Beauty

It is observed by Home, in his "Elements of Criticism," that a perception of beauty in external objects is requisite to attach us to them; that it greatly promotes industry, by promoting a desire to possess things that are beautiful; and that it farther joins with utility, in prompting us to embellish our houses and enrich our fields.

"These, however," he says, "are but slight effects, compared with the connexions which are formed among individuals in society by means of this singular mechanism: the qualifications of the head and heart are undoubtedly the most solid and most permanent foundations of such connexions; but as external beauty lies more in view, and is more obvious to the bulk of mankind, than the qualities now mentioned, the sense of beauty possesses the more universal influence in forming these connexions; at any rate, it concurs in an eminent degree, with mental qualifications, to produce social intercourse, mutual good-will, and, consequently, mutual aid and support, which are the life of society."

Dr. Pritchard similarly observes, that "the perception of beauty is the chief principle in every country which directs men in their marriages."

Advancing a step farther, Sir Anthony Carlisle thinks a taste for beauty worthy of being cultivated. "Man," he observes, "dwells with felicity even on ideal female attributes, and in imagination discovers beauties and perfections which solace his wearied hours, far beyond any other resource within the scope of human life. It cannot, then, be unwise to cultivate and refine this natural tendency, and to enhance, if possible, these charms of life. We increase and heighten all our pleasures by awakening and cultivating reflections which do not exist in a state of ignorance. Thus, the botanist perceives elegances in plants and flowers unknown and unfelt by the vulgar, and the landscape-painter revels in natural or imaginary scenery, with feelings which are unknown to the multitude. It would be absurd to pretend that the more exquisite and more deeply attractive beauty of woman is not worthy of more profound, as well as more universal cultivation."

Such are the observations of philosophical anthropologists, who, nevertheless, in these remarks, consider mere physical beauty independent of its connexion with corresponding functions or moral qualities.

If, however, the external beauty of woman, calculated as it is to flatter the most experienced eye, limited its effect to a local impression, to an optical enjoyment, the sentiment of beauty would be far from having all its extent and value. Happily, ideas of goodness, of suitableness, of sympathy, of progressive perfection, and of mutual happiness, are, by an intimate and inevitable association, connected with the first impression made by the sight of beauty.

The foundation of this feeling is well expressed by Dr. Pritchard, in his observation that "the idea of beauty of person is synonymous with that of health and perfect organization."

Hence, it has been observed, the great ideal models of beauty please us, not merely because their forms are disposed and combined so as to affect agreeably the organ of sight, but because their exterior appears to correspond to admirable qualities, and to announce an elevation in the condition of humanity. Such do the Greek monuments appear to physiologists and philosophical artists, whose minds pass rapidly from the beauty of forms to that locomotive, vital, or mental excellence which it compels them to suppose.

Goodness and beauty in woman will accordingly be found to bear a strict relation to each other; and the latter will be seen always to be the external sign of the former.

There are, however (slightly to anticipate what must afterward be explained), different kinds, both of beauty and of goodness, which are confounded by vulgar observers; or rather there are beauty and goodness belonging to different systems of which the body is composed, and which ought never to be confounded with each other.

Where, consequently, one of these kinds of beauty and of goodness is wanting, even in a remarkable degree, others may be found; and, as the vulgar do not distinguish, it is this which leads to the gross error that these qualities have no strict relations to their signs.

Want of beauty, then, in any one of the systems of which the body is composed, indicates want of goodness only in that system; but it is not less a truth, and scarcely of less importance, on that account.-I will now illustrate this by brief examples.

There may, in any individual, exist deformity of limbs; and this will assuredly indicate want of goodness in the locomotive system, of that or general motion. There may exist coarseness of skin, or paleness of complexion; and either of these will as certainly indicate want of goodness in the vital system, or that of nutrition. There may exist a malformation of the brain, externally evident; and this no less certainly will indicate want of goodness in the mental system, or that of thought.

It follows that even the different kinds and combinations of beauty, which are the objects of taste to different persons, are founded upon the same general principle of organic superiority. Nay, even the preferences which, in beauty, appear to depend most on fancy, depend in reality on that cause; and the impression which every degree and modification of beauty makes on mankind, has as a fundamental rule only their sentiment, more or less delicate and just, of physical advantage in relation to each individual. Such is the foundation of all our sentiments of admiration and of love.

The existence or non-existence of these advantages, and the power of determining this, or the judgment of beauty, are therefore of transcendent importance to individuals and to families. Such judgment can be attained by analysis and classification alone. Nothing, therefore, can more nearly affect all human interests than that analysis and classification of beauty which are here proposed.

