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Title: Religion and Lust
       or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire

Author: James Weir

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Language: English

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  Religion and Lust
  OR
  THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION
  OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION
  AND SEXUAL DESIRE

  BY

  JAMES WEIR, JR., M. D.
  AUTHOR OF THE DAWN OF REASON, ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE,
  ETC.

  THIRD EDITION
  REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES.

  CHICAGO
  CHICAGO MEDICAL BOOK CO.
  1905

  _Copyrighted August, 1897,
  By
  James Weir, Jr., M. D._

  _Copyrighted March, 1905,
  By
  James Weir, Jr., M. D._




PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.


_The author of this monograph has been incited to its publication by the
commendations of three of the most eminent critics and editors of
magazines in the United States, to whom it was submitted in manuscript.
In this essay, he discusses his subject from a physio-psychical
standpoint, and believes that he has kept intact the canons of
scientific investigation, observation, and discussion._

_"Waveland," June 8, 1897._




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.


_In preparing The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual
Desire for its second edition, the author has incorporated in it a
considerable amount of additional evidence in support of his theory. He
has carefully verified all references; he has endeavored to eliminate
all unnecessary material; and, finally, he has changed the style of the
work by dividing it into three parts, thus greatly simplifying the text.
He feels under many obligations to his critics, both to those who
thought his little book worthy of commendation, and to those who deemed
his premises and conclusions erroneous. He feels grateful to the former,
because they have caused him to believe that he has added somewhat to
the literature of science; he thanks the latter, because in pointing out
that which they considered untrue, they have forced him to a new and
more searching study of the questions involved, thereby strengthening
his belief in the truthfulness of his conclusions._

_To the second edition of The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion
and Sexual Desire, the author has seen fit to add certain other essays.
In preparing these essays for publication, he has borrowed freely from
his published papers, therefore, he desires to thank the publishers of
the New York Medical Record, Century Magazine, Denver Medical Times,
Charlotte Monthly and American Naturalist for granting him permission to
use such of his published material (belonging to them) as he saw fit._

_The author asks the indulgence of the reader for certain repetitions in
the text. These have not been occasioned by any lack of data, but occur
simply because he believes that an argument is rendered stronger and
more convincing by the frequent use of the same data whenever and
wherever it is possible to use them. When this plan is followed, the
reader, so the author believes, becomes familiar with the author's line
of thought, and is, consequently, better able to comprehend and
appreciate his meaning._

_Finally, the author has been led to the publication of these essays by
a firm belief in the truthfulness of the propositions advanced therein.
He may not live to see these propositions accepted, yet he believes
that, in the future, perhaps, in worthier and more able hands, they will
be so weightily and forcibly elaborated and advanced that their verity
will be universally acknowledged._

_"Waveland," September 17, 1897._




PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.


_The author, after mature consideration, has thought it advisable to
confine the subject matter of the Third Edition of Religion and Lust
almost wholly to the psychical correlation of religious emotion and
sexual desire. He has eliminated certain of the psychical problems
embraced in the First and Second Editions and has added instead a
bibliography. The student, he thinks, will find these changes of value,
especially in the matter of reference. The author has also added certain
data to the thesis of the work, as well as foot-notes; which, he thinks,
will strengthen the deductions and conclusions therein enunciated. He
has carefully and conscientiously edited and verified all notes and
quotations to be found in the book and rests satisfied in the conviction
that, whatever may be lacking in his little volume, it will not be "the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."_

_"Waveland," Owensboro, Ky., Feb. 25, 1905._




CONTENTS.


                                                                   Page
  Religion and Lust

    Chap. I. The Origin of Religious Feeling                          9

    Chap. II. Phallic Worship                                        41

    Chap. III. The Psychical Correlation of Religious
    Emotion and Sexual Desire                                        99

  Viraginity and Effemination                                       121

  Borderlands and Crankdom                                          135

  Genius and Degeneration                                           155

  The Effect of Female Suffrage on Posterity                        175

  Is It the Beginning of the End?                                   199

  Bibliography                                                      231




CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS FEELING.


I believe that man originated his first ideas of the supernatural from
the external phenomena of nature which were perceptible to one or more
of his five senses; his first theogony was a natural one and one taken
directly from nature. In ideation the primal bases of thought must have
been founded, _ab initio_, upon sensual perceptions; hence, must have
been materialistic and natural. Spencer, on the contrary, maintains that
in man, "the first traceable conception of a supernatural being is the
conception of a ghost."[1]

     [1] Spencer: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i, p. 281.

Primitive man's struggle for existence was so very severe that his
limited sagacity was fully occupied in obtaining food and shelter; many
thousands of years must have passed away before he evolved any idea of
weapons other than stones and clubs. When he arrived at a psychical
acuteness that originated traps, spears, bows and arrows, his struggle
for existence became easier and he had leisure to notice the various
natural phenomena by which he was surrounded. Man evolved a belief in a
god long before he arrived at a conception of a ghost, double, or soul.
He soon discovered that his welfare was mainly dependent on nature,
consequently he began to propitiate nature, and finally ended by
creating a system of theogony founded on nature alone.[A]

     [A] "Theology and religion are of service in morals and conduct in
     direct proportion as they have become adapted to our knowledge of
     natural phenomena"--Lydston: _The Diseases of Society_, p. 68.

"It is an evident historical fact that man _first personified natural
phenomena_, and then made use of these personifications to personify his
own inward acts, his psychical ideas and conceptions. This was the
necessary process, and external idols were formed before those which
were internal and peculiar to himself."[2] Sun, moon, and star;
mountain, hill, and dale; torrent, waterfall, and rill, all became to
him distinct personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great
harm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a
dog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling toward
him on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true
worship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning
he was essentially a materialist--he became a spiritualist later on.
Man's first religion must have been, necessarily, a material one; he
worshiped (propitiated) only that which he could see, or feel, or hear,
or touch; his undeveloped psychical being could grasp nothing higher;
his limited understanding could not frame an idea involving a spiritual
element such as animism undoubtedly presents. Apropos of the dream
birth of the soul, all terrestrial mammals dream, and in some of them,
notably the dog and monkey, an observer can almost predicate the subject
of their dreams by watching their actions while they are under dream
influence; yet no animal save man, as far as we know, has ever evolved
any idea of ghost or soul.[B] It may be said, on the other hand, that
since animals show, unmistakably, that they are, in a measure, fully
conscious of certain phenomena in the economy of nature, and while I am
not prepared to state that any element of worship enters into their
regard, I yet believe that an infinitesimal increase in the development
of their psychical beings would, undoubtedly, lead some of them to a
natural religion such as our pithecoid ancestors practiced.

     [2] Tito Vignoli: _Myth and Science_, p. 85.

     [B] Clarke in his interesting book gives us some very readable
     stories anent the ability of animals seeing imaginary objects. I
     myself have seen a parrot with a marked case of _delirium tremens_,
     due to excessive use of alcoholic stimulants (Vid. Author: _The
     Dawn of Reason_). Romanes also gives valuable data in his _Mental
     Evolution_ (in Animal, and in Man) concerning this subject. The fox
     terrier (Vid. Author: _Dawn of Reason_) which carried his dreams
     into his awakened state is apropos.

The Egyptians noticed, over four thousand years ago, that cynocephali,
the dog-headed apes of the Nile Valley, were in the habit of welcoming
the rising sun with dancing and with howls of joy! "The habit of certain
monkeys (cynocephali) assembling, as it were, in full court, and
chattering noisily at sunrise and sunset, would almost justify the, as
yet, uncivilized Egyptians in intrusting them with the charge of hailing
the god morning and evening as he appeared in the east or passed away in
the west."[3] An English fox-terrier of my acquaintance is very much
afraid of thunder or any noise simulating thunder. A load of coal
rushing through a chute into the coal cellar will send him, trembling
and alarmed, to his hiding-place beneath a bed. This dog has never been
shot over, nor has he, as far as I know, ever heard the sound of a gun.
I am confident that he considers the thunder as being supernatural, and
that he would propitiate it, if he only knew how.

     [3] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 103, and
     Maspero: _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archiologie Egyptiennes_, vol.
     ii, pp. 34, 35.

It is not probable that, at the present time, there exists a race of
people which has not formulated an idea of ghost or soul; yet in ancient
times, and up to a century or so ago, there existed many peoples who had
not conceived any idea of ghosts or doubles.

According to Maspero, Sayce, Champollion, and other Egyptologists, the
ancient Egyptians probably had a natural theogony long before they
arrived at any idea of a double. In the beginning they treated the
double or ghost with scant ceremony; it was only after many years that
an element of worship entered into their treatment of the ghosts of
their dead ancestors. They believed, at first, that the double dwelt
forever in the tomb along with the dead body; afterward, they evolved
the idea that the double of the dead man journeyed to the "Islands of
the Blessed," where it was judged by Osiris according to its merits.[4]
We have no reason for believing that the ancient Hebrews at the time of
the Exodus had any knowledge of, or belief in, the existence of the soul
or double, yet, that they did believe in the supernatural can not be
questioned.[C] When Cook touched at Tierra del Fuego, he found a people
in whom there existed mental habitudes but little above those to be
found in the anthropoid apes. They had no knowledge whatever of the soul
or double and but a dim concept of the powers of nature; they had not
yet advanced far enough in psychical development to evolve any
consistent form of natural theogony. They had only a shadowy concept of
evil beings, powers of the air that inhabited the dense brakes of the
forest, whom it would be dangerous to molest. Father Junipero Serra
declares that when he first established the Mission Dolores, the
Ahwashtees, Ohlones, Romanos, Altahmos, Tuolomos, and other Californian
tribes had no word in their language for god, ghost, or devil.[5] The
Inca Yupangui informed Balboa that there were many tribes in the
interior which had no idea of ghost or soul.[6] Another writer says,
that the Chirihuanas did not worship anything either in heaven or on
earth, and that they had no belief whatever in a future state.[7] Modern
travelers have, however, found distinct evidences of phallic worship in
certain observances and customs of this tribe.[8]

     [4] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 183 _et seq._

     [C] That the patriarchs had their household gods, we have every
     reason for believing; these household gods were, however, tutelary
     divinities, such as were kept in the house of every Chaldean, and
     were not the images of ancestors. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole
     the household gods of Laban, her father, who is called a Syrian.
     Abraham himself was a Chaldean. Gen. 11:31; also Gen. 31:19-20.

     [5] Bancroft: _The Native Races of the Pacific States of North
     America_, vol. i, p. 400.

     [6] Balboa: _History of Peru_.

     [7] Garcilasso: _The Royal Commentaries of the Incas_.

     [8] Browlow: _Travels_, p. 136.

Certain autochthons of India, when first discovered, were exceedingly
immature in religious beliefs; they had neither god nor devil; they
wandered through the woods subsisting on berries and fruits, and such
small animals as their undeveloped and feeble sagacity allowed them to
capture and slay. They did not even provide themselves with shelter,
but, in pristine nakedness, roamed the forests of the Ghauts, animals
but slightly above the anthropoid apes in point of intelligence. "In
Central California we find," says Bancroft, "whole tribes subsisting on
roots, herbs, and insects; having no boats, no clothing, no laws, no
God."[9]

     [9] Bancroft: _The Native Races of the Pacific States of North
     America_, vol. i, p. 400.

In the northwestern corner of the American continent there dwells a
primitive race, which, for the sake of unification, I will style the
Aleutians. When these people were first discovered they were in that
state of social economics which they had reached after thousands of
years of psychical and social evolution; a primitive people, such as our
own ancestors were in the very beginning of civilization. The word
civilization is used advisedly; civilization is comparative, and its
degrees begin with the inception of man himself.

In their theogony, the Aleutians had arrived at an idea of the double or
soul, thus showing that their religion had progressed several steps
toward abstraction, that triumph of civilized religiosity; yet there
remained enough veneration of natural objects to show that the origin of
the religious feeling began, with them, in nature-propitiation. The
bladder of the bear, which viscus, in the estimation of the Aleutians,
is the seat of life, is at once suspended above the entrance of the
_kachim_ or communal dwelling and worshiped by the hunter who has slain
the beast from which it was taken. Moreover, when the bear falls beneath
the weapons of an Aleutian, the man begs pardon of the beast and prays
the latter to forgive him and to do him no harm. "A hunter who has
struck a mortal blow generally remains within his hut for one or several
days, according to the importance of the slain animal."[10] The first
herring that is caught is showered with compliments and blessings;
pompous titles are lavished upon it, and it is handled with the greatest
respect and reverence; it is the herring-god![11]

     [10] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 18.

     [11] Dall: _Alaska and its Resources_, p. 96.

Sidné, chief god of the Aleutian theogony, on final analysis, is found
to be the Earth, mother of all things. The _angakouts_, or priests, of
this people individualize and deify, however, all the phenomena of
nature; there are cloud-gods, sea-gods, river-gods, fire-gods,
rain-gods, storm-gods, etc., etc., etc. Everywhere, throughout all
nature, the Inoit, or Aleutian system of theology, penetrates, stripped,
it is true, of much of its original materialism, yet retaining enough to
show its undoubted origin in the sensual percepts, recepts, and concepts
of its primal founders.

As I have observed above, the religion of these people has gained a
certain degree of abstraction, and this abstraction is further shown by
the presence of certain phallic rites and ceremonies in their religious
observances; but of this, more anon.[D]

     [D] In a letter to me, a naval officer of high rank states that,
     beyond question of doubt, the Aleutian priests keep male concubines
     whom they use in their religious observances. He, also, gives other
     evidences of phallic worship among these people.

In most of the tribes of Equatorial Africa, nature-worship has been
superseded by ghost-worship, devil-worship, or witch-worship, or,
rather, by ghost, devil, or witch propitiation; yet, in the sanctity of
the fetich, which is everywhere present, we see a relic of
nature-worship. Moreover, many of these tribes deify natural phenomena,
such as the sun, the moon, the stars, thunder, lightning, etc., etc.,
etc., showing that here, too, in all probability, religious feeling had
its origin in nature propitiation.

