MORAL PHYSIOLOGY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 % grief pain ®r estise 
 
 03* 
 
 THE POPULATION QUESTION. 
 
 BY 
 
 EOBEET DALE OWEN, 
 
 n 
 
 AUTHOR OJ 1 FOOTFALLS ON THE BOUNDARY OF ANOTHER WORLD,” 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 “ 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 berng spoken about in plain language,” 
 
 John Stuart Mill. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 E. TRUELOVE. 256, HIGH HOLBOEN. 
 
Die Frontispiece which accompanies this treatise, rep tesenta a pee* 
 mother abandoning her infant, at the gate of the Hotel des Enfans trouves, 
 (Foundling Hospital) at Paris. The original painting is by Vigneron, % 
 French artist of celebrity; it was purchased at the price of one thousand 
 collars for the Gallerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the French 
 ting. 
 
 The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution 
 »vas never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy, 
 find, 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 
 sked : 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 
 Jesuit! Be the good deeds of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after 
 the intrigues and cruelties of his fellow sectaries are forgotten ! 
 
 The case selected is one of mild, of modified, — I had almost said, of 
 f zvored misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation, 
 hut even under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevo- 
 lejjce extends her Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who 
 that regards for a moment the abandoned helplessness of the deserted 
 chili, and the mute distress of the departing mother, but will join in the 
 sxclm&ti m, “ Alas! that it should ever have been bam* 1 ' 
 
7 reA . zS“- 
 
 I7G 
 
 OvV £. m g 
 
 preface 
 
 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 th 
 views and recommendations therein contained, which 
 nearly two years ago, first prompted their publication, hi* 
 been still confirmed to me, in the strongest manner, daring 
 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 tor itseif. 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. 
 
 tendon, Scptarber , 1832 . 
 
 • * 
 
 55008 
 
 R. D. O 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ( Published in New York.) 
 
 It may be proper to state, in few words, the immediate crcumstances 
 which induced me to write and publish this treatise. 
 
 Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with hire 
 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 
 jn 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 
 1.0 our Typographical Society in New-York, accompanied by a note,simpk 
 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 
 fnembeis, accusing me of principles subversive of every virtue und^ 
 heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment ’ 
 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 
 Ast 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* 
 -riety, several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlil^ 
 entitled “ Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to h; 
 excessively indecent ; and asked the society whether they would receiv % 
 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 
 io return the heretical specimens, with the letter to which I have alluded 
 
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, 1 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 and tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the 
 New Harmony Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this 
 country, only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the 
 
 Aiiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of 
 philanthropist, 01 the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a 
 tamily.” 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 1 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. The* 
 again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat in- 
 correct as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an erro 
 might be of important consequence. 
 
 It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free fr 014 
 wmilar objections; yet I have taken great pams to render ** 3. 
 
 IK 
 
 York, December , 1830. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 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,” rnay take it 
 ill that 1 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 thing them away with great indignation, and 
 severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregioul 
 piece of indecency, “ Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain 
 has no legs.” * 
 
 1 never could sympathise with this major-domo delicacy ; 
 ami if you can, my reader, ) 0 u had better throw this pamphlet 
 aside at once. 
 
 See “ Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Aunoy. 
 
S MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 If you have travelled and observed much, you will already 
 have learnt the distinction between real and artificial pro- 
 priety. Jf 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 w rist, 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 Titrco- 
 mania, you know, that they consider a woman's virtue sa- 
 crificed forever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on 
 the public road to speak to her lover ;+ 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 ; hut you 
 w ere doubtless told, that men could not be permitted a simi- 
 lar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they should perform 
 their ablutions in pri' ^te. 
 
 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 
 understanding^ ; and interpret it in the purity w hich 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 ha* 
 
 * See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey. 
 
 t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia. 
 
 t Sec Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 9 
 
 i s legitimate ssat in the heart, not m the outward form or 
 sanctioned custom — then, I fear me, you may chance to cast 
 these pages from you, as the major domo did the proffered 
 stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy lies, not in my 
 simple words, or the Spanish magistrates’ honest offering, 
 but in the pruriently sensitive imagination that discovers 
 m propriety 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 
 still 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 ! it is to your pure feelings I would speak : it is 
 by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain have iny 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, 
 tiiat the most obtrusive and sensitive stickler for 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 vour own experience, perhaps — that the 
 hearts of all men, and more especially of all women, are 
 
mokal i»h vsioloo r, 
 
 10 
 
 deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; that vio 
 lence 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, 1 marvel 
 not that you remain incorrigible unbelievers in any virtue, 
 but that which is forced in the prudish hot-bed of ceremoni- 
 ous conformity. You will not trust the natural soil, watered 
 from the free skies and warmed by the life -bringing sun. 
 How should you? you have never seen it produce but weeds 
 and poisons. Libertines and debauchees ! cast my book 
 aside! You will find in it nothing to gratify a licentious 
 curiosity; and, if you read it, you will probably only give 
 me credit for motives and impulses like your own. 
 