To place beyond a doubt, and to illustrate more minutely, the extraordinary importance of this subject, as regards advantages real to the species, I may anticipate some of the more minute applications of my doctrine.

If, in the locomotive system of the female, much of the delicacy of form, and the ease and grace of her movements, depend upon the more perfect development of the muscles of the pelvis, and its easily adapting itself to great and remarkable changes, how important must be the ability to determine, even by walk or gesture, the existence of this condition!

If, in the vital system, the elasticity and freshness of the skin are the characteristics of health, and their absence warns us that the condition of woman is unfavorable to the plan of nature relatively to the maintenance of the species-or, if the capacity of the pelvis, and the consequent breadth of the haunches, are necessary to all those functions which are most essentially feminine, impregnation, gestation, and parturition, without danger either to parent or to child-of what extreme importance must be the ability to determine this with certainty and ease!

If, in the mental system, the capacity and delicacy of the organs of sense, and the softness and mobility of the nervous system, are necessary to the vivid and varying sensibility of woman-if it is in consequence of this, that woman is enabled to act on man by the continual observation of all that can captivate his imagination or secure his affection, and by the irresistible seduction of her manners-if it is these qualities which enable her to accommodate herself to his taste, to yield, without constraint, even to the caprice of the moment, and to seize the time when observations, made as it were accidentally, may produce the effect which she desires-if it is by these means that she fulfils her first duty, namely, to please him to whom she has united her days, and to attach him to her and to home by rendering both delightful-if all this is the case, of what inexpressible importance must be the ability to determine, in each individual, the possession of the power and the will to produce such effects!

If (descending to still more minute inquiries) external indications as to figure are required as to parts concealed by drapery-if such indications would obviate deception even with regard to those parts of the figure which are more exposed to observation by the closer adaptation of dress-if, even when the face is seen, the deception as to the degree of beauty, is such that a correct estimate of it is perhaps never formed-if indications as to mind may be derived from many external circumstances-if external indications as to the personal habits of women are both numerous and interesting-if such indications even of age and health are sometimes essential-if all this be the case, let the reader say what other object of human inquiry exceeds this in importance.

Let us not then deceive ourselves respecting the source of those impressions which one sex experiences from the sight of the other. It is evidently nothing else than the more or less delicate and just perception of a certain conformity of means with a want which has been created by nature, and which must be satisfied.

"It is very obvious," says Dr. Pritchard, "that this peculiarity in the constitution of man must have considerable effects on the physical character of the race, and that it must act as a constant principle of improvement, supplying the place in our own kind of the beneficial control [in the crossing of races] which we exercise over the brute creation." And he adds: "This is probably the final cause for which the instinctive perception of human beauty was implanted by Providence in our nature."

We need not wonder, then, that the Greeks should have preferred beauty to all other advantages, should have placed it immediately after virtue in the order of their affections, or should have made it an object of worship.

Even the practical application of this principle to the improvement of the human race is not a matter of conjecture. We have seen both families and nations ameliorated by the means which it affords. Of this, the Turks are a striking example. Nothing, therefore, can better deserve the researches of the physiologist, or the exertions of the philanthropist, than the fact that there are laws, of which we have yet only a glimpse, according to which we may influence the amelioration of the human race in a manner the most extensive and profound, by acting according to a uniform and uninterrupted system.

Well might Cabanis exclaim: "After having occupied ourselves so curiously with the means of rendering more beautiful and better the races of animals or of plants which are useful or agreeable-after having remodelled a hundred times that of horses and dogs-after having transplanted, grafted, cultivated, in all manners, fruits and flowers-how shameful is it to have totally neglected the race of man! As if it affected us less nearly! as if it were more essential to have large and strong oxen than vigorous and healthy men, highly odorous peaches or finely striped tulips, than wise and good citizens!"

I actually know a man who is so deeply interested in the doctrine of crossing, that every hour of his life is devoted to the improvement of a race of bantam fowls and curious pigeons, and who yet married a mad woman, whom he confines in a garret, and by whom he has some insane progeny.

Let it not be imagined that the discovery of the precise laws of crossing or intermarriage, and the best direction of physical living forces, in relation both to the vital faculties and to those of the mind, upon which knowledge and skill may operate for the improvement of our race, is a matter of difficulty.

It will be shown in this work, that there exist not only an influence of beauty and defects on offspring, but peculiar laws regulating the resemblance of progeny to parents-laws which regard the mode in which the organization of parents affects that of children, or regulates the organs which each parent respectively bestows.

It will accordingly be shown, that, as, on the size, form, and proportion, of the various organs, depend their functions, the importance of such laws is indescribable-whether we regard intermarriages, and that immunity from mental or bodily disease which, when well directed, they may ensure, or the determination of the parentage of a child-or the education of children, in conformity with their faculties-or the employment of men in society.