Abstraction also enters, to a certain extent, into the religious beliefs
of most of these negroes, in whom primal materialism has given place to
the unbridled superstition of crude spiritism. The curious habit these
people have of scraping a little bone dust from the skull of a dead
ancestor and then eating it with their food, thus, as they think,
transmitting from the dead to the living the qualities of the former, is
close kin to, and, in my opinion, is probably derived from, a worship of
the generative principle. When we take into consideration the fact that
circumcision, _extensio clitoridis_, and other phallic rites are
exceedingly common and prevalent among these negroes, this opinion has
strong evidence in its support.[12]

     [12] Negroes of Benin and Sierra Leone (Bosman, _loc. cit._, p.
     526), Mandingoes (Waitz, vol. ii, p. 3), Bechuanas (Holub, _loc.
     cit._, p. 398); quoted also by Westermarck, _Human Marriage_, p.
     206.

The Wa-kamba may have some idea of immortality, though observers have
never been able to determine this definitely. "The dead bodies of chiefs
are not thrown to the hyenas, as with the Masai, but are carefully
buried instead.... The bodies of less important members of the tribe are
simply thrown to the hyenas."[13]

     [13] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 351.

In this people, religious ideas are exceedingly primitive and
indefinite. They seem to propitiate nature, however, when they wish
rain, for they offer up to the rain-spirit votive offerings of bananas,
grain, and beer, which they place beneath the trees. This seems to be
their only religious rite according to Gregory, who, in all probability
is in error. For, in the next sentence, he informs us that these
negroes practice circumcision. He thinks that they perform this
operation for sanitary reasons, "as the natives have continually to ford
streams and wade through swamps abounding in the larvæ of _Bilharzia
haematuria_, the rite no doubt lessens the danger of incurring
hæmaturia."[14] This is bestowing upon ignorant and savage negroes a
psychical acuteness which far transcends that of the laity of civilized
races! What do the Wa-kamba know of sanitation, hæmaturia, and the larva
of Bilharzia![E] Circumcision among these people always occurs at
puberty, and is, unquestionably, a phallic rite. Parenthetically, it may
be stated here that a few of the primitive peoples still in existence
appear to have grasped the idea of the life-giving principle, and to
have established worship of the _functio generationis_ without having
experienced certain preliminary psychical stages necessary for its
evolution from nature-worship. I believe, however, that this is apparent
and not real; nature-worship, very probably, at one time existed among
all these people.

     [14] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 351.

     [E] Inasmuch as the hæmaturia occasioned by the larvæ of Bilharzia
     has its origin in the parenchyma of the kidney, and, since we have
     no reason for believing that this race has any idea of histology or
     pathology, it is manifest folly to ascribe circumcision as a
     prophylactic measure against this parasite. Bilharzia is now
     considered a true parasite by Wolfe.

The Kikuyu have a very elaborate system of theogony, in which all of the
phenomena of nature with which they are acquainted are deified. A goat
is invariably sacrificed to the sun when they set out on a journey, and
its blood is carried along and sprinkled on the paths and bridges in
order to appease the spirits of the forest and the river.

Stuhlmann places this tribe among the Bantu; from the evidence of other
observers, however, they seem to be Nilotic Hamites, and belong properly
to the Masai.[15] This would account for the similarity of method in
circumcision, which, among both Kikuyu and Masai, is incomplete.
Johnston calls attention to this very peculiar method and describes it
minutely in a Latin foot-note.[16]

     [15] Stuhlmann: _Mit Emin Pasha_, p. 848.

     [16] Johnston: _The Kilima-Njaro Expedition_, p. 412.

The Masai are mixed devil, nature, and phallic worshipers; the last
mentioned cult being evolved, beyond question, from nature-worship. It
may be set down as an established fact that, where nature-worship does
not exist in some form or other among primitive peoples, phallic worship
is likewise absent. Indeed, such peoples generally have no religious
feeling whatever. They may have some shadowy idea of an evil spirit like
the "_Aurimwantya dsongo ngombe auri kinemu_," the Old Man of the
Woods[17] of the Wa-pokomo, but that is all.

     [17] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 344.

Carl Lumholtz, writing of the Australians, says: "The Australian blacks
do not, like many other savage tribes, attach any ideas of divinity to
the sun or moon. On one of our expeditions the full moon rose large and
red over the palm forest. Struck by the splendor of the scene, I pointed
at the moon and asked my companions, 'Who made it?' They answered,
'Other blacks.' Thereupon I asked, 'Who made the sun?' and got the same
answer. The natives also believe that they themselves can produce rain,
particularly with the help of wizards. To produce rain they call
_milka_. When on our expeditions we were overtaken by violent tropical
storms, my blacks always became enraged at the strangers who had caused
the rain."[18] In regard to their belief in the existence of a double or
soul, the same author sums up as follows: "Upon the whole, it may be
said that these children of nature are unable to conceive a human soul
independent of the body, and the future life of the individual lasts no
longer than his physical remains."[19] Mr. Mann, of New South Wales,
who, according to Lumholtz, has made a thirty years' study of the
Australians, says that the natives have no religion whatever, except
fear of the "devil-devil."[20] Another writer, and one abundantly
qualified to judge, says that they acknowledge no supreme being, have no
idols, and believe only in an evil spirit whom they do not worship. They
say that this spirit is afraid of fire, so they never venture abroad
after dusk without a fire-stick.[21]

     [18] Lumholtz: _Among Cannibals_, p. 282.

     [19] _Ibid._, p. 279.

     [20] Lumholtz: _Among Cannibals_, p. 283.

     [21] _Ibid._, p. 283.

"I verily believe we have arrived at the sum total of their religion, if
a superstitious dread of the unknown can be so designated. Their mental
capacity does not admit of their grasping the higher truths of pure
religion," says Eden.[22] It is simply an inherent fear of the unknown;
the natural, inborn caution of thousands of years of inherited
experiences.

     [22] Eden: _The Fifth Continent_, p. 69; quoted also by Lumholtz:
     _Among Cannibals_.

In these savages we see a race whose psychical status is so low in the
intellectual scale that they have not evolved any idea of the double or
soul. The mental capacity of the Australians, I take it, is no lower
than was that of any race (no matter how intellectual it may be at the
present time) at one period of its history. All races have a tendency
toward psychical development under favorable surroundings; it has been a
progress instead of a decadence, a rise instead of a fall! Evolution has
not ceased; nor will it end until _Finis_ is written at the bottom of
Time's last page.

There are yet other people who believe in the supernatural, yet who have
no idea of immortality. When Gregory ascended the glacier of Mount
Kenya, the water froze in the cooking-pots which had been filled over
night. His carriers were terribly alarmed by the phenomenon, and swore
that the water was bewitched! The explorer scolded them for their
silliness and bade them set the pots on the fire, which, having been
done, "the men sat round and anxiously watched; when it melted they
joyfully told me that the demon was expelled, and I told them they could
now use the water; but as soon as my back was turned they poured it
away, and refilled their pots from the adjoining brook."[23]

     [23] Gregory: _The Great Rift Valley_, p. 170.

Stanley declares that no traces of religious feeling can be found in the
Wahuma. "They believe most thoroughly in the existence of an evil
influence in the form of a man, who exists in uninhabited places, as a
wooded, darksome gorge, or large extent of reedy brake, but that he can
be propitiated by gifts; therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of
the meat, which he tosses, however, as he would to a dog, or he places
an egg, or a small banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature
dwelling, which is always at the entrance to the zeriba."[24]

     [24] Stanley: _In Darkest Africa_, vol. ii, p. 400.

This observer shows that he does not know the true meaning of the word
religion; the example that he gives demonstrates the fact that these
negroes _do_ have religious feeling. The simple act of offering
propitiatory gifts to the "evil influence" is, from the very nature of
the deed, a religious observance. Furthermore, these savages have charms
and fetiches innumerable, which, in my opinion, are relics of
nature-worship. The miniature house mentioned by Stanley is common to
the majority of the equatorial tribes, and seems to be a kind of common
fetich; _i. e._, one that is enjoyed by the entire tribe. It is
mentioned by Du Chaillu, Chaillé Long, Stanley, and many others.[25]

     [25] Du Chaillu: _Equatorial Africa_; Chaillé Long: _Naked Truths
     of Naked People_; Stanley: _In Darkest Africa_.

Du Chaillu tells of one tribe, the Bakalai, in which the women worship a
particular divinity named Njambai.[26] This writer is even more inexact
than Stanley, hence, we get very little scientific data from his
voluminous works. From what he says of Njambai,[F] I am inclined to
believe that he is a negro Priapus; this, however, is a conjectural
belief and has no scientific warrant.

     [26] Du Chaillu: _Equatorial Africa_, p. 240.

     [F] Possibly, this god is the same as the god mentioned by
     Livingstone, Baker, and Stanley.

The Tucuña Indians of the Amazon Valley, who resemble the Passés, Jurís,
and Muahés in physical appearance and customs, social and otherwise, are
devil-worshipers. They are very much afraid of the _Jupari_, or devil,
who seems to be "simply a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all
those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which are not very
immediate or obvious to their dull understandings. The idea of a Creator
or a beneficent God has not entered the minds of these Indians."[27]

     [27] Bates: _The Naturalist on the River Amazon_, p. 381.

The Peruvians, at the time of the Spanish conquest, worshiped nature;
that is, the sun was deified under the name of _Pachacamac_, the Giver
of Life, and was worshiped as such. The Inca, who was his earthly
representative, was likewise his chief priest, though there was a great
High Priest, or _Villac Vmu_, who stood at the head of the hierarchy,
but who was second in dignity to the Inca.[28] The moon, wife of the
sun, the stars, thunder, lightning, and other natural phenomena were
also deified. But, as it invariably happens, where nature-worship is
allowed to undergo its natural evolution, certain elements of phallic
worship had made their appearance. These I will discuss later on.

     [28] Prescott: _The Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 101.

The great temple of the sun was at Cuzco, "where, under the munificence
of successive sovereigns, it had become so rich that it received the
name of Coricancha, or 'the Place of Gold.'"[29] According to the
_relacion_ of Sarmiento, and the commentaries of Garcilasso and other
Spanish writers, this building, which was surrounded by chapels and
smaller edifices, and which stood in the heart of the city, must have
been truly magnificent with its lavish adornments of virgin gold!

     [29] Prescott: _The Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 95.

Unlike the Aztecs, a kindred race of people, the Peruvians rarely
sacrificed human beings to their divinities, but, like the religion of
the former, the religion of the latter had become greatly developed
along ceremonial lines, as we will see later on in this essay.

It is a far cry from Peru to Japan, from the Incas to the Ainus, yet
these widely separated races practiced religions that were almost
identical in point of fundamental principles. Both worshiped nature, but
the Peruvians were far ahead of the Ainus in civilization, and their
religion, as far as ritual and ceremony are concerned, far surpassed
that of the "Hairy Men" when viewed from an æsthetic standpoint.
Ethically, I am inclined to believe the religion of the Ainus is just as
high as was that of the Incas.

Literature is indebted to the Rev. John Batchelor for that which is,
probably, the most readable book that has ever been published about
these interesting people; from a scientific standpoint, however, this
work is greatly lacking. Many ethnologists and anthropologists
considered the Ainu autochthonic to Japan; I am forced to conclude from
the evidence, however, that he is an emigrant, and that he came
originally from North China or East Siberia. Be he emigrant or indigene,
one thing is certain, namely, that he has been an inhabitant of the
Japanese Archipelago for thousands of years. The oldest book in the
Japanese language has this in it anent the Ainus: "When our august
ancestors descended from heaven in a boat, they found upon this island
several barbarous races, the most fierce of whom were the Ainu."[G]

     [G] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 13.

The Ainu is probably the purest type of primitive man in existence. I
had been led to believe by the work of Miss Bird[30] that these people
were on a par with the Australians, and that they had no religious ideas
whatever. (Vogt seems to advance this conclusion also,[31] while De
Quatrefages[32][H] appears to have omitted this people from his
tabulation. Peschel places them among the Giliaks on the Lower Amoor,
and the inhabitants of the Kurile Islands.[33] These tribes are mixed
nature, devil, and phallic worshipers.) Batchelor, however, shows very
clearly that these people _do_ have a religion, and that this religion
is highly developed.

     [30] Bird: _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan_.

     [31] Vogt: _Lectures on Man_.

     [32] De Quatrefages: _The Human Species_.

     [H] De Quatrefages, in his _Hommes Fossiles_, places the Ainus
     anthropologically among the Primeval Teutons!

     [33] Peschel: _The Races of Man_, p. 388.

Their chief god, or rather goddess (for the Ainus regard the female as
being higher than the male as far as gods are concerned), is the
sun.[34] Like the Peruvians, they regard the sun as the Creator, but
they are unlike them in the fact that they think that they cannot reach
the goddess by direct appeal. She must be addressed through
intermediaries or messengers. These messengers, the goddess of the fire,
the goddess of the water, etc., are in turn addressed through the
agency of _inao_, or prayer-sticks. This intermediary idea is curiously
like some practices of the Roman Catholic church, or, rather, of
communicants, who get the saints to carry their petitions to God.

     [34] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 89.

The inao are peculiar, inasmuch as nothing exactly like them is known.
The feather prayer-plumes of some of the Western Indians are used for
like purposes, but these are offered directly to the Great Spirit, and
not to intermediaries. "Inao, briefly described, are pieces of whittled
willow wood, having the shavings attached to the top."[35] Like the
Aleutians, when these people kill a bear or other wild animal, they
propitiate its spirit by bestowing upon it the most fulsome compliments,
and, like the religion of these Indians, the religion of the Ainus has
developed along natural lines, and shows certain phallic elements.

     [35] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 87.