 And you, prudes and hypocrites ! you who strain at a gnat 
 and swallow a camel ; you whom Jesus likened to whited 
 sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, but within 
 are full of all uncleanness; you who affect to blush if the 
 ancle is incidentally mentioned in conversation, or displayed 
 in crossing a 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 callup improper associations; you who have nothing 
 but a head and feet and lingers ; 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 yon. 
 
 Reader! if you belong to the class of prudes or libertines, 
 
 I pray you, follow my argument no farther. My heresies 
 will not suit yon. As a prude, you will find them too honest ; 
 as a libertine, too temperate. In the former case, j r ou 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 object — 
 then approach with me a subject the most important to man’s 
 well-being; and approach it, as I do, in a spirit of dispas- 
 sionate, disinterested, free inquiry. Approach it, resolving 
 to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. The 
 discussion is one o which it i^ ©very man’s and every wo- 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY, v 11 
 
 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* 
 national motto of my former country, “ Honi soit qui mal y 
 pense,”* may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken, 
 £nd 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 
 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. 1 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 temperance- 
 some would call it, abstemiousness — in all things. He never, 
 nt 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, wdtli those poor, unhappy victims, w hom 
 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, paraphrase* 1 
 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 arid pro* 
 fljgate age. 
 
MORAL PH\S1C4GSY 0 
 
 12 
 
 degradation. He never sought the company but of the intei 
 Jectual 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 enlistingin 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 
 if) 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 
 lie possible, without prejudice and without passion. What- 
 ever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I address the 
 poet’s exhortation — here, far more strictly applicable, than in 
 the investigation to which he applied it : — 
 
 “ Retire ! the world shut out : thy thoughts call heme;. 
 
 Imagination’s airy wing repress ; 
 
 Lock up thy senses ; let no passion stir ; 
 
 Wake all to reason •- let her reign a-ione.** 
 
 t 
 
MORaL physiology. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Among the various instincts which contribute to man's pre- 
 servation and w r ell-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 
 sec 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 im- 
 pulses 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 of the profligacy 
 of the age, and the impurity of the pseudo-civilized 
 mind. I imagine, that if all men and women were gluttons 
 
 * Se* “ A brief Exposition of the Principles of the United Society 
 calledShakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, Albany* 
 V.v I( 1830 * 
 
14 MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 and drunkards, they would, in like manner, be ashamed to 
 speak of diet or temperance. 
 
 Were I an optimist, and had I accustomed myself to 
 judge and to admire the arrangements of nature, I should 
 be inclined to put forward, as one of the most admirable, 
 the arrangement according to which the temperate 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, maybe 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 THYSIOLOGY. 
 
 15 
 
 tivc instinct may be regarded. They commonly stand ont 
 stoutly against the propriety of considering it except simply 
 ns a means of perpetuating ihe species ; and they deny that it 
 may be regarded as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In 
 th is 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, 
 that because it \*s 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 
 tiie source of much misery ; and that if 1 had to choose between 
 the l ife of the profligate man of the world and that of the asce- 
 tic Sh Aker, 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 
 
1G 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. 
 
 It is a serious question — and surely an exceedingly proper 
 and important one — whether man can obtain, and whether 
 he is benelltted 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 neccs 
 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 superstitious 
 
MORAL PH YSIOI 00 Y. 
 
 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 animat 
 follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges 
 mmself ; 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 inj Orious The 
 knowledge of some facts may be unimportan ; the know- 
 ledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a puppet, 
 a slave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of his virtue. 
 Nor shall we know where to stop, if we fallow 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 ! Saint Jude to speec* 
 
 Did ever knight so foul a deed ! 
 
