Human Physiology 305 



from the high motives of conscience and religion, or all motives 

 combined. A strong sense of what is just and right controls 

 even the motions of our bodies, and actions which seem to be 

 involuntary. A man who has a vivid sense of the right and duty 

 of refraining from sensuality, and preserving his own purity of 

 mind and body, and the chastity of all women, will do so even 

 in his dreams. When the will is right, all things are soon 

 brought into its subjection. The mind controls the organisa- 

 tion, and the life forces are directed into other channels. A 

 strong man, full of life and love, can safely hold a virgin in his 

 arms and respect her virginity, if he have but the motives and 

 the will to do so. If he be pure in his will, how can he com- 

 mit impurity? If a woman be sacred in his eyes, how can he 

 profane her? It is not that men have not the power of self- 

 restraint, the power to do right it is that they lack the motive. 

 They have lost the sense of right ; they are even impelled to 

 do wrong by the pressure of opinion around them. Boys and 

 young men are driven into libertinage by the ridicule of their 

 companions. Vice is considered manly. They seek sensuality 

 in an evil emulation, as they learn to smoke, or game, or drink. 

 And, later on, vanity has often more to do with excess than the 

 force of lust. Young men seduce girls that they may boast of 

 it. They keep mistresses because it is the fashion. They exhaust 

 themselves, because they wish to give a high idea of their 

 manly prowess. Even in marriage women are injured, and 

 have their health destroyed, yielding weakly, or from a 

 false sense of duty, to a husband, whose own motive is 

 the desire to acquit himself manfully in what he considers 

 his marital duties. Men and women are, in thousands 

 of cases, wretched victims to what they imagine to be 

 the wants or expectations of each other. A man, ignorant 

 of the nature of woman, and the laws of the generative 

 function, goes on in a process of miserable exhaustion to 

 please his wife ; she submits, sometimes in pain, often in 



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