304. Human Physiology. 



womanhood should be sacred, and no woman, mother, sister, 

 the beloved of the present or the future, should ever be wronged 

 by one thought of impurity. In this matter instinct goes with 

 right. The inward voice supports the outer law of morality. 

 Before men can become bad, their instinctive modesty must be 

 broken down. Unless very badly born, with disordered aina- 

 tiveness hereditary from a diseased and lustful parentage, they 

 must be perverted and corrupted before they can act immo- 

 destly and impurely. 



Women are protected by a strong public sentiment around 

 them. They have the dread of disgrace. For them to yield 

 to their own affectionate desires, or the solicitations of a lover, 

 is a fall, is ruin. They have the hope of a loving husband, a 

 happy home, and the respect of society. And in women pas- 

 sion has commonly less force, and the sentiment of modesty 

 and purity more power. Women are weak in yielding to soli- 

 citation, giving everything for love ; but we see how protective 

 of female virtue are these motives to vast numbers. Add a 

 strong sense of religious duty, and we have women generally, 

 almost unexceptionably virtuous, in the middle and upper 

 classes of England and Scotland, and in Ireland almost uni- 

 versally. In the lower classes of England, Scotland, and Wales 

 there is more laxity, as the statistics of illegitimacy manifest. 



Men can perfectly restrain the sensual part of their natures 

 whenever and wherever they have a strong motive to do so. 

 A child would be simply mad who was not controlled by the 

 presence of father, mother, and persons he respected or feared. 

 Young men have no difficulty when they are in the company of 

 pure women. They are in no trouble where their lives are full 

 of mental and muscular activity, and particularly if their habits 

 of eating simply and temperately, of refraining from heating and 

 exciting stimulants, and sleeping in cool beds and fresh air are 

 such as health requires. There needs but the strong will to 

 live purely in any one, and at any age the will that comes 