 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 vo fact, in physics or in morals; that ought to be 
 concealed from the inquiring mind. Let that parent wh© 
 
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 thi$ 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 ! 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 
 tvas first prominently brought forward and discussed there in 
 the year 1798, by Malthus, an English clergyman. Godwin, 
 Ricardo, Place, Mill, Thompson, Robert Owen, and othei 
 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. Ig» 
 
 u population , unrestrained , will advance beyond 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 
 tights against God and nature; and, if he partially 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 be 
 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 stylo 
 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 all checks 
 to population. In this sense, and not simply as applying to preventive 
 moral restraint, have I employed the' word throughout this chapter. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 20 
 
 average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, it is evident 
 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 not space 
 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 tc population must be em- 
 ployed ; and compelled to admit to his aristocratic ex- 
 pounders, that if no other bette? lestraint than vice and 
 misery can be found, then vice and misery must be; they arc 
 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 
 
 until 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. Ho 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 with a 
 vicious and degrading order of things. But Malthus him- 
 self declares the only proper check to be, the general prac- 
 tice of celibacy 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 life, 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 maladminis- 
 tration 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 the 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 exult- 
 ingly 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 ? 
 
 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 oft' 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 it 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 Naira,*’ 
 says, shrewdly enough : “ Wherever the women are prudes, the Baeli- 
 tdll be drunkards.” 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 23 
 
 But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition 
 fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a late 
 age those disinterested sexual connexions which can alone 
 save youth from vice ; but it is impracticable. Men and 
 women will scarcely pause to calculate the 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 
 practicable 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 of the sun, 
 or the stroke of death. 
 
 What an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our in- 
 quiry ! Here is an argument put forth, which 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, which discloses to us some moral practi- 
 cable check to population, and relieves us from the desparing 
 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 in hopeless dissapointment. 
 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 intelligent of these opponents — a man 
 of sterling talent — let Mill, the well known political econo- 
 mist, and author of “British India,” speak for himself: 
 
 “What are the best means of checking the progress of 
 population, when it cannot go on unrestrained 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 the politician and the 
 moralist can be applied. It has, till this time, been miserably 
 evaded by all those who have meddled with the subject, as 
 well as by those who were called on by their situation to find 
 
24 MORAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if the. 
 superstitions of the nursery were disregarded , and the principle 
 of utility kept 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 
 g reat mass of human beings in misery , might be seen to be 
 neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.” — Art. Colony, 
 Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen or 
 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 Encyclopaedia. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 25 
 
 political or social economy in the world could not, of itself 
 prevent the ultimate evils of superabundant population. And, 
 it is no less certain, that, in the meantime, the pressure of 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 moral 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 sha. 
 not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, like la- 
 marriages, be ascetic and impracticable. 
 
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 rften 
 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. W? 
 
 your nursery maids, and who leave 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 
 to think how soon sickness or misfortune majr lessen those 
 wages, which are now ‘hut 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 
 lecturer, now in this city,* “ as the tainted stream is irnhesi- 
 
 * Mr. Graham, whose excellent discourses on temperance have excited 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 28 
 
 tatingly transmitted through the channel of n ture, from 
 parent to offspring, so long will the text be verified which 
 4 visits the sins of the fathers on the children, even to the 
 third and fourth generations/ 9> 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. 
 
 *3ut, 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 may 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. 
 
 bo 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 acucable 
 sis a general rule ; and it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if 
 . 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, an$ 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 lite, 
 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 me to 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. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 30 
 
 “ 1 he dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my father 
 for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, either for 
 advice or anything else. My husband being somewhat 
 sceptical, my father attributes his 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, 
 t^en, 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 w oman should 
 become the mother of his children, unless it v'as 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 ! ihat 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 or to 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 
 but a fastidious refinement, or a fanciful supererogation ! 
 
 But I pass from the case of married persons to that of 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 S2 
 
 young men and women who have not yet formed a matrimo- 
 jaial 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. 1 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! 
 
 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 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 33 
 
 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- 
 tingtoil 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 V" 
 
 Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thusjsacri- 
 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 alone. It is for no man’s or woman’s happiness or bene- 
 fit, 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 mind 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- 
 tion, 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 anti- 
 social and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each 
 other, inalmost all countries. In estimating the consequences of tbs 
 
34 
 
 moral physiology. 
 
 disease, or even insanity, has been the result of ascet'ical 
 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 high- 
 minded, and the kind-hearted — are the chief victims. 
 
 Thus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heavy respon- 
 sibilities deters from forming moral connexions, and en- 
 courages intemperance and prostitution, the knowledge 
 tfliich 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 ot 
 things, and the present laws and system of marriage. No 
 one, therefore, need be a moral heretic on this subject, to 
 
 ^jresent false situation of society, we must set down to the black account 
 die wretched, wretched consequences, (terminating not unfrequently m 
 incurable insanity,) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern 
 civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to d 
 lamentable extent, both in this country and England. If the recom- 
 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 might 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 
 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.” 
 