I conclude this brief view in the words of the writer just quoted: "It is assuredly time for us to attempt to do for ourselves that which we have done so successfully for several of our companions in existence, to review and correct this work of nature-a noble enterprise, which truly merits all our cares, and which nature itself appears to have especially recommended to us by the sympathies and the powers which it has given us."

* * *

It has now been seen that beauty results from the perfection, chiefly of external forms, and the correspondence of that perfection with superiority of internal functions; on the more or less perfect perception of which, love, intermarriage, and the condition of our race, are dependant.

This mode of considering the elements, the nature, and the consequences of beauty, is equally applicable to the two sexes; but, in woman, the form of the species presents peculiar modifications.

In this work, it is the form of woman which is chosen for examination, because it will be found, by the contrast which is perpetually necessary, to involve a knowledge of the form of man, because it is best calculated to ensure attention from men, and because it is men who, exercising the power of selection, have alone the ability thus to ensure individual happiness, and to ameliorate the species; which are the objects of this work.

Let it not be imagined that the views now taken are less favorable to woman than to man. Whatever ensures the happiness of one ensures that of the other; and as the variety of forms and functions in man requires as many varieties in woman, it is not to exclusion or rejection with regard to woman that this work tends, but to a reasoned guidance in man's choice, to the greater suitableness of all intermarriages, and to the greater happiness of woman as well as man, both in herself and in her progeny.

But notwithstanding the importance of any work which is in any degree calculated to promote such an object, some will tell us that the analysis of female beauty, on which it can alone be founded, is indelicate.-I shall, on the contrary, show that decency demands this analysis; that the interests of nature, of truth, of the arts, and of morality, demand it.

Our present notions of sexual decency belong more to art than to nature, and may be divided into artificial and artful decencies.

Artificial decencies are illustrated in the habits of various nations. They have their origin in cold countries, where clothing is necessary, and where a deviation from the degree or mode of clothing constitutes indecency. They could not exist in hot climates, where clothing is scarcely possible.

In hot climates, natural decency can alone exist; and there is not, I believe, one traveller in such countries whose works do not prove that natural decency there exists as much as in cold countries. In exemplification of this, I make a single quotation: it would be easy to make thousands. Burchell, speaking of the Bushmen Hottentots, says: "The natural bashful reserve of youth and innocence is to be seen as much among these savages, as in more polished nations; and the young girls, though wanting but little of being perfectly naked, evinced as just a sense of modesty as the most rigid and careful education could have given them."

In mild climates, the half-clothed or slightly-clothed people appear to be somewhat at a loss what to do. Fond of decorations, like all savage or half-civilized people, they seem to be divided between the tatooing and painting of hot climates, and the clothing of cold ones; and when they adopt the latter, they do not rightly know what to conceal.

The works of all travellers afford the same illustrations of this fact. I quote one. Kotzebue describes the custom among the Tartar women of Kasan, of flying or of concealing their countenance from the sight of a stranger. The necessity of conforming to this custom threw into great embarrassment a young woman who was obliged to pass several times before the German traveller. She at first concealed her face with her hands; but, soon embarrassed by that attitude, she removed the veil which covered her bosom, and threw it over her face. "That," adds Kotzebue, "was, as we say, uncovering Paul to cover Jacques: the bosom remained naked. To cover that, she next showed what should have been concealed; and if anything escaped from her hands, she stooped, and then," says Kotzebue, "I saw both one and the other."

In colder or more uncertain climates, the greatest degree of covering constitutes the greatest degree of artificial decency: fashion and decency are confounded. Among old-fashioned people, of whom a good example may be found in old countrywomen of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of being seen in that condition; and if intruded on at such a time, she shrieks with terror and flies to conceal herself. In the equally polished dandy of the metropolis, it is indecent to be seen without gloves. Which of these respectable creatures is the most enlightened, I do not take upon me to say; but I believe that the majority of suffrages would be in favor of the old woman.

So entirely are these decencies artificial, that any number of them may easily be created, not merely with regard to man or woman, but even with regard to domesticated animals. If it should please some persons partially to clothe horses, cows, or dogs, it would ere long be felt that their appearing in the streets without trowsers or aprons was grossly indecent. We might thus create a real feeling of indecency, the perception of a new impurity, which would take the place of the former absence of all impure thought, and once established, the evil would be as real as our whims have made it in other respects.

Moral feeling is deeply injured by this substitution of impure thoughts, however fancifully founded, for pure ones, or rather for the entire absence of thought about worthless things. Artificial crimes are thus made, which are not the less real because artificial; for if aught of this kind is believed to be right, there is weakness or wrong in its violation. But violated it must be, if it were but accidentally.