We see from the examples here given, that religious feeling had its
origin in the idea of propitiation; in fact, that it was born in fear,
and by fear was it fostered. We see, furthermore, that man was not
created with religious feeling as a psychical trait, but that he
acquired it later on. We see, finally, that religious feeling is based,
primarily and fundamentally, on one of the chief laws of
nature--self-protection. The evolution and growth of Ethics demonstrate
this beyond peradventure.

It is not at all probable that man in the beginning, just after his
evolution from his ape-like ancestor, had, at first, any belief whatever
in supernatural agencies. In his struggle for existence, all of his
powers were directed toward the procurement of his food and the
preservation of life; the pithecoid man was only a degree higher than
the beasts in the scale of animal life. His psychic being, as yet,
remained, as it were, _in ovo_, and a long period of time must have
elapsed before he began to formulate and to recognize a system of
theogony. After years of experience, during which the laws of heredity
and progressive evolution played prominent parts, he took precedence
over other animals, and his struggle for existence became easier. He
then had time to study the wonderful and, to him, mysterious phenomena
of nature. His limited knowledge could not explain the various natural
operations by which he was surrounded, therefore he looked upon them as
being mysterious and supernatural. His psychical being became active and
inquiring, to satisfy which he created a system of gods which was
founded on natural phenomena. At first, the gods of primitive man were,
probably, few in number, and the chief god of all was the sun. Man early
recognized the sun's importance in the economy of nature; this beautiful
star, rising in the east in the morning, marching through the heavens
during the day, and sinking behind the western horizon in the evening,
must have been, to the awakening soul of man, a source of endless
conjecture and debate. What was more natural than his making the sun the
greatest god in his system of theogony? Man recognized in him the source
of all life, and, when he arrived at an age when he could use abstract
ideation in formulating his religion, he deified the life-giving
function as he noticed it in himself; he began to worship the generative
principle. Solar worship and its direct descendant, phallic worship, at
one time or another were the religions of almost every race on the face
of the globe. Solar worship, owing to its material quality, has long
since been abandoned by civilized man; but phallic worship, the first
_abstract_ religion evolved by man, has taken deeper root; its
fundamental principles are still present, though they have their seat in
our subliminal consciousness, and we are, therefore, not actively
conscious of their existence. But before entering on the discussion of
this last point, let us turn for a time to a study of phallic worship.




CHAPTER II.

PHALLIC WORSHIP.


Phallic worship, in some form or other, has been practiced by almost
every race under the sun. Indeed, among primitive peoples, those who do
not practice this cult are so few in number that they have, practically,
no weight whatever in a discussion of this subject. Moreover, those
primitive peoples who do not worship the generative principle, either
directly or indirectly, are without any religion whatsoever, and are the
very lowest of all mankind in point of intelligence. I have only to cite
the Tierra del Fuegians, the Bushmen, the Australians, and the Akka or
Ticki-Ticki, the Pygmies of Central Africa, to prove the truthfulness of
this assertion. There are other peoples who would serve as examples, but
it would be a work of supererogation to enumerate them to even the
casual reader.

D'Hancarville, in his magnificent work, has traced the progress of the
worship of the generative principle over the entire world, while Knight,
in his scholarly essay,[36] has brought out its psychological truths in
a manner which cannot be surpassed. It is not my purpose to enter into a
detailed account of this cult; I propose rather to discuss its probable
origin in the beginning, and to give a brief outline of its history, as
it is to be observed among living peoples. I wish to show, also, its
connection with certain religious ceremonies and festivals of Christian
peoples, which had their origin, _ab initio_, in the worship of Priapus.
And, before beginning the discussion of this subject, I beg to remind
the reader that a priest of Priapus regarded his sistrum as being just
as sacred as a Catholic priest now considers any vessel or robe used in
the service of mass, and that the priests of Brahma look on the Lingam
with as much reverence and awe as did the Levites on the Ark of the
Covenant and the Holy of Holies. Phallic worship is a religion, the
oldest _abstract_ religion in existence. Fundamentally the Creator--the
Life Giver--is the phallic worshiper's god. Is he very far wrong in all
that is absolutely essential? "Men think they know because they are sure
they feel, and are firmly convinced because strongly agitated. Hence
proceed that haste and violence with which devout persons of all
religions condemn the rites and doctrines of others, and the furious
zeal and bigotry with which they maintain their own, while, perhaps, if
both were equally understood, both would be found to have the same
meaning, and only to differ in the modes of conveying it."[37]

     [36] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_.

     [37] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 14.

The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are worshipers of the generative
principle, and, like most religious sects, have evolved some very
curious rites and ceremonies. The ancient temples of Venus or Aphrodite
were filled with _hetarae_, who were necessary adjuncts for the proper
performance of the mysteries of Priapus. These Indians, however, will
not allow women to enter into their sacred ceremonies, but, on the
contrary, emasculate men (by occasioning organic and functional
degeneration of the sexual organs), who serve as hetaræ to the chiefs
and shamans or priests.[I] These androgynes are called _mujerados_, a
term which aptly describes their sexual condition.

     [I] The Aleutians, according to the testimony of unimpeachable
     witnesses, make their neophytes pass through like physical
     exercises in preparing them for their duties in celebrating Priapic
     Rites.

"In order to cultivate a mujerado, a very powerful man is chosen, and he
is made to masturbate excessively and ride constantly. Gradually such
irritable weakness of the genital organs is engendered that, in riding,
great loss of semen is induced. This condition of irritability passes
into paralytic impotence. Then the testicles and penis atrophy, the hair
of the beard falls out, the voice loses its depth and compass, and
physical strength and energy decrease. Inclinations and disposition
become feminine. The mujerado loses his position in society as a man. He
takes on feminine manners and customs, and associates with women; yet,
for religious reasons, he is held in high honor."[38] The phallic
ceremonies of the Pueblos take place in the spring, when the life
principle is exceedingly active throughout all nature.

     [38] Krafft-Ebing: _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 201; see also
     Hammond: _Impotence in the Male_.

In all probability the "botes" of the Montana Indians and the "burdachs"
of the Washington tribes serve as masculine hetaræ to the chiefs and
medicine men, though this has not been definitely determined. Dr. Holder
described a typical "bote" of the Absaroke tribe in the New York Medical
Journal, 1889. This androgyne, in many respects, resembled the mujerados
of the Pueblo Indians, and probably served a like purpose in his tribe.

According to Ross, a Konyaga woman, when she has a good-looking boy,
dresses him in girl's clothes and brings him up as a female. When he
arrives at a suitable age he is sent to wait on the priests of the tribe
and is introduced by them into the sacred mysteries of their cult; in
fact, he becomes a masculine hetara.

When we read of such things we feel pretty much as Herodotus felt when
he saw the naked women of Mendes submitting themselves openly ες
επιδειξιν ανθρωπων [Transliteration: es epideixin anthrôpôn] to the
embraces of the sacred goat.[J] To the Greek historian this act was
simply horrible (τερας [Transliteration: teras]); and yet these
Egyptians experienced no repugnance whatever. To them it represented the
incarnation of the deity, and was, therefore, a sacred and holy action,
just as masculine hetarism is regarded as a holy profession among the
Konyagas. Phallic hetarism is one of the sacraments of the Konyaga
church, and, as such, it is held in all that reverence and awe with
which the savage devotee endows the mysteries of his faith.[K]

     [J] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 46.

     [K] Masculine hetarism is still in vogue among many primitive
     peoples, and is distinctly a religious rite. "The Kanats of New
     Caledonia frequently assemble at night in a cabin to give
     themselves up to this kind of debauchery.... In the whole of
     America, from north to south, similar customs have existed or still
     exist." Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 62. The same
     author says: "It was also a widely spread custom throughout
     Polynesia, and even a special deity presided over it. The Southern
     Californians did the same, and the Spanish missionaries, on their
     arrival in the country, found men dressed as women and assuming
     their part. They were trained to this from youth, and often
     publicly married to the chiefs. Nero was evidently a mere
     plagiarist. The existence of analogous customs has been proved
     against the Guyacurus of La Plata, the natives of the Isthmus of
     Darien, the tribes of Louisiana, and the ancient Illinois."

The ancient Hebrews, ancestors of one of the most ancient of the
civilized races of the earth, held it in high honor. Even wise King
Solomon, in the days of his old age, turned from the abstractedly pure
religion of his father "to Astoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and
to Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites."[39] He was guilty of
constructing a "high place" for Chemosh, "the abomination of Moab."[40]
Any good modern biblical encyclopedia will tell the reader about
Astoreth and her worship, and what the "high places" and the "groves"
were.

     [39] _I Kings_: chap xi, verse 5.

     [40] _Ibid._, verse 7.

Even the "good kings," such as Asa, Amaziah, _et al._, did not remove
the high places and the groves, for we read that, notwithstanding the
fact that these kings did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,
they did not remove the high places. In the case of Amaziah, it is
written:

"And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like
David, his father; he did according to all things as Joash, his father,
did.

"Howbeit, the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did
sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places."[41] All of the
so-called "wicked kings" were phallic worshipers, and both male and
female hetarism flourished during their reigns. We read of Josiah, a
"good king," "And he broke down the houses of the sodomites
(_kedescheim_) that were by the house of the Lord."[42] Here, in
unmistakable terms (_kedescheim_), the phallic act of the hetara is
specified.

     [41] _II Kings_: chap. xiv, verses 3, 4.

     [42] _Ibid._, chap. xxiii, verse 7.

Herodotus wrote: "Almost all mankind consort with women in their sacred
temples, except in Greece and Egypt."[43] This is a queer mistake for a
Greek to make, yet this historian is noted for his unreliability, and we
should not feel surprised at this gross error. Concerning the Aphrodite
of Abydos, what she was and what took place in her temples, is a matter
of history. Indeed, this goddess was surnamed _Porne_! In Corinth,
delubral hetarism was openly practiced; also at Bubastis and Naucratis
in Egypt. Royal princesses were pallacides in the temple of Ammon; in
fact, they took pride in the title of _pallakis_![L] "It is known what
excessive debauchery took place in the 'groves' and 'high places' of the
'Great Goddess.' The custom was so deeply rooted that in the grotto of
Bethlehem what was done formerly in the name of Adonis is to-day in the
name of the Virgin Mary by Christian pilgrims; and the Mussulman
_hadjis_ do likewise in the sanctuaries of Mecca!"[44][M]

     [43] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 64.

     [L] Strabo, when writing of the Armenians, who were phallic
     worshipers, says: "It is the custom of the most illustrious
     personages to consecrate their virgin daughters to this goddess
     (Anaïtis). This in no way prevents them from finding husbands, even
     after they have prostituted themselves for a long time in the
     temples of Anaïtis. No man feels on this account any repugnance to
     take them as wives." Strabo: vol. xi., 14; quoted also by
     Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 46.

     [44] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 69; Sepp: _Heidenthum u.
     Christenthum_.

     [M] Brugsch Bey is of this same opinion.

But let us return to primitive peoples, from whose customs and beliefs
we can learn what our own ancestors must have believed before the besom
of civilization swept aside the crudities of savagery.

The Khonds of India are phallic worshipers, and, in the practice of
their religion, Priapus saves many a girl who would be, otherwise,
offered up on the bloody altars of their divinities. The pregnant woman
is sacred, hence, religious prostitution is exceedingly prevalent. But
it frequently happens that some unfortunate creature, who is not
pleasing to the shamans, is seized, tied to the stake and butchered.[45]
As the blood flows down and deluges the ground, "the divine spirit
enters into the priest and inspires him."[46] This sacrifice is of
itself a phallic rite; the blood-offering is supposed to be exceedingly
acceptable to Earth, the mother of all things. Blood is the essence of
the life-giving principle; hence, the essence is returned to the great
Giver, as a propitiatory offering.[N]

     [45] Sherwill: _The Rajmahal Hills_.

     [46] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 317.

     [N] Among certain peoples the blood and the semen bore a close
     relationship; by certain races they were considered analogous. The
     Old Testament, the Vedas, the Sagas, and many references of Greek,
     Latin, Egyptian, Hindu, and Persian mythology point to this as
     being conclusive.

In point of fact, the worship of the generative principle is everywhere
prevalent in India.[O] In the Lingam, or holy altar of the Brahmins, we
see a conjunction of the male and female sexual organs, while religious
prostitution, in the shape of hetarism, crowds the inner courts and
corridors of almost every temple in the land with hierodules and
bayaderes. The Vedas abound in references, either direct or indirect, to
phallic worship. Indeed, according to some authorities, the Hindu Brahma
is the same as the Greek Pan,[P] "who is the creative spirit of the
deity transfused through matter."[47]

     [O] Speaking of the ceremony of priestly prelibation as it was
     practiced in the Kingdom of Malabar, Forbes writes as follows: "The
     ecclesiastic power took precedence of the civil on this particular
     point, and the sovereign himself passed under the yoke. Like the
     other women, the queen had to submit to the right of prelibation
     exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the first three
     nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his
     trouble." Forbes: _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 446; quoted also
     by Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 48. De Rémusat says
     that, in Cambodia, the daughters of poor parents retain their
     virginity longer than their richer sisters simply because they have
     not the money with which to pay the priest for defloration!

     [P] "The people have put the idol named _Coppal_ in a neighboring
     house; there she is served by priests and _Devadichi_, or slaves of
     the gods. These are prostitute girls, whose employment is to dance
     and to ring little bells in cadence while singing infamous songs,
     either in the pagoda or in the streets when the idol is carried out
     in state," writes Letourneau in _The Evolution of Marriage_,
     quoting from _Letters édifiantes_. _Coppal_ was and is a
     Brahminical Venus, and her worship is wholly phallic in character.
     The ancient Indo-Iranians worshiped a similar deity. The worship of
     Coppal, both in ritual and in significance, is identical with that
     of the Greek Aphrodite.