 [t 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. f 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 self- 
 righteous and a wicked world ; a world which will forgive 
 
 * Letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of December 5, 1818. 
 
 T 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 melan- 
 choly 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 selves. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my 
 observations apply > 
 
38 MORAL PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 an}' tiling 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. Nine-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 1 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 scoffs 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 w r o- 
 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 frowit 
 upon the question, but to the father it comes home ; and, 
 
 * Jesus said unto her , “ Neither do I condemn thee.” — Joh?t f viii. 11 
 
MOKAL PHYSIOLOGY. 37 
 
 whatever his lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the 
 soundness and the force Of the argument it conveys.* 
 
 It may he, 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 tliii 
 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, 
 \vhether all the houses of assignation in these two cities are frequented 
 5 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 i( 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 V 3 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 through a calculation for future support.” Mr. Drummond's 
 assertions were confirmed by other equally respectable witnesses \ and 
 from what 1 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 child 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 unfre- 
 quently 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, sufiicently marks the 
 real character of this prudish and pharisaical world of ours. 
 
 + See Letter of the Committee of the Typographical Society to 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 ! 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 October, 
 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 supporting an argument, should be» 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 39 
 
 That chastity which is worth preserving is not the chastity 
 lhat 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 the 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 all 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 their cause, after 
 all, by the vilification. 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 40 
 
 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 ot 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 av 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 present 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 
 his 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 the pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that 
 suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. # Speak 
 to them openly. Show them that yoi 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 prisoner^ 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 4l 
 
 for such to them are their parents— and where 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- 
 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 
 f>f 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 separations ; 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 
 pied d’un rocher, qui tombait en poussiere ; ils attesterent de leur con- 
 iiance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le meme: tout passait en eux, et 
 autour d’eux ; et ils croyaient leurs coeurs affranchis de vicissitudes. O 
 onfans ! tou\ours enfans ! —Diderot Jacques et son Maitre • 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 42 
 
 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 
 to 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 anj 
 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 
 lie 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 Woman.” 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 w ere to 
 throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and j ai rings, 
 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 
 human beings — if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things 
 to forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 43 
 
 idea as 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, 
 f 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, 
 
 Tapferei, wer sich selbst bezwang!” 
 
 “ Brave is the lion victor. 
 
 Brave the conqueror of a world. 
 
 Braver he who controls himself l 1 ’ 
 
 It ifl 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 obtain 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. 
 
 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. 
 1 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 reposes 
 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 wondei 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 anU 
 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 
 fabt 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, 
 u Si quis non credat animam animee misceri, demens est <■” Tertullian 
 warmly supports the orthodoxy of tms opinion. 
 
 $ Bonner, I believe. 
 
46 MORAL PH YSIOLOG 1 • 
 
 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 concep- 
 tion. 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 
 
 believe, by the Germans and Spaniards, consists of complete 
 withdrawal, on the part of the man, immediately previous to 
 emission. This is, in alt 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 — a// young men learn to make 
 the necessary effort ; and custom renders it easy and a matter 
 of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trifling (and it is but a 
 very trifling) diminution of physical enjoyment be suffered 
 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 h.is 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 
 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 
 •aw 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 offen- 
 sive forms, these are the principles of honor we shall implant in our chil- 
 dren’s minds : and then we shall have a world of courtesy and kinduespj 
 instead of a scene of legal outrage, or hypocritical profession. 
 
48 MOKA.L PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 sacrifices are daily made to fashion— to public opinion. 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 hut 
 a small item in the aggregate of enjoyment which satisfied 
 affection affords; 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 w hich 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 w 7 e 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 had 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- 
 dence, and who confided to me the particulars of his situation. 
 He was just entering on life, with slender means, and his 
 circumstances forbade lwrn 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 expiratkm of that period, theii 
 situation being more favourable, they resolved to become 
 
MORAL PHYSlOtuOY. 49 
 
 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 1 was the 
 only one among his friends 10 whom he ever communicated 
 ihe real state of the case; and I doubt not there are, even 
 in this cotfMry, 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 effect 
 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 consequence, 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 slight privation he might at first have felt. 1 asked 
 him, whether his neighbors genially followed the same 
 practice. 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, who, in pari 
 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 anj 
 
50 
 
 MOKAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 (here be to whom it is 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 
 years, 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 1 
 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. 
 