To corrupt minds, this very violation of artificial decency in the case of woman affords the zest for the sake of which many of these decencies seem to have been instituted; and thus are created the artful decencies.

The purpose and the zest of artful decency are well illustrated by coquetry. Coquetry adopts a general concealment, which it well knows can alone give a sensual and seductive power to momentary exposure. Coquetry eschews permanent exposure as the bane of sensuality and seduction; and where these are great, as among the women of Spain, the concealment of dress is increased, even in warm climates. Nothing can throw greater light than this does on the nature of these decencies.

That coquetry has well calculated her procedure, does not admit of a doubt. She appeals to imagination, which she knows will spread charms over even ugly forms; she seeks the concealment under which sensuality and lust are engendered; and, in marriage, she at last lifts the veil which gratifies, only to disgust, and repays a sensual hallucination by years of misery.

Ought religion to claim the right of saying grace to such unveiling of concealment and the nuptial rites that follow it? Ought religion to profit by the impurities of sexual association? Marriage is a civil ceremony in other countries, even in Scotland. Such profane and profitable sanctions have nothing to do with primitive Christianity: they are abhorrent to its letter as well as to its spirit. But worldly and profitable religion is connected in business with government, under the firm of Church and State, and drives a thriving trade, in which the junior partner is contented with the profit arising from the common acts of life, while the senior one draws much of his living from other rites.[2]

What is said here, is no argument for living nudity: that, our climate and our customs forbid; and, in so doing, we can only regret that they are unfavorable to natural purity; while perfect familiarity with the figure ensures that feeling in the highest degree.

A distinguished artist informs me that greater modesty is nowhere to be seen than at the Life academy; and it was an observation of the great Flaxman, that "the students, in entering the academy, seemed to hang up their passions with their hats." I can, from personal experience, give the same testimony in behalf of medical students at the dissecting-rooms. The familiarity of both these classes with natural beauty leads them only to seek to inform their minds and to purify their taste.[3]

Sinibaldi observes, that "nothing is more injurious to morals and to health, than the incitements of the women who in such numbers walk our streets," and that "the laws as to offences against morals ought certainly to affect them the moment their language or actions can be deemed offensive." But it is not to those who are critically conversant with the highest beauty of the human figure, that defective forms, ill-painted skins, rude manners, and contagious diseases, are at all seductive.

Nothing, then, can be more favorable to virtue than the decoration of every house with the beautiful copies of the glorious works of ancient Greece; and it is only humiliating to think that what has been so extensively done in this respect in the best houses, is less owing to our own taste than to the poor wanderers from Lucca or Barga. Experiment on this subject is peculiarly easy in London: let any one spend an hour in the shop of the very able Mr. Sarti, of Dean street, where he will meet the most liberal attention, and let him ask himself, in coming out, whether his moral feeling, as well as his taste, is not improved.

Those who cannot make this experiment, will perhaps be satisfied with the assurance of Hogarth, who says: "The rest of the body, not having advantages in common with the face, would soon satiate the eye, were it to be as constantly exposed, nor would it have more effect than a marble statue." Surely this is decisive enough in its way! Now let them mark what follows. "But," he continues, "when it is artfully clothed and decorated, the mind at every turn resumes its imaginary pursuits concerning it. Thus, if I may be allowed a simile, the angler chooses not to see the fish he angles for, until it is fairly caught." He meant of course-"the fish chooses not to see the angler, until it is fairly caught!"

Be it known then to all, even the most aristocratic as to sexual association-I say the most aristocratic, and not the most religious, because religion is in some countries made the pander to aristocracy-be it known that the critical judgment and pure taste for beauty are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.

Home observes that "the sense of beauty does not tend to advance the interests of society, but when in a due mean with respect to strength. Love in particular arising from a sense of beauty, loses, when excessive, its sociable character: the appetite for gratification, prevailing over affection for the beloved object, is ungovernable, and tends violently to its end, regardless of the misery that must follow. Love in this state is no longer a sweet agreeable passion: it becomes painful, like hunger or thirst, and produces no happiness but in the instant of fruition. This discovery suggests a most important lesson, that moderation in our desires and appetites, which fits us for doing our duty, contributes at the same time the most to happiness: even social passions, when moderate, are more pleasant than when they swell beyond proper bounds." Payne Knight says: "When, at the age of puberty, animal desire obtrudes itself on a mind already qualified to feel and enjoy the charms of intellectual merit, the imagination immediately begins to form pictures of perfection, by exaggerating and combining in one hypothetic object every excellence that can possibly belong to the whole sex; and the first individual that meets the eye, with any exterior signs of any of these ideal excellences, is immediately decorated with them all, by the creative magic of a vigorous and fertile fancy. Hence, she instantaneously becomes the object of the most fervent affection, which is as instantaneously cooled by possession: for, as it was not the object herself, but a false idea of her raised in heated imagination, that called forth all the lover's raptures, all immediately vanish at the detection of his delusion; and a degree of disgust proportioned to the disappointment, of which it is the inevitable consequence, instantly succeeds. Thus it happens that what are called love-matches are seldom or ever happy."