     [47] Brugsch, Knight, Müller, _et al._

Hundreds of pages have been written on snake-worship, in which a
wonderful amount of metaphysical lore has been expended. Mr. Herbert
Spencer devotes several pages to the snake, and the reason for its
appearance in the religion of primitive peoples. He ascribes to savages
a psychical acuteness that I am by no means willing to allow them,
inasmuch as he makes them give a psychical causation for their adoption
of the serpent as a deity, such as no ignorant and uncultivated savage
could have possibly evolved. I am inclined to believe that, like all
great students and thinkers, Mr. Spencer has a hobby, and that this
hobby is animism or ancestor-worship. When he gives out, as a reason for
the snake's almost universal appearance in the religions of primitive
peoples, that the latter consider it an animal which has assumed the
returning ghost, double, or soul of an ancestor,[48] I think that he is
very much in error. There are very few primitive folk, comparatively
speaking, who believe in metempsychosis. In all probability, when a
race, like the ancient Egyptians, for instance, had reached a high
degree of civilization, they idealized many of their religious beliefs
and customs; hence, the serpent probably lost its initial and simple
symbolical meaning, and stood for something higher and more ethical
during the reign of the great Pharaohs, and the Golden Age of the Greeks
and Latins. I am positive, however, that the snake's original
significance was wholly phallic in character, and that its adoption as a
symbol was simple and material, as I explain elsewhere in this essay.[Q]

     [48] Spencer: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i, p. 798.

     [Q] The appearance of the erect male organ of generation is quite
     sufficient to explain why the snake should be chosen as a symbol in
     phallic rites.

I am forced to this conclusion by its presence among phallic symbols in
almost every race that practiced or practices a worship of the
generative principles. The Pueblo Indians, whom I have mentioned
elsewhere in this treatise, regard the snake symbol with reverence; the
Moqui Indians have their sacred snake dance, in which they worship the
reptiles, handling the most vicious and poisonous rattlesnakes with
seeming impunity; the Apaches hold that every rattlesnake is an emissary
of the devil;[49] "the Piutes of Nevada have a demon deity in the form
of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake;"[50]
on the wall of an ancient Aztec ruin at Palenque there is a tablet, on
which there is a cross standing on the head of a serpent, and surmounted
by a bird. "The cross is the symbol of the four winds; the bird and
serpent the rebus of the rain-god, their ruler."[51] The Quiche god,
Hurakan, was called the "Strong Serpent," and the sign of Tlaloc, the
Aztec rain-god, was a golden snake.[R] All of these tribes are or were
worshipers of the generative principles, though, in most of them,
phallic worship has or had lost much of its original significance.[52]
In Yucatan and elsewhere in South and Central America, notably among the
ruins of Chichen Itza, the serpent symbol is frequently in evidence.[53]
The Indians of the Tocantins in Brazil, as well as the Muras, Mundurucus
and Cucamas, are mixed nature and devil worshipers;[S] as a sequence,
certain phallic rites are to be observed in their religious ceremonies.

     [49] Bancroft: _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.

     [50] _Ibid._

     [51] Bancroft (Brinton): _Native Races, etc._, p. 135.

     [R] In the celebrated calendar stone of the Aztecs, there have been
     found certain hieroglyphics pointing to sun worship, coincidently,
     to phallicism.

     [52] _Ibid._, p. 134.

     [53] Stephens: _Yucatan_.

     [S] Consult Frantz Keller: _The Amazon and Madeira Rivers_.

Many of the native tribes of North America perform phallic rites at
puberty. James Owen Dorsey, who has made a study of the Siouan cults,
writes as follows:

"Every male Dakota sixteen years old and upward is a soldier, and is
formally and mysteriously enlisted into the service of the war prophet.
From him he receives the implements of war, carefully constructed after
models furnished from the armory of the gods, painted after a divine
prescription, and charged with a missive virtue--the tonwan--of the
divinities. To obtain these necessary articles the proud applicant is
required for a time to abuse himself and serve him, while he goes
through a series of painful and exhausting performances, which are
necessary on his part to enlist favorable notice of the gods. These
performances consist chiefly of vapor baths, fastings, chants, prayers,
and nightly vigils. The spear and the tomahawk being prepared and
consecrated, the person who is to receive them approaches the wakan man
(priest), and presents a pipe to him. He asks a favor, in substance as
follows: 'Pity thou me, poor and helpless, a _woman_, and confer on me
the ability to perform _manly_ deeds.'"[54] According to Miss Fletcher,
when an Oglala girl arrives at puberty, a great feast is prepared, and
favored guests invited thereto. "A prominent feature in the feast is the
feeding of these privileged persons and the girl in whose honor the
feast is given, with choke cherries, as the choicest rarity to be had in
the winter.... In the ceremony, a few of the cherries are taken in a
spoon and held over the sacred smoke and then fed to the girl."[55] This
is considered one of the most sacred of their feasts.

     [54] Dorsey: _Siouan Cults, An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 444.

     [55] Fletcher: _Peabody Museum Report_, vol. iii, p. 260.

While discussing the phallic observances of the North American races, I
will introduce the subject of tattooing, though it properly belongs
elsewhere in this treatise.

At puberty, the Hudson Bay Eskimos invariably tattoo their boys and
girls. Lucien M. Turner writing of the latter, says:

"When a girl arrives at puberty she is taken to a secluded locality by
some old woman versed in the art of tattooing, and stripped of her
clothing. A small quantity of half-charred lamp wick of moss is mixed
with oil from the lamp. A needle is used to prick the skin, and the
pasty substance is smeared over the wound. The blood mixes with it, and
in a few days a dark-bluish spot is left. The operation continues four
days. When the girl returns to the tent it is known that she has begun
to menstruate."[56] Both Eastern and Western Inoits celebrate puberty
with certain rites. It is rather difficult, however, to get them to say
much about this matter, so I will not present the evidence, meager as it
is, which has been gleaned from the works of various explorers. One can
readily see that much of it is conjecture, therefore of little
scientific value.

     [56] Turner: _An. Rep. Bur. Eth._, 1889-90, p. 208.

Not far from the Place of Gold, the magnificent temple in which the
ancient Peruvians worshiped the Life Giver, was another great edifice,
styled the "House of the Virgins of the Sun." This was the domicile of
the pallacides or hetaræ of the Chief Priest, the Inca. "No one but the
Inca and the Coya, or queen, might enter the consecrated precincts....
Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! By the stern
laws of the Incas she was buried alive, her lover strangled, and the
town or village to which he belonged was razed to the ground and sowed
with stones as if to efface every memorial of his existence. One is
astonished to find so close a resemblance between the institutions of
the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic.
Chastity and purity of life are virtues in woman that would seem to be
of equal estimation with the barbarian and with the civilized--yet the
ultimate destination of the inmates of these religious houses (there
were hundreds of them), was materially different.... Though Virgins of
the Sun, they were the brides of the Inca."[57] The monarch had
thousands of these hetaræ in his various palaces. When he wished to
lessen the number in his seraglios, he sent some of them to their own
homes, where they lived ever after respected and revered as holy
beings.[58] The religion of the Peruvians had reached a high degree of
development, and many of the crudities of simple phallic worship had
either been entirely abandoned or so idealized that they had been lost
in the mists of ritual and ceremony. For "the ritual of the Incas
involved a routine of observances as complex and elaborate as ever
distinguished that of any nation, whether pagan or Christian."[59]

     [57] Prescott: _Conquest of Peru_, vol. i, p. 110 _et seq._

     [58] _Ibid._, p. 112.

     [59] _Ibid._, p. 103.

Notwithstanding the fact that the descendants of the Incas have been
under the guardianship of the priests of the Catholic church for
hundreds of years, a close, careful, painstaking, and accurate observer
informs me that he has repeatedly noticed unmistakable phallic rites
interwoven with their Christian ceremonials and beliefs. The same can be
said of a kindred race and a kindred religion. Biart, writing of the
descendants of the Aztecs, says: "In grottoes unexpectedly discovered, I
have frequently found myself in the presence of Mictlanteuctli, at the
foot of which a recent offering of food had been placed."[60] How
exceedingly basic and fundamental the worship of the generative
principle must be in Psychos itself, is indicated by these facts!

     [60] Biart: _The Aztecs_, p. 139.

In the very beginnings of history we find that many races of people held
the worship of the generative principle in high honor. Not only has the
knowledge of this fact come to us through the sculptured monuments of
the Egyptians and the tablets, cylinders, etc., of the Chaldeans, but it
has also been set before us by ancient historians. Speaking of the
Chaldeans Herodotus (1,199)[T] says, "Every woman born in the country
must enter once during her lifetime the inclosure of the temple of
Aphrodite, must there sit down and unite herself to a stranger. Many who
are wealthy are too proud to mix with the rest, and repair thither in
closed chariots, followed by a considerable train of slaves. The greater
number seat themselves on the sacred pavement, with a cord twisted about
their heads--and there is always a crowd there, coming and going; the
women being divided by ropes into long lanes, down which strangers pass
to make their choice. A woman who has once taken her place here cannot
return home until a stranger has thrown into her lap a silver coin, and
has led her away with him beyond the limits of the sacred inclosure. As
he throws the money he pronounces these words: 'May the goddess Mylitta
make thee happy!' Now among the Assyrians, Aphrodite" (_the goddess of
love, desire_) "is called Mylitta. The woman follows the first man who
throws her the money, and repels no one. When once she has accompanied
him, and _has thereby satisfied the goddess_, she returns to her home,
and from thenceforth, however large the sum offered to her, she will
yield to no one." Maspero declares that "this custom still existed in
the fifth century before our era, and the Greeks who visited Babylon
about that time found it still in force."[61]

     [T] Herodotus: _Clio_; See also Cary's translation of Herodotus,
     page 86 _et seq._

     [61] Maspero (Sayce): _The Dawn of Civilization_, p. 640.

He also calls attention to the fact that "we meet with a direct
allusion to this same custom in the Bible, in the _Book of Baruch_: The
women, also, with cords about them, sitting in the ways, burn bran for
perfume; but if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with
him, she reproacheth her fellow, that she was not worthy of herself, nor
her cord broken. Ch. VI, verse 43."

Phallic rites and observances entered very largely into the religion of
the Assyrians, and can be traced back, in some form or other, even to
the religion of the ancient Sumerians, the root-stock from which the
Chaldeans had their origin.

In the third chapter of Hebrew history according to Moses (Genesis III),
we have an unmistakable allusion to phallic worship in the use of the
serpent in the myth of man's temptation and fall. The serpent was an
almost universal symbol of priapic adoration throughout Egypt and
Assyria; it achieved this distinction, in all probability, from its
resemblance to the _instrumentum masculinum generationis_.[U] In a
beautiful bronze plaque, representing Nergal, the Chaldean god of Hades,
the _glans penis_ of the god is distinctly the head of the snake. A
splendid drawing of this plaque by Faucher-Gudin is given in Maspero's
_Dawn of Civilization_.[62] It may be stated here that the uræus, or
asp, which was so prominently in evidence as one of the principle signs
of Egyptian royalty, was also the symbol of the life-giving principle of
Ra, the sun-god.

     [U] The author is fully aware of the fact that writers on phallic
     worship ascribe other reasons for the adoption of the snake as one
     of the chief symbols of the worship of the generative principle. He
     believes, however, that the primitive originators of this cult
     were, psychically, too immature to evolve any other than simple and
     objective ideas in regard to this subject; hence he considers the
     above as the true origin of this symbol. Furthermore, this belief
     is strengthened by the appearance of the snake in the myths and
     folklore tales of race-preservation in all peoples where the
     serpent was a familiar object.

     [62] _Op. cit._, p. 691.

Abraham, in all probability, instituted the rite of circumcision in
remembrance of the Chaldean genital worship.[V] This sexual fetichism
was eminently religious in character from its very inception among the
ancient Hebrews; yet Westermarck, in his _History of Human Marriage_,
considers this custom as being of ornamental origin.[63] Now, it is
known beyond question of doubt that the Hebrews and Abyssinians, who
practiced this rite, covered their nakedness, hence, it is folly to
suppose that they ornamented a portion of their bodies which always
remained carefully hidden. Moreover, since it has been in use from very
ancient times "among most of the tribes inhabiting the African West
Coast, among all the Mohammedan peoples, among the Kaffirs, among nearly
all the peoples of Eastern Africa, among the Christian Abyssinians,
Bogos, and Copts, throughout all the various tribes inhabiting
Madagascar, and, in the heart of the Black Continent, among the Monbuttu
and Akka; and since it is practiced very commonly in Australia, in many
islands of Melanesia, in Polynesia, universally, in some parts of
America, in Yucatan, on the Orinoco, and among certain tribes in Rio
Branco in Brazil;"[64] and since most of these people wholly or
partially hide their nakedness, it cannot, necessarily, have had its
origin in the desire for ornamentation. Again, since the rite of
circumcision among these peoples always takes place at puberty, when
_vita sexualis_ begins, and is always accompanied by other rites and
ceremonies of deeply religious significance, it must be a religious
observance and phallic in its nature. Girls, also, at puberty, among
many tribes of Africa, among certain races of the Malayan Archipelago
and South America have an operation performed upon them. "_Sunt autem
gentes, quarum contrarius mos est, ut clitoris et labia minora non
exsecentur, verum extendantur, et saepe longissime extendantur_."[65]
Surely such a peculiar and uncalled-for performance has a deeper
significance than mere ornamentation, and does not warrant the
expression "_atque ista etiam deformatio insigne pulchritudinis
existimatur_."

     [V] Abraham was a Chaldean, and, in instituting circumcision, was
     undoubtedly influenced by the religious beliefs of his people.
     Circumcision, however, was, with him, a new and special phallic
     rite, and one not in vogue among the Chaldeans. _Vid._ Genesis,
     18:10.

     [63] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 202 _et seq._

     [64] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 201 _et seq._
     See, also, Wallace: _Travels on the Amazon_, p. 117 _et seq._

     [65] Westermarck: _op. cit. ante._, p. 106.

