Are We a Declining Race? 



Before we can expect to make much headway, 

 we must disabuse ourselves of the idea that we 

 are so different, physiologically, from the lower 

 animals, and that habits which would be 

 decidedly detrimental to them, may be indulged 

 in with impunity by us. The idea that we are 

 specially created beings has been the cause of 

 much misunderstanding, through which the race 

 has had to suffer. 



Much harm has also been done, by well mean- 

 ing writers, who denounce the greatest of human 

 virtues, chastity, as an unnatural sin. It is un- 

 necessary to enumerate instances, but such state- 

 ments have been made and supported by medical 

 men. Their views have been largely accepted, 

 and the result is obvious. 



" We emphatically condemn as a most per- 

 nicious doctrine, one calculated to work untold 

 evil, and to foster the worst forms of vice, the 

 theory that any injury whatever arises from a 

 chaste celibacy. The organs are not weakened, 

 nor their power lost, nor is there a tendency to 

 spermatorrhoea, nor to congestions, nor to any 

 one of those ills which certain vicious writers, 

 and certain superficial and careless physicians 

 have attributed to this state. No condition of 

 life is more thoroughly consistent with perfect 

 mental and physical vigour than absolute 

 chastity." (G. H. Napheys, M.D. : " The Trans- 

 mission of Life.") 



These are not the words of a man likely to 

 pander to public opinion. He has spoken the 

 truth in an age when it is often considered the 

 better policy to vnraish one's sentences, to flatter 

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