Now, nothing can more effectually prevent even the existence of the mania described by these two philosophers than a critical judgment and a pure taste for beauty, which again therefore are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.

A just sense of this truth will give high encouragement to sculpture and painting-arts which may everywhere be looked upon as the best tests, as well as the best records, of civilization. Such encouragement they need in truth; for the monstrous monopoly of landed property and the accumulation of wealth in few hands-the great aim of our political economy-renders art poor, indeed.

I am aware that the vulgar among artists think otherwise; from the few rich they obtain employment; and, like the dog with his master, they look not beyond the hand that doles out their pittance. But the rich are few; and their palaces are already filled. A diffusion of wealth alone can give encouragement to art; nor can this ever be while British industry is crushed under the weight of enormous taxation.

Having removed some objections to art, I would add a few words to artists on the cause of the fine arts in Greece, from a paper I, two years ago, contributed to a monthly periodical.[4]

That the mythology of Greece had an influence over its arts, is generally granted; but I am not aware, that it has either been shown to be exclusively their cause, or that its mode of operation has ever been explained.

Religion, I may observe, is as natural to man as his weakness and helplessness. There is not one of its systems, not even the vilest, which has not afforded him consolation. Of its higher and better systems, some are equally admirable for the grandeur and the beauty of the truths on which they are founded, the simplicity and the elegance of their ostensible forms, the power and applicability of their symbols, and their sympathy with, and control over, the affections and the imagination.

These high characteristics peculiarly distinguished the religion of ancient Greece.

By bigots, we are indeed told, that, though Homer is our model in epic, Anacreon in lyric, and ?schylus in dramatic poetry-though the music of Greece doubtless corresponded to its poetry in beauty, pathos, and grandeur-though the mere wreck of her sculpture is never overlooked in modern war and negotiation-though the mere sight of her ruined Parthenon is more than a reward for the fatigue or the peril of a journey to the Eternal city-though these products of art are the test of the highest civilization which the world has witnessed-though to these chiefly Rome owed the little civilization of which she was capable, and we ourselves the circumstance that, at this hour, we are not, like our ancestors, covered only with blue paint or the skins of brutes-though all this is true as to the arts of Greece, we are told that, by the strangest exception, the religion of Greece was a base superstition.

That religion, however, was the creator of these arts. They not only could not have existed without it, but they probably could never have been called into existence by any other religion.

The personification of simple Beauty, Valor, Wisdom, or Omnipotence, in Venus, Mars, Minerva, or Jupiter, respectively, was essential to the purity and the power of expression of these attributes in the worship of the deities to whom they respectively belonged. The union of absolute beauty and valor in one being, is not more impossible than their union in one expression of homage and admiration. Delicacy, elegance, and grace, were as characteristic of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the goddess of beauty, as attributes nearly opposite to these were of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the god of war. Thus, were the fine arts in Greece created by the personification of simple attributes or virtues as objects of adoration; and thus is excellence in these fine arts incapable of being elicited by any system of religion in which more than one attribute is ascribed to the god.

They must be ignorant, indeed, of the wonderful people of whom I now speak, who allege, that the Greeks worshipped the mere statue of the god and not the personified virtue. Even the history of their religion proves the reverse. It was the tomb which became the altar, and retained nearly its form. It was the expression of love, of regret, and of veneration for departed virtue, which became divine adoration; and, as individual acts and even individual names were ultimately lost in one transcendent attribute, so were individual forms and features, in its purified and ideal representation. Here, then, instead of finding the worship of men or of their representations, we discover a gradual advance from beings to attributes-from mortal man to eternal virtue-and a corresponding and suitable advance from simple veneration to divine adoration.

When, in great emergencies of the state, the sages and the soldiers of Athens, in solemn procession repaired to the temple of Minerva, turned their faces toward the statue of the goddess, and prostrated themselves in spirit before her-let the beautiful history of Grecian science tell, whether in the statue they worshipped the mere marble structure, or, in its forms and attributes, beheld and adored a personification of eternal truth and wisdom, and so prepared the mind for deeds which have rendered Greece for ever illustrious. Or, when returning from a Marathon, or a Salamis, the warriors of Athens, followed by trains of maidens, and matrons, and old men, returned thanks to the god of victories-let the immortal record of the long series of glorious achievements which succeeded these, tell, whether gratitude to their heroes was not there identified with homage to the spirit or the divinity that inspired them.

