THE NATURAL 



chastity. Not that it is anti-natural, nothing is anti- 

 natural, but because of the pretexts it obeys. Bees, ants, 

 termites, present examples of perfect chastity, but of 

 chastity that is utilized, social chastity. Involuntary, 

 congenital, the neuter state among insects is a state 

 de facto, equivalent to the sexual state, and the origin 

 of a characterized activity. In humans it is a state, often 

 only apparent or transitory, obtained voluntarily or de- 

 manded by necessity, a precarious condition, so difficult 

 to maintain that people have heaped up about it all 

 sorts of moral and religious walls, and even real walls 

 made of stones and mortar. Permanent and voluntary 

 chastity is nearly always a religious practice. Men, in 

 all ages, have been persuaded that perfection of being 

 was only obtainable by such renunciation. This seems 

 absurd; it is, on the contrary, very direct logic. The only 

 means of not being an animal is to abstain from the act 

 to which all animals without exception deliver them- 

 selves. It is the same motive that has made people 

 imagine abstinence, fasting; but as one can not live 

 without eating, and as one can live without making 

 love, this second method of perfectionment has remained 

 in the state of outline. 



It is true, asceticism, of which humanity alone is 

 capable, is one of the means which may lift us above 

 animality; but by itself it is insufficient to do this; by 

 itself it is good for nothing, save perhaps to excite sterile 

 pride; one must add to it an active exercise of the intel- 

 ligence. It remains to know whether asceticism, which 

 deprives the sensibility of one of its healthiest and most 

 stimulating nutriments is favourable to the exercise of the 

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