Tattooing, among certain races, is a phallic rite, and in the Tahitians
the priapic origin of this procedure has been preserved in an
interesting myth. Hinæreeremonoi was the daughter of the god and goddess
Taaroa and Apouvaru. "As she grew up, in order to preserve her chasity,
she was made _pahio_, or kept in a kind of inclosure, and constantly
attended by her mother. Intent on her seduction, her brothers invented
tattooing, and marked each other with the figure called Taomaro. Thus
ornamented, they appeared before their sister, who admired the figures,
and, in order to be tattooed herself, eluding the care of her mother,
broke the inclosure that had been erected for her preservation, was
tattooed, and became, also, the victim to the designs of her brothers.
Tattooing thus originated among the gods, and was first practiced by the
children of Taaroa, their principle deity. _In imitation of their
example, and for the accomplishment of the same purposes it was
practiced among men._"[W][66]

     [W] After the ceremony of tattooing had been performed, the
     candidates were admitted to a religious society called _Areois_,
     which had for its object an "unrestrained and public abandonment to
     amorous pleasures." Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 61.

     [66] Ellis: _Polynesian Researches_, vol. i, p. 262; quoted, also,
     by Westermarck, _op. cit. ante._, p. 179.

With very few exceptions, primitive peoples, wherever found, have given
or still give unmistakable evidence of a knowledge of phallic worship in
some form or other. Many of them still practice it, generally combined
with the religion from which it was evolved, _i. e._, sun worship. The
Ainu of Japan is a notable example of a race whose religion shows the
presence of the elements of both worships. The religion of this
remarkable people, notwithstanding the fact that it has become decidedly
ethical (they having arrived at a knowledge of the good and evil
principles), shows its sun birth.[X] Until very recently the _couvade_
existed in full force and vigor. "As soon as a child was born, the
father had to consider himself very ill, and had, therefore, to stay at
home, wrapped up, by the fire. But the wife, poor creature! had to stir
about as much and as quickly as possible. The idea seems to have been
that _life was passing from the father into his child_."[67]

     [X] Herodotus gives an interesting instance of the evolution of
     phallic worship from nature worship. See _Clio_, 131.

     [67] Batchelor: _The Ainu of Japan_, p. 44.

Among Slavonic races in early times, the worship of the generative
principle was almost universal. This continued, in a measure, even after
the establishment of Christianity, and we find phallic rites
masquerading in the garb of Christian observances as late as the
sixteenth century in parts of Russia and Hungary. Westermarck, in his
chapter on the human rut season in primitive times, says: "Writers of
the sixteenth century speak of the existence of certain festivals in
Russia, at which great license prevailed. According to Pamphil, these
annual gatherings took place, as a rule, at the end of June, the day
before the festival of St. John the Baptist, which in pagan times was
that of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo, corresponding to the
Priapus of the Greeks."[68] If my memory serves me correctly, Wappäus
says that a like festival was in existence among the Hungarians two
hundred years ago.[69] To this day certain religious sects of Russia and
Hungary are in the habit of holding orgies at which all the ceremonies
of the ancient Liberalia, Floralia, and Saturnalia are duplicated. These
devotees claim that, when they have reached the acme of religious
enthusiasm, the spirit of God directs them, hence their licentious and
lustful acts cannot be immoral.

     [68] Westermarck: _The History of Human Marriage_, p. 30.

     [69] Wappäus: _Allgem. Bevoelkerungsstatistik_.

When Great Britain was invaded and conquered by northern savages, the
latter, unquestionably, introduced their own religious beliefs, which
were largely phallic in character. The Teutonic god Fréa was the same as
the Latin Priapus; while Friga, from whom our Friday gets its name,
because this day was sacred to her, was the Teutonic Venus. Fréa is
called Freyr in old Norse, and in old German, Fro.

Among the Swedes he was worshiped under the name of Fricco, and a statue
of him at Upsala represented him in the characteristic attitude of the
god of procreation. "_Tertius est Fricco, pacem voluptatemque largiens
mortalibus, cujus etiam simulachrum fingunt ingenti priapo._"[70] From
this god a vulgar word for copulation had its origin. This word is in
use to-day among the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, thus proving that
the worship of the generative principle was in vogue among our own
immediate ancestors.

     [70] Bremens: _De Situ Daniae_, p. 23; quoted, also, by the author
     of _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 126.

Statuettes of Priapus, bronzes representing the sexual organs, and
pottery covered with phallic scenes have been found all over England.
These relics are remembrances of the Roman occupation when the worship
of Priapus prevailed. In the parish of Adel, Yorkshire, was found an
altar erected to Priapus, who seems to be called in this instance
Mentula. At this place were found many other priapic relics, such as
lamps, bracelets, amulets, etc., etc.[71] Several images of the triple
phallus, as well as the single phallus, have been brought to light in
London; also phallic lamps, bracelets, etc.

     [71] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 124.

All over England the Anglo-Saxon Fréa, or Friga, has left remembrances
of his or her worship in place-names. Fridaythorpe in Yorkshire, and
Friston (Fréa's stone), which occurs in several parts of England, are
examples. "We seem justified in supposing that this and other names
commencing with the syllable Fri or Fry, are so many monuments of the
existence of phallic worship among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers."[72]
There are other words in the English language which point directly to
this ancient religion; for instance, _fascinate_ and _fascination_.
These words were derivede directly from the Latin word _fascinum_, which
was one of the names of the male organ of generation. The fascinum was
worn suspended from the necks of women, and was supposed to possess
magical powers; hence, to _fascinate_. Horace makes use of the word in
Priapeia:

     [72] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 127.

    "_Placet, Priape? Qui sunt arboris coma
    Sotes, sacrum revinct pampino caput,
    Ruber sedere cum rubente fascino._"[73]

     [73] Horace: _Priap. Carm._, lxxxiv.

That the worship of the fascinum was in vogue during the eighth
century[Y] in Italy and in other countries under the religious
jurisdiction of the Pope, the following from the _Judicia Sacerdotalia
Criminibus_, clearly indicates: "If any one has performed incantation to
the _fascinum_, or any incantation whatever, except one who chaunts the
Creed or the Lord's Prayer, let him do penance on bread and water during
three Lents."[74][Z]

     [Y] A well informed Jesuit priest once told me that several laws
     had been made about this time forbidding the worship of the female
     sexual organ, under the name of _abricot_ or _apricot_. Rabelais
     used the word _abricot fendu_ when speaking of the female genital
     organs. See his works. Was this term derived from the Biblical
     narrative of the genesis of the human race (the apple), or was it
     taken from the phallic symbol, the pomegranate? Did Moses get it
     from the Assyrians in the first place? I think he did.

     [74] Martène and Durand: _Veterum Scriptorum Amplissima Collectio_,
     tom. vii, p. 35. _Si quis praecantaverit ad fascinum, vel
     qualescumque praecantationes excepto symbolum sanctum aut orationem
     dominicam qui cantat et cui cantatur, tres quadrigesimas in pane et
     aqua poéniteat._

     [Z] As has been pointed out elsewhere in this work, ancient peoples
     were essentially symbolical and materialistically symbolical at
     that; they were very apt to typify nature, sexually, by some object
     or objects which bore a resemblance real or fancied, to the sexual
     organs. The red halves of the ripe apricot at the insertion of the
     stem, look very much like the external genitalia of the human
     female. The significance and importance of the pomegranate in the
     mixed religion of the Ancient Hebrews are well brought out in rules
     laid down for the ornamentations and embroidery of the robes of the
     priests, etc., etc., _Vid. Old Testament_.

During the ninth century the Council of Chalons promulgated a similar
law, and in the twelfth century Buchardus repeats it, thus showing that
the worship of the generative principle was continuous throughout that
time.[75] That the worship of the fascinum was in vogue as late as 1247
is proven by the statutes of the Synod of Mans, which declare that he
who worships the fascinum shall be seriously dealt with.[76]

     [75] D. Burchardi: _Decretorum libri_, lib. x, c. 49.

     Some of these clerical references are taken from the Worship of
     Priapus, but, since this work is exceedingly rare and costly, and
     is not apt to come under the notice of the general reader, I have
     thought best to give the original authorities.

     [76] Martène and Durand: _Veterum Scriptorum Collectio Amplissima_,
     tom. vii, col. 1377.

In Scotland, as late as 1268, according to the Chronicles of Lanercroft,
the people were in the habit of rubbing two pieces of wood together
until fire was produced. At the same time an image of the phallus was
elevated, and certain prayers were said to Priapus. This was the famous
"need fire," and was obtained in this way in order that it might have
the power of saving the cattle from the plague. Need fire was produced
in this manner in the Highlands as late as 1356, at which time a cattle
plague ravaged the country side. In Inverkeithing, a Catholic priest
gathered all the young girls of the village and made them dance around a
statue of Priapus. He himself led the dance, carrying a large wooden
image of the phallus, and excited these medieval bacchantes to
licentious movements and actions by his own actions and language.

When called to account by his bishop, he excused his action by stating
that such performances were common in his parish. These phallic
observances occurred in Easter week, March 29-April 15, 1282.[77]

     [77] _The Chronicles of Lanercroft._

In Ireland, the female sexual organs seem to have been the symbol of
phallic worship most in use. In the arches over the doorways of
churches, a female figure, with the person fully exposed, was invariably
so placed that the external organs of generation at once caught the eye.
These figures were called _Shela-na-gig_, which in Irish means "Julian
the giddy." Sometimes these images were placed on the walls and used as
caryatides. From this symbol the horseshoe's power to ward off evil and
bring good luck has been evolved. The people in olden times were in the
habit of painting, or sketching with charcoal, drawings of the female
genitalia over the doors of their houses to ward off bad luck. These
drawings were necessarily rude, and probably resembled a horseshoe more
than they did the object for which they were intended. In course of
time, when the symbol had lost its original significance, the horseshoe
entirely took the place of the phallic image.

Herodotus says that Sesostris, king of Egypt, was in the habit of
erecting pillars in the countries conquered by his armies, on which he
had the female genitals engraved in order to show his contempt.[78] I
think that the historian misinterprets the meaning of the pillars; the
Egyptians were phallic worshipers, and these obelisks were, in all
probability, altars to Priapus.

     [78] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 102.

The beneficent influence of this particular phallic symbol has been well
brought out in several classical stories. When Ceres was wandering over
the world in her search after Proserpine, she came to the house of a
peasant woman, Baubo by name. Baubo saw that the goddess was heart-sick
and miserable, so she offered her a drink of cyceon (κυκεων
[Transliteration: kykeôn]). The goddess refused the refreshing mixture,
and continued her lamentations. Fully believing in the virtue and
efficacy of the symbol, Baubo lifted her robe and showed Ceres her
genitals.[AA] The goddess burst into laughter and at once drank the
cyceon.[79] The same superstition appears in a celebrated book of the
sixteenth century, _Le Moyen de Parvenir_. The author of the "Worship of
the Generative Powers" gives the following instructive extract from this
work:

     [AA] For an analogous ceremony, see Herodotus, _Euterpe_, 60.

     [79] Arnobius: _Adversus Gentes_, _lib._ v, c. 5.

_Hermès. On nomme ainsi ceux qui n'ont point vu le con de leur femme ou
de leur garce. Le pauvre valet de chez nous n'étoit donc pas coquebin;
il eut beau le voir._

_Varro. Quand?_

_Hermès. Attendez, étant en fiançailles, il vouloit prendre le cas de sa
fiancée; elle ne le vouloit pas: il faisoit le malade, et elle lui
demandoit: "Qu'y a-t-il, mon ami?" "Hélas, ma mie, je suis si malade,
que je n'en puis plus; je mourrai si je ne vois ton cas." "Vraiment
voire?" dit-elle. "Hélas! oui, si je l'avois vu, je guérirois." Elle ne
lui voulut point montrer; à la fin, ils furent mariés. Il advint, trois
ou quatre mois après, qu'il fut fort malade; et il envoya sa femme au
médicin pour porter de son eau. En allant, elle s'avisa de ce qu'il lui
avoit dit en fiançailles. Elle retourna vitement, et se vint mettre sur
le lit; puis, levant cotte et chemise lui présenta son cela en belle
vue, et lui disoit: "Jean, regarde le con, et te guéris._"[80]

     [80] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, p. 135.

Sir William Hamilton writes to Richard Payne Knight from Naples in the
year 1781, as follows:

"Having last year made a curious discovery, that in a province of this
kingdom, not fifty miles from its capital, a sort of devotion is still
paid to Priapus, the obscene divinity of the ancients (though under
another denomination), I have thought it a circumstance worth recording;
particularly as it offers a fresh proof of the similitude of the Popish
and Pagan religion, so well observed by Dr. Middleton in his celebrated
Letter from Rome; therefore I mean to deposit the authentic proofs of
this assertion in the British Museum when a proper opportunity shall
offer." Sir William goes on to relate how he found many phallic amulets,
charms, etc., in the possession of the people, and then describes the
votive offerings laid upon the altar at a feast given in honor of Saints
Cosmus and Damianus, in a church called by their names. The offerings
were waxen images of the phallus. "The vows are chiefly presented by the
female sex," continues he, "and they are seldom such as represent legs,
arms, etc., but most commonly the male parts of generation. A person who
was at this fête in the year 1780, told me that he heard a woman say, at
the time she presented a vow, '_Santo Cosimo benedetto, cosi lo
voglio._'"[81]

     [81] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, pp. 3-6,7.

This church was in Isernia, a little village about fifty miles from
Naples, and away from the direct line of travel, hence its inhabitants
saw little of the world, and therefore kept to their old customs longer
than their more favored neighbors. Thus it happened that, even in the
latter half of the eighteenth century, Priapus had his votaries almost
within the shadow of the Vatican! These phallic rites were finally
abolished by episcopal command.