True it is, that, whenever physical or moral principles are personified, the ignorant may be led to mistake the sign for that which is signified; but one of the most admirable characteristics of the Grecian religion is, that, with little effort, every external form may be traced to the spirit which it represents, and every fable may be resolved into a beautiful illustration of physical or moral truth. So that when mystic influences, with increasing knowledge, ceased to sway the imagination, all-powerful truths directed the reason.

The natural and poetical religion of Greece, therefore, differed from false and vulgar religions in this, that it was calculated to hold equal empire over the minds of the ignorant and the wise; and the initiations of Eleusis were apparently the solemn acts by which the youths and maidens of Greece passed from ignorance and blind obedience to knowledge and enlightened zeal. Thus, in that happy region, neither were the priests knaves, nor the people their dupes.[5]

And what has been the result of this fundamental excellence?-that no interpolated fooleries have been able to destroy it;-that the religion of Greece exists, and must ever exist, the religion of nature, genius, and taste;-and that neither poetry nor the arts can have being without it. Schiller has well expressed this truth in the following lines:-

"The intelligible forms of ancient poets,

The fair humanities of old religion,

The power, the beauty, and the majesty,

That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountains,

Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,

Or chasms, and watery depths-all these have vanished;

They live no longer in the faith of reason;

But still the heart doth need a language; still

Doth the old instinct bring back the old names;

* * And even, at this day,

'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,

And Venus who brings everything that's fair."

* * *

In relation to early sexual association, it cannot be doubted, that, when the instinct of reproduction begins to be developed, the reserve which parents, relatives, and instructers, adopt on this subject, is often the means of producing injurious effects; because, a system of concealment on this subject, as observed in the preceding chapter, is quite impracticable. Discoveries made by young persons in obscene books, the unguarded language or shameless conduct of grown-up persons, even the wild flights of an imagination which is then easily excited, will have the most fatal consequences.

Parents or instructers ought, therefore, at that critical period, to give rational explanations as to the nature and the object of the propensity, the mechanism of reproduction in various vegetable and animal beings, and the fatal consequences to which this propensity may lead. Such procedure, if well conducted, cannot but have the most beneficial results; because, in order that a sane person should avoid any danger, it is only necessary that he should see it distinctly.

The advantage, it has been observed, which the parent, relative, or instructer, derives, from himself in forming the adolescent in the new faculty which is developed in him, is to prevent his choosing, among corrupt servants or ignorant youths of his own age, the confidants of his passion. The parent or instructer, moreover, is then justly entitled to, and has gratefully given to him, the entire confidence of the adolescent; and he is thereby enabled exactly to appreciate the degree of power of the propensity which he desires to divert or to guide.

Such being the case, it is the business of the parent to present a true picture of the effects of too early association of this kind, on the stature, the various development of the figure, the muscular power, the quality of the voice, the health, the moral sense, and especially on the acuteness, the power, the dignity, and the courage, of the mind.

In doing this, it would be as stupid as injurious to employ the slightest degree of false representation, of unjust reprimand, or too much of what is called moralizing, which is often only the contemptible cant of a being who cannot reason, especially when it takes the place of a simple and powerful statement of facts. All of these would only render the young man a dissembler, and would compel him to choose another confidant.

Among other considerations, varying according to the circumstances of the case, those stated below may with advantage be presented.

At a certain period in the life both of plants and animals, varying according to their kind and the climate they live in, they are fit for and disposed to the reproduction of their species. The sexes in both are then attracted to each other. In plants, the powder termed pollen, in animals a peculiar liquid which, deriving its name by analogy from the seeds of plants, is termed seminal, is secreted by the male plant or animal, and, by organs differently formed in each kind, is cast upon ova or eggs either contained within, or deposited by, the female. The details of this process are among the most beautiful and interesting of the living economy. In mankind, the attainment of this period is termed puberty.

It is with this critical period, and his conduct during it, that all that the youth deems most valuable, all that can decide his fortunes and his happiness in the world, his stature, figure, strength, voice, health, and mental powers, are most intimately connected.

In regard to stature, the body appears to complete its increase in height chiefly at the age of puberty, and during the first years which succeed that age. To be assured of the powerful influence of his own conduct, at this period, upon his stature, the youth has only to compare the tall men and women of the country as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the Scottish borders, where they have not been overworked, with the stunted and dwarfed creatures of the metropolis, where a stranger, when he first enters it, is apt to think he sees so many ugly boys and girls, whereas, they are full-grown London men and women. Half the population of the metropolis is affected in this way; and it is the obvious consequence of the acceleration of puberty by confinement, stimulating food, indecent plays, and sexual association.