 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 manv years, extensively disseminated 
 in most of the populous tow»is in Great Britain by hundreds 
 of th ousands of hand-bills which were gratuitously distributed 
 from benevolent motives. The men who were first instrumental 
 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 the subject already 
 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 44 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 
 olainly D 2 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 62 
 
 IVIy 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 
 pr ogres de V 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 
 he receives than that he n*ay 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 : “ PR OSTITUTION. Sexual intercourse urithout 
 affection : CHASTITY, Sexual "intercourse' with affection/' 
 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 53 
 
 The brute?; 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 ail 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, Ilow may it best 
 be 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 the 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 exercise and common sense 
 
54 
 
 moral physiology. 
 
 Husbands and fathers! study Franklin's definition of chas 
 tity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been on thfl 
 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 moro 
 effectual to cultivate the mind. Have you succeeded in 
 spiritualizing your secret thoughts? If not, inquire whether 
 every human propensity, duly governed, be not a benefit ant! 
 a blessing to the nature in which it is inherent. 
 
 Human beings, of whatever sex or class ! 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 othe^ 
 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 end3 
 Objection of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them 
 Weighty objections. Suggestion in a letter from Manchester. 
 
 Ncw-Yorh, June 25, 1831 
 
 Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication of 
 4< 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 mu^ 
 titude of communications (some verbal, but chiefly by letter) on the 
 subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of Appendix, 
 such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, as seem 
 to 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. 
 
 bG 
 
 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. 
 In this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they abused it, it 
 might have been the Appendix to the twentieth, not to the fifth t 
 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 individuals in 
 it whose opinion is worth much; and though a consciousness of 
 rectitude may support a man against ail 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 would 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 6 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 power 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 limi- 
 tation is a matter which concerns the present comfort of indivi* 
 duals, in their private capacity ; while the extent of the earth’ 
 ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts of speculates and 
 politicians. I say this, because I am not troubled by the spectre 
 of Mai thus.” 
 
 This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical 
 «iew of the subject. The political economy of the question ouo'ht 
 ever to he 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 verv 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 
 v now out of print, he proceeds as follows: 
 
 “ -> February 23, 1831. 
 
 Had I not been addressing you upon another subject,! should 
 not, have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of approba- 
 tion, due to your last work ; but I cannot let slip this oppoitunity 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 58 
 
 of endeavouring to express how much I feel indebted to you fox 
 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 tfie 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. Gib- 
 bons 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, 
 
 t 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 &s 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 impar" 
 existence, where it cannot also impart the conditions necessary 
 to render that existence happy 
 
 “ , March 23, 1S31. 
 
 %* “ I use no meat, unless eggs may be considered such; I drink 
 neither tea, coffije, 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 4 Moral Physio- 
 logy/ let the following facts speaks 
 
 “ 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, 1 have 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. 
 
 44 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 continent 
 A 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 wis*- 
 wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related this 
 ^ faefc to me ; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were sa- 
 vages. 
 
 How common would be such virtue among ourselves, but for the artificial 
 stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which custom and law make prevalent* 
 0 among us. E. D, O. 
 
60 APPENDIX. 
 
 From the letter of an 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: 
 
 *‘1 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. f 
 
 “ 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 ! 
 
 “ 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 
 Clii scende in campo artnato, 
 
 • This of course must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, than 
 of accurate calculation. R. D. O. 
 
 ■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 any 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! 
 
 $ For the English reader, 1 have attempted the following imitation of the above 
 2ines : 
 
 Crown his brows with laurel wreath, 
 
 Who can tread the fields of de*t&— 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 61 
 
 Chi a cehto squadre a late, 
 impaliidir non sa : 
 
 Ma piii gloria ba nel fronte 
 Chi, alia ragion soggetto, 
 
 , D’un sconsigliato affetto 
 
 rrionfator si fa. L. G. 
 
 1 extract the foliowing from my journal: 
 
 u A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, called 
 ^t 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 had been neglected, she shed tears at the prospect o. 
 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. He had found it, he said, much less 
 exhausting than unrestrained indulgence. 
 
 Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friends, 
 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. 
 
 T read— svith armed thousands near— 
 And know not what it is to fear. 
 
 But greater far his meed of praise, 
 duster his claim to glory's bays. 
 
 Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call, 
 Gasquers himself, the noblest oeed of all. 
 
 K. ]}» Q< 
 
62 
 
 APPENDIX j 
 
 la reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria- 
 pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years 
 rince, and which pathological derangement he thinks was attri- 
 butable to the habit of withdrawal, I reply, that the con- 
 current testimony of all who can speak from experience on the 
 subject, disproves not of course the fact he cites, but the propriety ,f 
 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 -if 
 during unrestrained indulgence. 
 
