Human Physiology. 273 



admit that the amative feelings and organs should remain in 

 the most perfect quiescence up to the age of puberty, while the 

 mind and muscles are receiving vigorous training. It is not 

 less certain that it is better for men and women to arrive at 

 maturity which comes at from twenty-one to twenty-eight 

 years of age before marriage, and the birth of offspring, than 

 to enter prematurely upon those functions. Every physician 

 knows that women best recover their health and energy by 

 long periods of rest ; and that amative excesses and frequent 

 childbirth destroy health and shorten life. Every one knows 

 that men can live in perfect continence for years, and all their 

 lives, in full bodily and mental vigour, all the more strong and 

 vigorous for the disuse of the amative function. The law of 

 exercise, therefore, has no application to the involuntary and 

 instinctive powers, and all such analogies are utterly false and 

 misleading. 



For animals we have the law of instinct, and we have seen 

 how wise, and pure, and moderate they are ; and how we libel 

 brutes when we talk of the brutal passions and behaviour of 

 men. For men we have the law of chastity, which is in perfect 

 accordance with the higher nature of man. During childhood, 

 there should be free activity of body and mind ; but perfect 

 freedom from any excitement of the amative or sensual life. 

 When children are born of chaste parents, they have no ten- 

 dency to such excitement ; but when the mother has been 

 obliged to submit to the embraces of her husband during preg- 

 nancy, what can be expected but premature development of 

 sensuality in the child? 



Innocent children are also liable to be corrupted by depraved 

 nurses ; by adults with whom they are allowed to sleep ; and 

 especially by playfellows and schoolmates, who have in any 

 way fallen into habits of unnatural and terribly hurtful indul- 

 gence. Whole schools of boys have been found corrupted, 

 and even boarding-schools of girls plunged into the most 



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