In regard to the perfect development and beauty of the figure, the youth is probably aware that the most beautiful races of horses and dogs rapidly deteriorate, if men do not carefully maintain them by continence as well as by crossing. The too early employment, the depraved abuses, the injury, or the removal, of the sexual organs, are all of them causes still more certain of deformity. The latter of these causes acts, of course, most obviously; and it is evidenced in the almost universal malformation of eunuchs, geldings, &c.

That, in regard to bodily strength, sexual continence adds energy to the muscular fibre, is clearly seen by observing the most ardent quadrupeds previous to the time of the union of their sexes. But, this being past, precisely in the same proportion does the act of reproduction debilitate and break down the strongest animal. Many male animals even fall almost exhausted by a single act of union with the opposite sex.

Every classical student has read the beautiful allegory of Hercules, who, having spun at the knees of Omphale (ομφαλ?? the navel, here put for the most essential part of the female generative organ), thereby lost his strength: this beautifully expresses the abasement of power amid the indulgences of love. Euripides also depicts the terrible Achilles as timid before women, and respectful with Clytemnestra and Iphigenia. Hence, when a foolish lord reproached the poet Dryden with having given too much timidity toward women to a personage in one of his tragedies, and added that he knew better how to employ his time with the ladies, the poet answered: "You now acknowledge that you are no hero, which I intended that personage to be."

As to voice, which depends on the muscles of respiration, and more immediately on those of the mouth and throat, as general strength does on the muscles of the whole body, both merely affording expressions of the mind, the influence of the sexual union upon it is prodigious. How entirely it is altered by the removal of the testes in eunuchs is known to every one: in corresponding proportion, is it altered by every act of the generative organs, but especially by sexual indulgence during puberty. The horrible voice of early libertines and prostitutes presents an alarming example of this. To those who value voice in conversation, in the delightful and humanizing exercise of music, or in the grander efforts of public speaking, nothing more need be said.

As to health, the less we are prodigal of life, the longer we preserve it. Every one capable of observing may see that the stag loses his horns and his hair after procreation; that birds fall into moulting and sadness; and that male insects even perish after this effort, as if they yielded their individual life to their progeny. Indeed, everything perishes so much the more readily, as it has thus transmitted life to its descendants, or has cast it away in vain pleasures.

In mankind, as in other animals, to procreate is in effect to die to one's self, and to leave one's life to posterity; especially, if this takes place in early life. It is then that man becomes bald and bent; and that the charms of woman fade. Even in advanced age, epicures are so well aware of this, that they are known to abstain from amorous excess, as the acknowledged cause of premature death.

In relation to mind-as the generative power is the source of several characteristics of genius, the exhaustion of that power at an early age must take away these characteristics. Genius as surely languishes and is extinguished amid early sexual indulgence, as do the faculties of voice and locomotion, which are merely its signs and expressions.

It is thus with all our faculties, locomotive, vital, mental, at an early age. They are strengthened by all that they do not dissipate; and that which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately from their own power, and mediately from that of the other organs, but it ensures the permanent debility of the whole.

It is true that the strong passions which are modified or characterized by the sexual impulse, excite the imagination and impel the mind to sublime exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserving such impulsion is, to shun the indulgence of pleasure in early life, and its waste at later periods.

It has accordingly been observed, that the passion of love appears to be most excessive in animals which least excel in mental faculties. Thus the beasts which are the most lascivious, the ass, the boar, &c., are also the most stupid; and idiots and cretins display a sensuality which brutifies them still more. Hence, the Homeric fable that Circe transformed men into beasts.

It would also appear that the most stupid animals, swine, rabbits, &c., in general produce the greatest number of young; while men of genius have engendered the fewest. It is remarked that none of the greatest men of antiquity were much given to sexual pleasure.

It is, then, of the greatest importance to young men who are ambitious of excellence, to mark well this truth, that the most powerful and distinguished in mental faculties, other things being equal, will be he who wastes them least in early life by sexual indulgence-who most economizes the vital stimulant, in order to excite the mental powers on great occasions. By such means may a man surely surpass others, if he have received from his parents proportional mental energy.