 It now remains for me to notice a communication which I re- 
 cently received from a medical gentleman residing iu Indiana, fcr 
 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 Dewec’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 collum uteri, as 
 to render the passage of the seminal fluid next to impossible, that 
 that 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 
 tne 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 f 
 taken up by the fimbriated 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 anA 
 sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret work t 
 of nature. 
 
A PPENDZX. 
 
 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 conld 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 l have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote* 
 what, 1 believe, is now considered the highest authority. 
 
 ** If the most recent works on Physiology are to be credited, the uterus, 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. 
 
 See also Blundells and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, z. G uy’s hospi- 
 tal. See also Spallanzanis experiments. 
 
 i I feel it to be my duty to add, that, since my arrival in England, I have heat d 
 another physiological objection urged against this particular check ; 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 
 t&is 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, l conceive the objection entitled to little or no weight. But in so far a3 it may 
 foe substantiated by facts, it is entitled to much weigu . We want to know, not 
 what vague inference suggests, but what actual expe. °nce proves. If, unfor- 
 tunately, experience should prove, that women, in ava. mg themselves of this 
 check, do often, or do sometimes, lose their health, either ,n consequence of the 
 gratification being imperfect, or from any other cause, then the objection would 
 he fatal ; and it would behove us to enquire, whether some other check could 
 * not be found, which even if /ess infallible, should be more innocent : su-cb 
 
64 
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto 
 ’cached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appendix 
 fey farther quotations approbatory of the work, or corroborative 
 of the facts it details. Let “ Moral Physiology” abide the 
 wdeal 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, 
 jnoistened sponge, to he immediately afterwards withdrawn : or guch as is sug- 
 gested in the following extract of a letter which I lately received from a gentle' 
 *aan of worth and respectability, residing near Manchester: — 
 
 ** A mother, whose health was such as to make child-bearing painful and 
 ganger©is9 to her existence, was desirous, after giving birth to two children, no 
 arther to increase her family. Her husband’s fondness forbad him to act con- 
 trary to the wishes of bis wife : he had, from some source or other, obtained the 
 information gj/en in your book, and he endeavoured to practise upon it; but 
 alia 1 he was aot sufficiently master of his feelings on one or two occasions, and 
 bis wife again found herself enceinte . 
 
 “ After suffering, during the usual period, all the pains she had before ex- 
 perience!, 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 o 
 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 l»ar 
 more caution and more to suffer also than our sex, the power over her destiny. 
 
 ' I place these objections and suggestions, as they arise, before tha public, though 
 I confess my doubt in regard to the general efficacy of the latter expedient. Let 
 all such suggestions be canvassed, and taken fer what they are worth. Thus, end: 
 onl> tlm tzu truth be elic ; ed,— Note to the Ninth edition 
 
E LEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, 
 Sexual, and Natural Eeligion. An Exposition of the 
 True Cause and Only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils — 
 Poverty, Prostitution, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of Medi- 
 cine. London : E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn. Fourteenth 
 Edition. Twenty-third Thousand. ^ ^ 
 
 Translations of this Work have Ireen published m the following 
 languages, and may be had of E. Truelove : — 
 
 In French. — Elements de Science Sociale, Paris : Germer Bailliere, 
 rue de l’Ecole de Medecine, 17. Second Edition, 1873. 
 
 In German. — Die Grundziige der Gesellschaftsivissenschaft, Berlin : 
 Elwin Staude. Second Edition, 1875. 
 
 In Dutch. — D e Element en der Sociale JVetenschap . Botterdam: Nijgh 
 & Van Ditmar. In two Parts, 1873 and 1875. 
 
 In Italian. — Elementi di Scienza Sociale. Milan : Gaetano Brigola. 
 Second Edition, 1875. 
 
 In Portuguese. — Elementos de Sciencia Social . Lisbon: Silva 
 
 Junior, 1876. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PTtESS. 
 
 M This is the only book, so far as wo know, in which at a cheap price and with 
 honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting the sexes, and the 
 influence of their relations on society, are plainly dealt with. It has now been 
 issued in French as well as in English, and we bring the French edition to the 
 notice of our friends of the International Working Men’s Association, and of our 
 subscribers in France and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s bock National 
 Reformer , edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh. 
 
 “The Elements of Social Science is a most remarkable work, written by a man 
 evidently with great knowledge of pathology and political economy. It will be 
 greatly liked or disliked, according to the ‘school* of the reader; but no one can 
 fail to consider it as one of the most remarkable works of the day, on the subjects 
 of which it treats. We arc told that it has been largely read in London by medical 
 <f\Gn”~31edical Press and Circular , February 23rd, 1870. 
 
