
the vagina; perhaps, to be taken up by a set of absorbent vessels,
and by them conveyed to the ovum, which ovum is, in its turn
taken up by thefinibriated ends of the Fallopian tube, and thereby
deposited in the uterus: perhaps (but I confess this seems to me
a very poetical theory,) merely to produce simultaneous anft
sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret work
of nature.
�APPENDIX.
63
Now, my expression was, that “ almost all physiologists are
agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself, or of some volatile
particles proceeding from it, into the uterus, must precede con
ception.”* The favorers of the absorbent theory will not, I pre
sume, deny this ; the few advocates of the sympathetic may.
Nor am I tenacious as regards any theory whatever, on a subject
of which the arcana still remain shrouded in comparative mystery.
Enough for my purpose, that the condition indispensable to repro
duction is, (as Dr. S----- himself reminds us,) the deposition of
the sperm in the vagina. The preventive suggested in “ Moral
Physiology,” positively precludes the fulfilment of this condition ;
and it could only have been, I imagine, by confounding it with
the partial expedient of which I have spoken, (page 50,) that
my medical friend arrived at the conclusion to which I have here
alluded.
The only argument which I conceive can be fairly urged against
it by the physiologist,j- is that to which I have adverted and replied:
(last paragraph of page 49.)
* In proof that I have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote
what. I believe, is now considered the highest authority.
I “If the most recent works on Physiology are to be credited, the nterus, during
impregnation, opens a little, draws in the semen by inspiration, and directs it to
the ovarium by means of the Fallopian tubes, whose fimbriated extremity closely
embrace that organ.”—Magendie, p. 416, Philad. Ed.
SeealSd Blundell's and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, at Guy’s hospi
tal. See also Spallanzani’s experiments.
# I feel it to be my duty to add, that, since my arrival in England, I have heard
another physiological objection urged against this particular cheek ; namely, that
its influence on the female health is sometimes injurious. It has been suggested
that the deposition of sperm in the vagina cannot be dispensed with during the
.period of excitement, without producing mischievous consequeuces. In so far as
ttw may be a mere theoretical influence—a hazarded opinion, like so many other
opinions, as to “ what, in the nature of things, surely must be”—in this view of
it, I Conceive the objection entitled to little or no weight. But in so far as it may
be substantiated by facts, it is entitled to much weight. We want to know, not
what vague inference suggests, but what actual experience proves. If, unfortunattiy, experience should prove, that women, in availing themselves of this
eheck, do often, or do sometimes, lose their health, either in consequence of the
gtatifiertes being imperfect, or from any other cause, then the objection would
W fatal; and it would behove ns to enquire, whether some other check could
not be found, which even if less infallible, should be more innocent: sueb
�64
APPENDIX.
Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto
’eached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appendix
by farther quotations approbatory of the work, or corroborative
of the facts it details. Let “Moral Physiology” abide the
ordeal of public examination ; if found wanting, to be cast aside
and forgotten; but if deemed true and useful, to be remembered
and approved.
perhaps, as the insertion into the vagina, previously to coition, of a small,
.moistened sponge, to he immediately afterwards withdrawn : or such as is sugJ
gested in the following extract of a letter which I lately received from a gentle
man of worth and respectability, residing near Manchester:—
“ A mother, whose health was such as to make child-bearing painful and
dangerous to her existence, was desirous, after giving birth to two children, no
urther to increase her family. Her husband’s fondness forbad him to act con
trary to the wishes of his wife: he had, from some source or other, obtained the
information given in your book, and he endeavoured to practise upon it; but
alas ! he was not sufficiently master of his feelings on one or two occasions, and
Lis wife again found herself enceinte.
“ After suffering, during the usual period, all the pains she had before ex
perienced, her health becoming daily more debilitated, she gave, at the narrow
risk of losing her life, birth to a poor little idiot.
“ Since then, a female friend informed her, that, were she to adopt the pre
caution of giving a strong cough immediately after, emission by her husband,
pregnancy would be prevented. She adopted this expedient, and with success.
“ A dear friend of mine, intimate with the lady of whom I have been speaking,
communicated the fact to me, and further assured me, that several females or
her acquaintance had adopted the check and proved its efficacy.
« If, Sir, this.be a sure preventive, 1 think it more safe and natural than with
drawal ; and preferable besides, as placing in the hands of the woman; who has
more caution and more to suffer also than our sex, the power over her destiny.’’
*“ I place these objections and suggestions, a6 they arise, before the public, though
I confess my doubt in regard to the general efficacy of the latter expedient. Let
all such suggestions be canvassed, and taken for what they are worth. Thus, and;
only thus, can truth be elicited.—Note to the Ninth edition
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
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>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Moral physiology; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 64 p. : ill. ; 17 cm.
Notes: First published, New York, 1830. Preface (p. [iii] dated 1832) is to the eighth edition. Signature on half-title: A. Bonner, Plaistow, 19/12/80. Engraving by Vigneron on verso opposite t.p. shows woman abandoning her baby with caption: 'Alas! that it should ever have been born!' Appendix: "To the fifth edition." Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
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Owen, Robert Dale [1801-1877]
Publisher
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E. Truelove
Date
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[pref. 1832]
Identifier
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N520
Subject
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Population
Birth control
Rights
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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 (Moral physiology; or, a brief and plain treatise on the population question), 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Birth Control
NSS
Population