Beside the means already indicated, there is one proposed by an able writer, as serving to divert the instinct of propagation when too early and excessive, and consequently dangerous: that is, the sentiment of love. To employ this means, he observes, "it is necessary to search early, after knowing the character of the adolescent whom it is wished to direct, for a young woman whose beauty and good qualities may inspire him with attachment. This means will serve, more than can easily be imagined, to preserve the adolescent both from the grosser attractions of libertinism and the disease it entails, and from the more dangerous snares of coquetry. It is," he adds, "a virtuous young woman and a solid attachment that are here spoken of."-At some future period I shall probably show how wise this recommendation is, as well as the necessity and the advantages of early marriages, under favorable circumstances.

Having now shown the evils of early sexual association, I may briefly notice those of later libertinism.

If, even in more advanced life, and when the constitution is stronger, the instinct of propagation be not restrained within just limits, it degenerates into inordinate lewdness or real mania: "Repperit obsc?nas veneres vitiosa libido." By such depravation, nobleness of character is utterly destroyed.

This scarcely evitable consequence of great fortune and of the facility of indulgence, it has been justly observed, will ever be the ruin of the rich, and a mode of enervating the most vigorous branches of the most powerful house.

The libertine, then, owing to exhaustion, by sexual indulgence, is characterized by physical and moral impotence, or has a brain as incapable of thinking, as his muscles are of acting.

As libertines are enfeebled by indulgence, it follows that they are proportionally distinguished by fear and cowardice. Nothing, indeed, destroys courage more than sexual abuses.

But, from cowardice, spring cunning, duplicity, lying, and perfidy. These common results of cowardice are uniformly found in eunuchs, slaves, courtiers, and sycophants; while boldness, frankness, and generosity, belong to virtuous, free, and magnanimous men.

Again, cowardice, artifice, falsehood, and perfidy, are the usual elements of cruelty. Men feel more wounded in self-love, as they are conscious of being more contemptible; and they avenge themselves with more malignity upon their enemy, as they find themselves more weak and worthless, and as they consequently dread him more.

These are the causes of that malignant revenge which princes have often shown, as, in ancient times, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, &c. In later times, Catharine de Medici solicited the massacre of the Protestants; Paul, Constantine, and Nicholas, of Russia, were happy only when they wallowed in blood; Charles X., equally effeminate and bigoted, perpetrated the massacre of the Parisians; Don Miguel covered Portugal with his assassinations; and nearly all the sovereigns and sycophants in Europe upheld or palliated his atrocities.[7]

The strong and brave man, on the contrary, scarcely feels hurt, and scorns revenge.

It is not cruelty only with which we may reproach these effeminate individuals: it is every vice which springs from baseness of character.

Libertinism, moreover, is not hurtful only to the health and welfare of these individuals: it is so also to those of their posterity.

Finally, the results of libertinism have constantly marked, not merely the ruin of families, but the degeneration of races, and the decay of empires. The delights of Capua caused the ruin of Hannibal; and the Roman, once so proud before kings, finally transformed himself into the wretched slave of monsters degraded far below the rank of humanity.

So little, however, do men look to remote consequences that perhaps the most frightful punishments of libertinism are the diseases which it inflicts. Man may, then, be said to meet only death on the path of life.

The dangers of promiscuous love are, indeed, far beyond what young men will easily believe. I do not exaggerate when I state, that, out of every three women, and those the least common of the promiscuous, two at least are certainly in a state of disease capable of the most destructive infection. A surgeon in the habit of receiving foul patients at a public hospital tells me, I might safely say that nine out of every ten are in this state.[8]

While writing this, Sir Anthony Carlisle observes to me, that, "the special disease which appears to be a punishment for sexual profligacy, is not only malignant, painful, and hideous, in every stage of it, but the only remedy known for its cure, mercury, is a poison which generally leaves its own evils for the venom which it destroys. This frightful disease has no natural termination but in a disgusting disgraceful death, after disfiguring the countenance, by causing blindness, loss of the nose, the palate and teeth, and by the spoliation of the sinning organs. The miserables, who thus perish in public hospitals, are so offensive to the more respectable patients, that they are confined to appointed rooms, termed foul wards, where they linger and die in the bloom of life, either of the penalty inflicted by their profligacy, of the poison administered to them, or of incurable consequent diseases, such as consumption, palsy, or madness."

Hence, it has been observed, that, if we have to deal with a young man incapable of guidance by the nobler motives, of feeling contempt for vice, and horror for debauchery, there yet remain means to be employed. Let him be conducted to the hospital, where he will find collected the poor victims of debauchery-the unhappy women whom, even the day before, he may have seen in the streets, with faces dressed in smiles, amid the torments, the corrosion, and the contagion of disease. This may leave an impression sufficiently deep. But let him also know that these unhappy creatures are a thousand times more pitiable than the libertine who destroys them, and who forfeits the only good we cannot refuse to other wretches, compassion for the misery he endures.[9]

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