 “ A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous hook . 1 . This is, wo believe, 
 the only book that lias fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the 
 elements in the problem— How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its 
 *j»in of attondant evils?— and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practiced 
 . Ilution .”— The Examiner, January 4th, 1873. 
 
 “ In some respects all books of this class are evils : but it would be weakness 
 and criminal prudery - a prudery as criminal as vice itself— not to say that such a 
 
book as the one in question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that it 
 combats, but in one sense a book -which it is a mercy to issue and courage to 
 publish.’'— Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake, 
 
 “We have never risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction 
 than this.”— Investigator. 
 
 “That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the 
 population can be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and 
 immoral state. We really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this 
 extraordinary work ; we can only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a 
 blissing to the human race.*’— People's Paper. By Ernest Jones. 
 
 “Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from 
 stating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many 
 respects, we have ever met with. Tkougn we differ toto coelo from the author in 
 his views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather 
 to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the 
 benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing 
 less than the whole field of political economy.”— The British Journal of Homoeopathy , 
 January, 1SG0. 
 
 “It is because, after an impartial consideration of this book, we feel satisfied 
 that the author has no meretricious professional object to subserve, that we are 
 induced to use its publication as a text for the discussion of a vital and pressing 
 subject ; and because it bears evidences of research, thorough although misapplied, 
 professional education, some pretensions to philosophy, and a certain earnestness 
 of misguided conviction of the truth of peculiar prevalent economical theories, 
 which seems to have led him off his feet, and to have induced him to venture 
 upon any extravagance in their support. It is in vain to attempt to hide these 
 subjects out of sight. This one book of 600 closely printed pages is in its third large 
 edition. It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate or disgusting. It is 
 of universal interest. It concerns intimately every human being.” — From an 
 adverse review, occupying six columns in The Weekly Dispatch, January and 
 February, 1860. 
 
 Extract from an Article by Professor Mantegazza, of Florence, in the Journal 
 Medico di Casa, of 16th January, 1874. 
 
 “This work has had eleven English editions, two French, a German and a 
 Dutch one ; and is about to be published in Italian and in Portuguese ; and we who 
 have read and meditated on it, rejoice with the author at this success, auguring 
 for it new and increasing good fortune. 
 
 “He is convinced that in this lower world too many people are horn, and hence 
 very many of them are condemned either to a premature death, or, what is worse, 
 to a wretched life, oppressed by hunger and suffering. He comes forward there- 
 fore to propose what we ourselves have modestly urged in our ‘Elements of 
 Hygiene ’ since 1864, when w a said * Love, but do not have offspring.’ A disciple 
 of Malthus and of Stuart Mill, he is well versed in modern philosophy and in 
 political economy, and studies the abstruse problem in all its aspects, setting out 
 from the most elementary domestic hygiene to raise himself gradually to the 
 lofty regions of human dignity and civil progress. A foe to all hypocrisy and 
 prejudice, the author of the ‘Elements of Social Science’ calls things by their 
 real names, and shrinks only from the excessive sufferings and privations to 
 which the poor children of Adam are condemned. He is firmly convinced that 
 to measure human fecundity in accordance with the economical production 
 families and of nations is the most certain means of destroying pauperism ana 
 all the forms of want ; and in this perhaps he is in error, for the evils of modern 
 society have many sources, and with the drying up of one (perhaps even the most 
 fruitful), another and another would present themselves, which only the combined 
 and constant labours of future generations will perhaps be able to overcome 
 However this may be, the courage with which the author faces one of the mcaL 
 formidable problems of human society is most praiseworthy. 
 
 “ Human morality is gradually changing its centre of gravity to rest upon a more 
 solid and durable basis. In this new morality the doctrines of Malthus and those 
 of the author ot the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ must also have a large share. 
 
Iii tlie place of alms giving which humiliates, in the place of charity which 
 caresses an evil that it does not know how to cure, there will be substituted i 
 preventive philanthropy, which by studying want and suffering in their most 
 hidden and deep-seated springs, will be able radically to remove them. Juris- 
 prudence, medicine, and morality follow the same movement, are aiming at the 
 same end— to prevent rather than to cure.” 
 