One of the most common amulets or charms against _jettitura_, or the
"evil eye," the _bête noire_ of every Italian, is a little coral hand.
The middle finger of this hand is extended, thus representing the penis,
while the other fingers are closed on the palm, thus representing the
testicles. In ancient times, when a man extended his hand, closed in
this manner, it was a gesture of insult and anger; to-day this gesture
is only made in derision and contempt. The hand closed in this way, or,
rather, with the thumb projecting between the first and second fingers
(another very common phallic symbol or sign), was called a "fig"; hence,
the old expression of contempt and indifference, "a fico for you, sir,"
now modernized into "I don't care a fig."[AB]

     [AB] A modification of this is seen in the derisive gesture of the
     street Arab who closes all of his fingers, except the middle one,
     on his palm. The middle finger he holds stiffly erect and the hand
     is then extended towards the object of his contempt. This gesture,
     once performed as a deeply religious rite, has now become the
     contemptuous sign of a boy of the street!

France, as well as Italy, had her phallic charms and her phallic saints.
Priapus was a god to the ancients--to the people of the Middle Ages he
was a saint. According to M. Dulaure, in the south of France, Provence,
Languedoc, and the Lyonnais, he was worshiped under the name of St.
Foutin. This name is derived from that of the first bishop of Lyons,
Fotinus, to whom the people had transferred (as they have done to many
other sainted individuals) the distinguishing characteristics of a god;
in this instance, Priapus. At Lyons there was an immense wooden
phallus, and the women were in the habit of scraping this image, and
then steeping the wood-dust in water, which they drank as a remedy
against barrenness. Sometimes they gave it to the men in order to
stimulate sexuality or sensuality. At Varailles, in Provence, waxen
images of the male and female sexual organs were offered to St. Foutin,
and, since these images were suspended from the ceiling and moved by
every vagrant current of air, the effect was sometimes very astonishing.
"_Témoin Saint Foutin de Varailles en Provence, auquel sont dédiées les
parties honteuses de l'un et de l' autre sexe, formées en cire; le
plancher de la chapelle en est fort garni, et, quand le vent les fait
entrebattre, cela débauche un peu les dévotions à l'honneur de ce
Saint._"[82]

     [82] L'Estoile: _Confession de Sancy_, pp. 383, 391.

This worship at Varailles was identical with that of Isernia; the
votive offerings were waxen images or models of the genital organs,
while the saints differed only in name, not in character. At Embrun the
worship of St. Foutin was a little different. The women at this last
mentioned place poured wine on the phallus; this wine was collected in a
bucket, and, when it became sour, it was used as a medicine for
barrenness.

When Embrun was besieged and taken by the Protestants in 1585, this
phallus was found among the other sacred relics, and its head "was red
with the wine which had been poured upon it."[83] In the church of St.
Eutropius, at Orange, a large phallus covered with leather was seized
and burnt by the Protestants in 1562. Dulaure says that the sexual
organs were objects of worship at Porighy, Viviers, Vendre in the
Bourbonnais, Cives, Auxerre, Puy-en-Velay, and at hundreds of other
places. Some of these phalli were recreated as fast as they were worn
away by zealous devotees. They were so arranged in the walls of the
churches that, "as the phallic end in front became shortened (by
scrapings), a blow from a mallet from behind thrust it forward, so that
it was restored to its original length."[84]

     [83] _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 141.

     [84] _Ibid._

In the public square of Batavia there was formerly kept a bronze cannon
which had been captured from the natives. The touch-hole of this piece
of ordnance was made in the shape of a phallic hand or "fig," which I
have described elsewhere. The barren Malay women were in the habit of
seating themselves on this hand in order that they might become
pregnant.[AC] An analogous custom was prevalent in France and elsewhere
in Europe during the Middle Ages. This habit led to sexual abuses, and
was finally condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, the
Church inflicted severe penances on the women who were guilty of using
phalli: "_Mulier qualique molimine aut se ipsam aut cum altera fornicans
tres annos poeniteat, unum ex his pane et aqua. Cum sanctimoniali per
machinam fornicans, annos septem poeniteat, duos ex his in pane et
aqua._"[85] We see by this that nuns were more severely punished than
were other women.

     [AC] According to Abel de Rémusat (_Nouv. Mel. Asiatiques_, p.
     116), the custom of _tchin-than_, or religious defloration, was
     formerly in use in Cambodia and Malabar. This custom seems to be
     analogous to the _jus primae noctis_, as practiced by many tribes,
     where the woman, on her bridal night, has to yield herself up to
     the male marriage guests--_jus primae noctis_, as thus practiced,
     must not be confounded with the seignorial right, the right of the
     lord, or ruler. The former right is regarded in the light of a
     _quasi_ religious observance, while the latter is not. The former
     was in vogue in ancient times in the Balearic Isles and among the
     ancient Peruvians; recently among several aboriginal tribes of
     India, in Burmah, in Cashmere, in Madagascar, in Arabia, and in New
     Zealand. Vid. Teulon: _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 69.

     [85] Martène et Durand: _Coll. Antiq. Can. Paenit._, iv, 52.

This use of the phallus is mentioned in the Bible, where it is bitterly
condemned by one of the prophets: "Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels
of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to
thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them."[86]
Finally, it was the custom of the young girls of France during the
Middle Ages (like the maidens of certain savage races), who were on the
eve of marriage, to offer up to St. Foutin their last maiden robes. From
the evidence here adduced, we see that phallic worship existed in some
parts of Europe as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century,
and that it was almost universal during the Middle Ages. According to
Becan,[87] Golnitz,[88] and other historians, there were several other
phallic saints besides St. Foutin who were worshiped in Belgium, Spain,
Germany and other European countries; but, since their adoration was
similar to that of St. Foutin, I do not think it necessary to give a
description of it here. It has been shown conclusively that worship of
the generative principle was in vogue among the Latins, the Greeks, the
ancient Germans, the Saxons, the Danes, the Gauls, the Iberians, the
Picts, the Celts and the Britons. It has been demonstrated, also, that
vestiges of phallic worship existed in England, France, Italy, Spain and
Germany during the Middle Ages. As late as the latter part of the
eighteenth century wax images of the phallus were used as votive
offerings in the town of Isernia, not many miles from Naples; the
beribboned Maypole of our Mayday festival is but the flower decked
phallus of the Roman matrons; charms against _jettitura_, "the evil
eye," little coral hands with the middle finger extended (in ancient
days one of the most common symbols of Priapus) can still be purchased
in the streets of Rome.[AD] "This worship" (that of Priapus) "which was
but part of that of the generative powers, appears to have been the most
ancient of the superstitions of the human race, and has prevailed more
or less among all known peoples before the introduction of Christianity;
and, singularly enough, _so deeply it seems to have been implanted in
human nature_ that even the promulgation of the gospel did not abolish
it, for it continued to exist, accepted and often encouraged by the
medieval clergy."[89]

     [86] _Ezekiel_: chap, xiv[i], v. 17.

     [i] Transcriber's Note - This has been corrected in handwriting to
     'xvi'.

     [87] Becan: _Origines Antwerpianae, lib_. i, pp. 26, 101.

     [88] Golnitz: _Itinerarium Belgico-Gallicum_, p. 52.

     [AD] The phallic hand in some form or other is frequently found in
     the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The so-called _maison d'
     joie_ found in one of the streets of Pompeii is considered by some
     authorities to have been a minor temple to Venus where priapic
     rites were celebrated. The stone phallus at the entrance as well as
     the erotic frescoes on the wall, point to this as being true.

     [89] Knight: _op. cit. ante._, p. 117.

So very ancient was the inception of the worship of the generative
principle that we have some reason for believing that even the
cave-dwellers practiced this cult. It was stated in the _Moniteur_,
January, 1865, that "in the province of Venice, in Italy, excavations in
a bone-cave have brought to light, beneath ten feet of stalagmite, bones
of animals, mostly post-tertiary, of the usual description found in such
places, flint implements, with a needle of bone having an eye and point,
and a plate of argillaceous compound, on which was scratched a rude
drawing of the phallus."[90] Thus we see that, possibly, from the time
of the cave-dwellers to almost the beginning of the nineteenth century,
phallic worship existed in Southern Europe! From the Sagas, folklore
tales, and myths of the Norse we have every reason for believing that it
existed for almost as great a length of time in Northern Europe. That in
Western Europe, before and during the Middle Ages, it flourished in a
variety of forms, we have unimpeachable testimony.

     [90] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, footnote p. 117.

In this brief outline of phallic worship I have endeavored to show that
the worship of the generative principle has been universal; that it is
still practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered
among certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent
time. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it
had reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized
world, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation
from Knight's strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: "The ancient
theologists ... finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity,
were content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and
efficient exertion of his power--attraction; whose agency is perceptible
through all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately
traced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material
world, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is
sustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and
varied. These were expressed by various titles and epithets in the
mystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by
various forms and characters of men and animals. The great
characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in
that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due
performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been
found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets,
which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks
and arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied
by the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted
herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she
was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in view, must
keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind
her of the gratitude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his
service, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed
her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial
power. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the
generative power of nature or matter, as the male's were of the
generative powers of God."[91]

     [91] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 27, _et seq._




CHAPTER III.

THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE.


That there exists a relationship between the cultivated ethical emotion,
religious feeling, and the essentially natural physio-psychical
function, sexual desire or _libido_, is a fact noticed and commented on
by many thinkers and writers. The literature of the subject is, however,
exceedingly fragmentary and disconnected, no author (as far as I have
been able to determine) having devoted as much as one thousand words to
the consideration of this very interesting psychical phenomenon. Hence,
my data have been gathered from many sources, which are as diversified
as they are numerous.

Beyond a question of doubt, man becomes religiously enthused most
frequently either early in life, when pubescence is, or is about to be,
established, or late in life, when sexual desire has become either
entirely extinct or very much abated. Young boys and girls are
exceedingly impressionable at, or just before, puberty, and are apt to
embrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist
declares that "men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of
God after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts,
seven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old."[92]

     [92] B. Fay Mills, _Sermon to Young Men and Young Women_, at
     Owensboro, Ky., May 20, 1894.

The Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore
requires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to
its would-be communicants at, or before, the age of puberty.[AE]

     [AE] This knowledge is not confined to the Catholic church alone;
     in all denominations the pubescent human being is considered most
     susceptible to religious influences. The cause or _raison d 'etre_
     of this susceptibility is, by no means, generally recognized.

Of all the insanities of the pubescent state, erotomania and religious
mania are the most frequent and the most pronounced. Sometimes they go
hand in hand, the most inordinate sensuality being coupled with abnormal
religious zeal. A young woman of my acquaintance, whose conduct has
given rise to much scandal, is, at times, a reincarnate Messalina, while
at other times she is the very embodiment of ethical and religious
purity. Another young girl, in whom _vita sexualis_ was about to be
established, became religiously insane and had delusions in which she
declared that she was in heaven and sitting at the right hand of God.
She declared this over and over again, while shamelessly committing
manustrupation! Krafft-Ebing calls attention to this relation between
religious and sexual feeling in psycho-pathological states. "It
suffices," says he, "to recall how intense sensuality makes itself
manifest in the clinical history of many religious maniacs; the motley
mixture of religious and sexual delusions that is so frequently observed
in psychoses (_e. g._, in maniacal women who think they are or will be
the mother of God), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and
finally, the sexual, cruel self-punishment, injuries, self-castrations,
and even self-crucifixions, resulting from abnormal religio-sexual
feeling."[93]

     [93] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 8.

An example of the last mentioned self-immolation (self-crucifixion) is
given by Berghierri, and is a remarkable instance of the
interchangeableness of religious emotion and sexual desire in
psychopathic individuals. The man in question, who had been intensely
sensual, manufactured a cross, nailed himself to it, and ingeniously
managed to suspend himself and cross from the window of his sleeping
apartment.

"All through the history of insanity the student has occasion to observe
this close alliance of sexual and religious ideas; an alliance which may
be partly accounted for because of the prominence which sexual themes
have in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the phallus
worship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the
Saxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the
Koran and several other books of the kind, and which is further
illustrated in the performances which, to come down to a modern period,
characterize the religious revival and camp-meeting as they tinctured
their medieval model, the Münster Anabaptist movement."[94]

     [94] Spitzka: _Insanity_, p. 39.

Men, owing to their greater freedom, soon learn the difference of the
sexes and the delights of sexual congress; women, hedged in by
conventionalities and deterred by their innate passivity, remain, for
the most part, in ignorance of sexual knowledge until their marriage.
For this reason it happens that very many more women than men experience
religious emotion. _Young married men and women, who are in perfect
sexual health, and who have not experienced religion before marriage,
seldom give this emotion a single thought until late in life, when both
libido and vita sexualis are on the wane or are extinct._ Voltaire
cynically, though truthfully, observes that when woman is no longer
pleasing to man she then turns to God. A woman who has been disappointed
in love almost invariably seeks consolation in religion. The virtuous
unmarried woman, who has been unsuccessful in the pursuit of a husband,
invariably turns to God and religion with impassioned zeal and energy.