 “ The motto of the work : * The diseases of society can, no more than corporeal 
 maladies, be prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language ” 
 (John Stuart Mill), and its dedication to the poor and suffering, are sufficient to 
 show the tendency of the author. He uses, indeed, a directness of expression, an 
 outspokenness, which is seldom met with in our times, and will probably in most 
 circles of so-called refined society be styled very shocking if not cynical , though in 
 reality it is not so. The author only calls by their names things which we medical 
 men also have to discuss openly among ourselves and with patients, but which 
 are treated by polite society according to the Parisian proverb, ‘ cela se fait, mais 
 cela ne se dit pas.* The author, as appears from the title and from his profes- 
 sional knowledge, is a medical practitioner. He merits, therefore, the attention of 
 his colleagues, the more so because, in the first place, they would scarcely guess 
 from the title that this is a book for medical men — and secondly, because bis 
 medical colleagues alone possess the education which permits them to estimate 
 without prejudice the aims and efforts of the author, to try the truth of the facts 
 which he lays down as premises, and, after due consideration, either to accept or 
 reject, or to limit and amend, his conclusions and proposals. . . . The author’s 
 remarks on tlie social questions in general are among the best and most deeply- 
 felt we have ever read.” — Schmidt's Juhrbiicher der gesammten Medizin. Band 162, 
 Heft 1. 
 
 “ This is one of those books of which little is spoken, but which nevertheless 
 are wont to produce a quiet lasting effect, while finding their readers at length in 
 this way that under the influence of peculiar circumstances one person confiden- 
 tially tells another that in such and such a work there is something to be found. 
 . . . The author is, as a natural inquirer, what one must perhaps still call a 
 
 materialist and a Darwinian ; as a political economist— and he is by no means an 
 insignificant political economist— he belongs to tho left wing of the free trade 
 school, to which, in spite of some differences of opinion, he lends on the whole a 
 great impulse, anticipating with confidence its ultimate and complete victory 
 throughout the whole cultured world.” — Vierteljahrsschrift fur Volkswirthschoft 
 und Culturgeschichte, edited by J. Faucher. XII. Jahrg. 
 
 “ One must first accustom himself to the openness with which the author treat* 
 his themes; but the work is unquestionably most instructive and interesting, and 
 is written with great knowledge of the subject.”- -Ilessische Morgenzeitung, Dec. 
 24th, 1871. 
 
 “No one, who has turned his thoughts to the solution of the most burning of 
 all questions of the day, the social question, and who wishes to devote to it his 
 mental and practical energies, will be able to leave unread this book, whose 
 anonymous author, basing himself on the Msftthusian essay ‘ On the Principle of 
 Population,* deduces from it with keen logic a peculiar and most striking theory 
 on the cure of the three primary social evils — poverty, prostitution, and celibacy 
 . . . Whatever may be said against this fearless laying bare of the most 
 intimate relations of social life and against his whole theory, purely and 
 undisguisedly materalistic as it is— even the opponent of the daring socialist will 
 > be unable to deny him the merit of scientific closeness of reasoning, and what is 
 quite as important, of warm and zealous philanthropy ; he will rather honour the 
 moral courage and mental energy which the author must have had to work his 
 way out of the bewildering maze of hitherto unsolved problems and conflicts, to a 
 conviction so logically consistent, so luminous, and yet so opposed to established 
 institutions and to the moral sentiments in which men have been brought up.”— 
 | KOnigsberger Hartungsche Zeitung. December 4th, 1871. 
 
 “ Tne author treats, in an open and unreserved manner, the diseases of the human 
 frame, as well as those of society, because he is convinced, with Stuart Mill, that 
 they can only in this way be prevented and cured. In truth we have learned 
 
from many years' experience that such is the case. We bring therefore to the 
 notice of our readers, and recommend them to procure, this excellent book.” 
 Sonntags-Blatt, Organ fur die Freidenker Beutschlands, edited by Dr. Aug. Spechfc. 
 January 26th, 1873. 
 
 “ Many of the author’s views are diametrically opposed to our own, but we 
 cannot refrain from describing the book as in very truth an epoch-making one, 
 whose perusal must interest in the highest degree, both the professional man and 
 the educated general reader. Nothing is gained by a prudish avoidance of the 
 subjects treated in the work; they must be discussed, and mankind might con- 
 gratulate themselves if this wero always done in so candid and disinterested a 
 manner as by the author of ‘The Elements of Social Science.* ” — Hwiovmche 
 Anzeigen und Morgenzeitung. November 14th, 1871. 
 
 “ A very remarkable book. ... A regard to the nature of the subjects 
 treated of forbids us to enter further into its contents— an exposition of the inner 
 conditions of social life which, for obvious reasons, lie outside the sphere of the 
 daily press. Suffice it to say that we have here to do with a work which differs 
 widely from the common-place productions of the book market, and which will 
 very probably go through no fewer editions in philosophic Germany than in 
 England.”— Reform, Hamburg, 28th October ,1875.