Ungratified, or, rather, _unsatisfied_, sensuality very frequently gives
rise to great religio-sexual enthusiasm. The circumcised foreskin of
Christ, where it was and what had become of it, was a source of
continual worriment to the nun Blanbekin; in an ecstacy of ungratified
_libido_, St. Catherine of Genoa would frequently cast herself on the
hard floor of her cell, crying: "Love! love! I can endure it no longer;"
St. Armelle and St. Elizabeth were troubled with _libido_ for the child
Jesus;[95] an old prayer is quite significant: "Oh, that I had found
thee, Holy Emanuel; _Oh, that I had thee in my bed to bring delight to
body and soul!_ Come and be mine, and my heart shall be thy
resting-place."[96] Francis Parkman calls attention to the fact that the
nuns sent over to America in colonization days were frequently seized
with religio-sexual frenzy. "She heard," writes he of Marie de
l'Incarnation, "in a trance, a miraculous voice. It was that of Christ,
promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, full of
troubled hopes and fears, when again the voice sounded in her ear, with
assurance that the promise was fulfilled, and that she was, indeed, his
bride. Now ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among Roman
Catholic female devotees, when unmarried, or married unhappily, and
_which have their source in the necessities of a woman's nature_." (The
italics are my own.) "To her excited thought, her divine spouse became a
living presence; and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is of
intense passion. She went to prayer, agitated and tremulous, as if to a
meeting with an earthly lover: 'Oh, my Love,' she exclaimed, 'when shall
I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments that I suffer? Alas!
alas! my Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain, you take
pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you, and die in your sacred
arms!'"[97] The historian remarks that the "holy widow," as her
biographers call her, is an example, and a lamentable one, of the
tendency of the erotic principle to ally itself with high religious
excitement and enthusiasm. Further along he says that "some of the
pupils of Marie de l'Incarnation, also, had mystical marriages with
Christ; and the impassioned rhapsodies of one of them being overheard,
she nearly lost her character, as it was thought that she was
apostrophizing an earthly lover."[98]

     [95] Krafft-Ebing: _op. cit. ante._, p. 8, footnote.

     [96] _Ibid._

     [97] Francis Parkman: _The Jesuits in North America_, p. 175. "_O
     amour, quand vous embrasserai-je? N'avez vous point pitie de moi
     dans le tourment que je souffre? Hélas! mon amour, ma beauté, ma
     vie! au lieu de me guerir, vous vous plaisez à mes maux. Venez donc
     que je vous embrasse et je meure entre vos bras sacres._" Journal
     de Marie de l'Incarnation.

     [98] Francis Parkman: _The Jesuits in North America_, p. 176.

The instances of religio-sexual outbursts in nuns and Roman Catholic
female devotees who lead celibate lives are very numerous; I will,
however, call attention to but one other: St. Veronica was so much in
love with the divine lion that she took a young lion to bed with her,
fondled and kissed it, and allowed it to suck her breasts.[99]
Throughout sacred literature, beginning with the Bible itself,
religio-sexual feeling is very much _en evidence_. Hosea married a
prostitute because--so he declared--God commanded him so to do. If
Solomon's beautiful song is typical of the Church and the Christ (as
some theologians teach), then it is an unmistakable instance of
religio-sexual feeling; religious emotion and sexual desire walk hand in
hand through the measures of this impassioned verse. Circumcision, now
eminently a religious ceremony, was, unquestionably, a sexual fetich and
a phallic rite, which has been handed down from antiquity, when all the
world were phallic worshipers! The very pillars set up by the patriarchs
in commemoration of certain events were but rude images of the phallus,
while not a few of the mysteries of the Holy of Holies itself were but
vestiges of Chaldean and Egyptian genital worship![AF]

     [99] Friedreich: _Psychologie_, p. 389.

     [AF] A recent writer, Dr. Lydston, expresses surprise that the
     brothel should occupy such a prominent place in the ancient
     chronicles. When the universality and high honor of phallic worship
     is taken into consideration, the entertainment of the "Captain of
     the Host" in a brothel ceases to be a matter or cause for surprise;
     the prominence given such entertainment by the ancient historians
     is perfectly natural and to be expected. _Compare_ Lydston: _The
     Diseases of Society_, p. 305.

That a relationship between, and an interchangeableness of, these two
widely dissimilar psychical operations, _i.e._, religious emotion and
sexual desire, does exist, there can be no doubt.[AG] Now, what is the
cause of, the reason for, this relationship? Mantegazza, Maudsley,
Schleiermacher, Krafft-Ebing, and many others have endeavored,
incidentally, to assign reasons for this relationship, but have, in my
opinion, signally failed. Spitzka has tentatively, and without
elaborating his idea in the least, suggested a theory which, I believe,
solves the problem in every essential point. Says he in "Insanity,"
page 39: This "alliance" (between religious emotion and _libido_) "may
be partly accounted for because of the prominence which sexual themes
have in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the phallus
worship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the
Saxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the
Koran and several other books of the kind, etc." Dr. Spitzka does not
enter into any discussion of the matter; he simply asserts his belief in
the cause of the relationship, and then dismisses the subject without
further comment.

     [AG] The author believes that upon the correlation of religious
     emotion and sexual desire depends, in a great measure, the
     stability of sexual morality. Were it not for this correlation,
     sexual promiscuity would be the rule throughout the world.

Now, permit me, as briefly as possible, to designate the cause of the
relationship between, and the interchangeableness of, religious feeling
and sexual desire, which, as I believe, is to be found in the once
widespread existence of phallic worship.

Some ten or twelve years ago, in an article on Suicide, which was
published in the _American Practitioner and News_, I suggested (as a
possible explanation for certain psychical phenomena) the existence in
man of two consciousnesses, an active, vigilant consciousness and a
pseudo-dormant consciousness. Again, in the _American Naturalist_, in an
essay entitled "The Psychology of Hypnotism,"[100] I reasserted this
theory and, to a certain extent, elaborated it. I placed man's active
consciousness in the cortical portion of the brain, and his
pseudo-dormant, _unconscious_ consciousness (arbitrarily, be it
confessed) in the basilar ganglia, and called this latter consciousness,
"ganglionic consciousness."

     [100] _Loc. cit._, November, 1894.

Recently, much has been written on the doctrine of duplex personality,
notably by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in a series of papers read before the
Society of Psychical Research. Professor Newbold has also written very
entertainingly and instructively on this subject. While not fully
accepting the theory of "duplex personality," _i. e._, active
consciousness and _subliminal consciousness_ (Myers' name for the
pseudo-dormant consciousness), as having been proven, Newbold says: "Of
all the theories developed from the point of independence, Mr. Myers' is
the most comprehensive in its scope, is kept in most constant touch with
what the author regards as facts, and displays the greatest philosophic
insight."[101] According to the theory of duplex personality, many
instincts, desires, and emotions have been crowded out of the active
consciousness and have been relegated to the pseudo-dormant
consciousness. This has been brought about by a "process of selection
out of an infinity of possible elements solely on the grounds of
utility." Thus the _cause_ for our horror of incest is hidden away in
our subliminal consciousness; yet we cannot but think, with
Westermarck, that this instinct is but the result of natural
selection,[102] the utility of the factor or factors occasioning it
being no longer in evidence or required. Again, at certain seasons, man
is seized with _waldliebe_ (forest-love) and longs to flee from the
haunts of men, and, with gun and rod, to revert, as far as possible, to
the state of his savage ancestors. The desire is safely hidden away in
his subliminal consciousness until favoring circumstances tempt it
forth. It is not alone in "sleep, dreams, hypnosis, trance, and ecstacy
that we see a temporary subsidence of the upper consciousness and the
upheaval of a subliminal stratum"; there are many other states and many
other causes for this strange psychical phenomenon.

     [101] Newbold: _Appleton's Popular Science Monthly_, February,
     1897, p. 516.

     [102] Westermarck: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 352.

I have demonstrated in the preceding pages that the worship of the
generative principle was almost, if not wholly, universal; I have also
shown that the beliefs, rites, and ceremonies of this cult made a
lasting impression upon the minds of every people among whom it gained a
foothold. Take the case of the ancient Hebrews. Notwithstanding the fact
that they were tried in the furnace of Javeh's awful wrath time and
again; notwithstanding the fact that famine, pestilence, war, and
imprisonment destroyed them by thousands; and, notwithstanding the fact
that they were threatened with utter and absolute annihilation--all on
account of this cult--they would not wholly abandon it. The words of the
prophets become almost pathetic as we read, over and over again, that,
although the kings did that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord,
"the high places and the groves were not destroyed." Take the case of
the Aztecs. Crushed beneath the iron heels of Spain's hardy buccaneers,
an utterly broken and conquered race, Cortez turned them over to the
ministering care of his zealous priests. The prison, agonizing torture,
and the awful stake succeeded, at last, in Christianizing them; they
became children of Holy Mother Church! And yet, hundreds of years after
this "glorious victory of the cross," Biart finds the humble offerings
of their descendants at the feet of Mictlanteuctli! The modern Christian
Indian, in the deep shadows of the night, steals forth to offer up in
secrecy a prayer at the feet of one of the phallic trinity! What matters
it to the modern Aztec that his petition is offered to the ruler of
Mictlan, the hell of his forefathers, instead of to the mighty
Ipalnemoani, the Life-Giver?[103] In his opinion, Mictlanteuctli
represents the entire Aztec theogony, for has not his white priest kept
the name of _this_ god green in his memory? All the other gods have been
forgotten; their personalities have been absorbed into that of the god
of hell, for he has had advertisers in the shape of Catholic priests
ever since the fall of the Aztec Empire! Take the case of the Peruvians.
Although the Place of Gold and the beautiful Virgins of the Sun are not
even memories to the descendants of the Incas, the religion which gave
rise to them is not wholly forgotten; "phallic rites and ceremonies are
to be observed interwoven with their Christian ritual and belief!" Take
the case of the Roman Catholic devotees of Isernia, of Varailles, of
Lyons, of hundreds of other places during the latter half of the
eighteenth century. Priapus died when the first Christian emperor took
his seat on the throne of Imperial Rome, and yet, hundreds and hundreds
of years thereafter, we behold some of the mysteries of Eleusis almost
within the shadow of St. Peter's!

     [103] Biart: _The Aztecs_, p. 110.

Now, why is this? There can be but one answer, and that is that these
people simply inherited a portion of the _psychos_ of their
forefathers, which made the tenets of this religion natural and easy of
belief. I have demonstrated, I believe, that religious feeling was not a
psychical trait in the beginning; like a number of other mental
attributes, it was the result of evolution.[104] Mental abstraction,
especially as associated with religious feeling, was the result of
psychical growth, of psychically inherited experiences.[AH] As _psychos_
grew beneath the fostering influence of ages of experience, the mind
became able to formulate abstract thought. In the beginning, the process
of ratiocination was, necessarily, very simple; but, simple as it was,
it was able to recognize the source of life--first, in the sun, then, in
the second place, in man himself; and, finally and _abstractly_, in a
source outside of, but connected with, man. This abstract source, which
sprung from sexuality, _ab initio_, they deified and worshiped. Thus we
see that, in the very beginning, the worship of the generative principle
sprung from, and was a part of, man himself. Throughout thousands and
thousands of years, religious feeling and sexual desire, the component
parts of phallic adoration, were intimately associated; finally,
religio-sexuality became an instinct, just as a belief in the existence
of a double or soul became an instinct.

     [104] Huxley: _Essays_; Haeckel: _The History of Creation_;
     Haeckel: _The Evolution of Man_; Peschel: _The Races of Man_; De
     Quatrefages: _The Human Species_; Draper: _The Conflict Between
     Religion and Science_; White: _History of the Warfare of Science
     with Theology_; Romanes: _Mental Evolution in Man_; Wallace: _The
     Malay Archipelago_ (_The Races of Man in the Malay Archipelago_, c.
     xl); Darwin's _Works_; Maudsley: _The Physiology of Mind_; Tylor:
     _Anthropology_; Spencer: _Synthetic Philosophy_--_Prin. Psych.,
     Prin. Sociol._

     [AH] The sense of familiarity implies previous perception now
     dissociated, but subconsciously present and struggling up toward
     the surface of the upper consciousness to gain recognition. Boris
     Sidis: _Multiple Personality_, p. 51.

Belief in the existence of a soul has never been repressed; its utility
is still recognized; hence, it is present in our active consciousness.
The accumulated experiences of civilization have, however, declared the
inutility of phallic worship, hence, it has been crowded out of our
active consciousness by a process of selection and has been relegated to
the innermost recesses of our subliminal consciousness, where also dwell
many other formerly active instincts of our savage ancestors. When
circumstances favoring their appearances occur, these pseudo-dormant
instincts always become evident; it is due to this fact that the
correlation of religious emotion and sexual desire exists.




VIRAGINITY AND EFFEMINATION.


In following up the chain of evolution in animal life from its inception
in primordial protoplasm to its end, as we now find it, we discover that
the interlinking organisms are, in the beginning, either asexual or
hermaphroditic. The moneron, the lowest form of animal life, simply
multiplies by division. The different elements through which propagation
and generation are carried on, are undoubtedly present even in the
moneron, but are not differentiated. The moneron is an organless,
structureless organism, consequently asexual. The cell, on the contrary,
is hermaphroditic, for it contains within itself the necessary elements
for reproducing itself. The am[oe]ba is the connecting link which
connects all terrene life with primitive bathybian protoplasm, and is,
strictly speaking, a true hermaphrodite. Ascending at once to the sixth
stage in the ancestry of man, we come to the _acoelomi_, or worms
without body cavity. These worms are phylogenetic, consequently
hermaphroditic. I do not mean to say that these worms have the organs of
each sex equally developed; therefore, in the use of the word
hermaphrodite, I use it in its broadest sense. I simply mean that they
are autogenetic. In the _rhabdocoela_ the sexual organs appear in their
simplest forms--a testis anterior to a single or double ovary. Other
gliding worms have a more complex arrangement of the sexual organs, but
most of them are true hermaphrodites. Next in the chain of evolutionary
development, and one step nearer man, we find the soft worms
(_scolecidae_); from a branch of this family the parent group of
vertebrates was developed. The immediate ancestor of the vertebrates was
either the amphioxus (lancelet) or some other notochordate animal, whose
type is now extinct. Thus we have traced hermaphroditism from the
am[oe]ba to the amphioxus, from the ancestor of the parent cell to the
ancestor of the vertebrates. We could carry it further, but it is
unnecessary. Effemination and viraginity, are due directly to the
influence of that strange law laid down by Darwin--the law of reversion
to ancestral types. It is an effort of nature to return man to the old
hermaphroditic form from which he was evolved. It is an effort on the
part of nature to incorporate the individualities of the male and
female, both physical and psychical, in one body. The phenomenon of
atavism is more apt to occur in feeble types than in strong, healthy and
well-developed types. Microcephalism, occurring, as it most frequently
does, among ignorant, ill-nourished, and unhealthy people, is an
example. Dolichocephalism and a flattening of the cranial arch, with
corresponding loss of capacity in the skull--types that we see
everywhere among the depraved and vicious--are other examples of this
tendency of atavism to seize on weakened and unhealthy subjects.
Effemination finds more victims among the wealthy and the educated than
among the poor and uneducated. This phenomenon is a psychic rather than
a physical hermaphroditism, and is directly traceable to the enervation
produced by the habits of the wealthy and unemployed. Wealth begets
luxury, luxury begets debauchery and consequent enervation. Periods of
moral decadence in the life of a nation are always coincident with
periods of luxury and great wealth, with consequent enervation and
effemination; examples of this may be found in the histories of Rome,
Greece, and France. During the reign of Louis XV., examples of
effemination crowded into the court and vied with the royal fop in the
splendor of their raiment and effeminacy of their bearing. Psychic
hermaphroditism does not occur _naturally_ in uncivilized or
half-civilized races. The reason for this is patent. Atavism finds
among them no weakened and enervated subjects on whom to perpetrate this
strange travesty on nature.

Large cities are the hotbeds and breeding-places of the various
neuroses. There general paresis treads closely upon the heels of sexual
neurasthenia, while the victims of hysteria and kindred ills are almost
countless in their number. What wonder, then, that the offspring of such
parents should be weak and neurasthenic, and fall easy victims to the
thousand and one erotic fancies which beset them! What wonder that here
atavism finds its richest field, and plays its strangest and most
fearful pranks, sending men into the world with the tastes, desires, and
habits of women, and women with all the mental hibitudes of men! Juvenal
wrote in scathing, searing sarcasm of the degeneracy of the Roman youth;
effemination was very prevalent, and this bitter satirist wrote burning
words against their degrading and bestial practices. It seems to me
that we are beginning to need a Juvenal for this day and generation!

People divide themselves into classes, and these classes are generally
exceedingly clannish. It is not considered "good form" to marry out of
the class to which an individual may belong, consequently, no new types
of individuals are added. Luxury and debauchery enervate the classes
which indulge in them. The people of these classes intermarry among
themselves, no new blood is added, hence, in a very few generations,
degeneration sets in.

Effemination and viraginity are common types of degeneration which
always follow in the wake of luxury and debauchery. Effemination makes
its appearance early in life. The young boy likes the society of girls;
he plays with dolls, and, if permitted, will don female attire and dress
his hair like a girl. He learns to sew, to knit, to embroider, to do
"tatting." He becomes a connoisseur in female dress, and likes to
discuss matters pertaining to the toilet of females. He does not care
for boyish sports, and when he grows older, takes no pleasure in the
amusements and pursuits of his masculine acquaintances. He prefers to
spend his time with women and to engage in their employments and
amusements. As the change in his psychic being becomes more pronounced
and more overpowering, he will endeavor to approach the female in gait,
attitude, and style of dress.

I have seen mothers guilty of incalculable harm by fostering such
inclinations in their sons. They think (the thought is a natural one)
that such perversions of taste indicate gentleness and kindliness, and
induce their sons to continue in the practice of them, thus assisting
atavism in its baneful work.

Effemination is a disease which, taken at its inception, can generally
be eradicated and cured. As soon as it is discovered, the boy's
surroundings should be changed; his mind should be directed into new
channels, and his dormant boy's nature aroused. Outdoor exercise and a
free intercourse with companions of his own sex should be made important
factors in the treatment of an incipient effeminant. He should be
carefully watched until _vita sexualis_ has been established; he should
then be taught the dangers of youthful follies and indiscretions.

A dandified man is always ridiculous, but when he adds to his foppery,
effemination, he then becomes contemptible.

Several years ago I had the opportunity of studying a pronounced
effeminant. He is one of the best known young men of a Southern city,
and is a leader in society. He took me to his "boudoir" and showed me
his "lingerie." The words quoted are his own. His nightgowns were
marvels of artistic needlework, as far as I was able to judge, and were
made by himself. His nightcaps were "sweetly pretty," and one of them
was a "perfect dream of beauty." On his dressing-table were all the
accessories of a modern society woman's toilet, including rouge, powder,
a complete manicure set, and numerous bottles of perfumes and toilet
waters. In his wardrobe he had displayed on forms, some six or eight
corsets and chemisettes--"corset-covers," as he designated them.

This man's voice and manner of speaking are decidedly feminine; all the
little mannerisms and affectations of a society woman being faithfully
reproduced. I understand from his associates that he is a splendid
business man, and that not a breath of scandal has ever tarnished his
good name. He was reared by his mother, and never associated with boys
until his sixteenth year. I understood from him that she always treated
him as a girl, and consulted him in all things pertaining to her toilet.
He seemed utterly unconscious of his anomalous condition, and as his
business associates are gentlemen, and his intimate friends are ladies,
he may drift through life without a single jar to mar the serenity of
his existence.

Viraginity is, comparatively, an infrequent occurrence, but under its
influence the unfortunate victims are guilty of startling vagaries. The
recent case of Alice Mitchell, who killed Miss Ward, at Memphis, Tenn.,
is an example of pronounced viraginity. We see daily in the newspapers
accounts of women who masquerade as men, and history abounds in like
instances. The celebrated writer Count Sandor V. was a woman who posed
as a man, and who was in fact Sarolta (Charlotte), Countess V. "Among
many foolish things that her father encouraged in her was the fact that
he brought her up as a boy, called her Sandor, allowed her to ride,
drive, and hunt, admiring her muscular energy." At the age of thirteen
she ran away from school, where she had been sent by her mother, and
returned home. "Sarolta returned to her mother, who, however, could do
nothing and was compelled to allow her daughter to again become Sandor,
wear male clothes, and, at least once a year, to fall in love with
persons of her own sex."

Mothers, early in life, though not from any sense of danger to their
daughters, begin to eradicate the tom-boy inclinations in their female
children; hence the comparative infrequency of viraginity. The
congenital viragint will always remain somewhat masculine in her tastes
and ideas, but her inclinations and desires having been turned toward
femininity early in life, she will escape the horrors of complete
viraginity or gynandry. The victim of effemination, however, is saved by
no such accidental forethought. The ignorant mother fosters feminine
inclinations and desires in her effeminate son until his psychic being
becomes entirely changed, and not even the establishment of _vita
sexualis_ will save him from effemination.

An only son, who is in the least degree neurasthenic, runs the risk of
becoming an effeminant under the tutelage of a loving but ignorant
mother who encourages his feminine tastes and inclinations. A young man
of my acquaintance, who is an only son, is so situated. This young man
devotes his entire attention to matters of the toilet. He paints his
cheeks and powders his face; even his eyebrows and eyelashes are
anointed with some dark-colored ointment or pomade.

Effemination and viraginity are more prevalent in the Old World than in
the United States. The civilization and settlement of the United States
are, comparatively speaking, new. The people are, as yet, a young,
strong, and vigorous nation. Years of luxury and debauchery have not yet
brought the penalty of enervation and neurasthenia to the _masses_,
though in certain circles of society, it is becoming painfully evident
that that penalty is being even now exacted.

In this article I have described only mild types of viraginity and
effemination. In the more pronounced types of these singular examples of
atavism or reversion, the victims commit the most unheard of and the
most unnatural acts.

Almost every case of effemination or viraginity can be cured if
recognized and treated in its incipiency. The parents should be the
physicians. They should keep a watchful supervision over their
offspring, and as soon as any evidences of effemination or viraginity
become apparent, treatment, both physical and psychical, should at once
be instituted.

Effemination has occasioned the downfall of many nations; let us guard
against it with all our power. Let us train up our boys to be manly men,
and our girls to be womanly women.




BORDERLANDS AND CRANKDOM.


When that bilious critic and merciless crucifier of human foibles,
Carlyle, himself a degenerate, wrote that nine-tenths of the world were
fools, he was much nearer truth than most men think. When we take an
introspective view of our sane personality, we shudder to see how near
it is to the borderlands of insanity and the bizarre and eccentric world
of crankdom. There hardly lives a man who does not possess some
eccentricity, or who does not cherish, hidden, perhaps, deep within
himself, some small delusion, which he is ashamed to acknowledge to the
outside world. Social relations and the iron rules of custom hold in
place the balance-wheel of many a disordered mind. The mental equipoise
is kept at the normal standard only by the powerful aid of the will,
supported and assisted by extraneous adjuvants, such as fear of
punishment, fear of personal harm, and, above all, by the fear of
ridicule. Many a man hugs his delusions closely to his heart, indulges
them only in the secret recesses of his soul, and, their sole owner and
acquaintance, carries them with him to his grave.

Any man who has a retentive memory, and one capable of minute analysis,
can look back in his life and recall moments when his insane personality
got the better of his will, and ran riot in forbidden pathways. He may
not have committed an insane act; yet the thought, the impulse, the
delusion was there and only outside influences kept it from breaking
forth. Who fails to remember certain times in his life when he has had
an almost overpowering desire to cry out in church, or to laugh on some
sad or solemn occasion; or, having a razor in his hand, has had an
impulse, sudden and intense, to draw it across his throat; or, being on
some high place, has been seized with the desire to hurl himself
downward? This shows how near indeed the healthy mind ever hovers on the
borderlands of insanity.

Man stands so close to the portals of insanity that he can look through
the gateway, when he takes an introspective view of his psychical being,
and can see the phantoms and mental ghosts of his insane personality.

We have every reason to believe that, among civilized races, there is a
vast amount of latent insanity. Taking the tables of our insane asylums,
we find a thousand and one causes given as the exciting factors in the
mental overthrow. Love, religion, anger, disappointment, etc., down
through the long list of psychic and æsthetic emotions, until it seems
as though even a breath of wind would be sufficient to destroy the
mental equipoise.

Among savage and uncivilized races, insanity is of infrequent
occurrence. Only when a race begins to elevate itself and take on a
higher view of morality, when new rules and new laws, new customs and
innovations, tending to place individuals in a state of comparison,
arise, does insanity make its appearance. The untutored savage, living
in a state of communism, is untroubled by the jealousies and
heart-burnings of his civilized congener. He lives in the to-day and
allows the to-morrow to take care of itself. Devoid of ambition, a mere
animal, sensual and indolent, he cares only for the gratification of his
physical desires. The mental attributes of a civilized being are, in
him, wanting.

Psychos is the result of evolutionary development, and the chief reason
why insanity is not as prevalent in the savage as in the civilized man,
is because the brain of the savage lacks development. I do not wish to
convey the idea that insanity is purely psychical in its nature.
Insanity is the result of a material change in the structure of the
brain produced by morbific action. The manifestations of insanity are
merely the symptoms of a disease that involves the brain. The savage has
less development of psychical function, consequently he is less liable
to mental lesion. I mean by psychical function that portion of the brain
in which psychos has its origin. Alienists consider the habits of men as
being the factor in the production of insanity. Habits and heredity are
undoubted factors in the production of diseased minds, and, in fact, are
the chief agents. You cannot, however, expect to find a disordered
function where that function is absent. Savages have paresis, apoplexy,
and imbecility, seldom or never insanity. The reason is patent--they
lack the psychic function, that peculiar element, whatever it may be,
which raises civilized man so high above them. That this element can be
developed in savages I do not for one instant deny. The ploughshare of
evolutionary civilization will bring it to the surface sooner or later,
and when it does insanity follows. I have only to point to the American
negro to prove the truth of my proposition; even he is partially exempt,
simply because his civilization is of such recent date that his brain
has not yet acquired its full quota of the psychic element.

I will venture to assert, so true is the fact that insanity is the
product of civilization, that, if it were not for the combating
influences of social laws, assisted not a little by scientific medical
aid, all North America could not contain the vast and enormous army that
would constitute the civilized world's array of lunatics.

There seems to be in the minds of men an instinctive awe of anything
that appertains to the insane. In olden times a disordered mind was
considered of divine or diabolic origin as it evinced good or evil
tendencies. This belief lasted even until the present century. Many old
women who were the victims of senile dementia and kindred ills, were
accused of witchcraft and intercourse with the devil, here in the United
States, not a century ago. Witches were executed in England and men
burned at the stake in Spain, not two hundred years ago, for the crime
of demoniacal possession. Even in this enlightened age men are
accustomed to consider insanity rather from its psychical standpoint
than from its physical aspect. They do not take into consideration the
fact that insanity is due to a physical lesion, and that its vagaries
are but the symptoms of brain disease or brain deformity. The
inhabitants of the borderlands are invested with a certain shadowy
mystery which separates them from the rest of mankind, and which makes
them appear to us as denizens of another psychical world than ours.

In the Middle Ages, cranks, whose eccentricities took a religious turn,
were considered holy. St. Simon Stylites was a very pronounced crank,
and a very holy man also, because he chose to live the greater portion
of his life perched on a pillar seventy feet high. St. Anthony was
another holy crank who never, in all his life, washed his feet. Poor
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake because she was "possessed of a
false and lying devil." She has been recently proposed for canonization
by the same church that burned her, and thus, in a measure, had justice
done her. I do not think, however, that this is any recompense for the
terrible agony inflicted on this unfortunate victim of hystero-epilepsy.

Says Maudsley in "Responsibility in Mental Disease": "Some of the
prophets of the Old Testament presented symptoms which can hardly be
interpreted as other than the effects of madness; certainly if they were
not mad, they imitated very closely some of its most striking features."
Jeremiah takes a long journey to the river Euphrates and hides a linen
girdle in a hole of a rock. He then returns home and in a few days
makes the same journey, and finds the girdle rotten and good for
nothing. Ezekiel digs a hole in the wall of his house, and through it
removes his household goods, instead of through the door. Hosea marries
a prostitute because he said he had been commanded by God so to do.
Isaiah stripped himself naked and paraded up and down in sight of all
the people.

Some of the greatest changes in the world's history have been effected
by dwellers in the borderlands. Mahomet was an epileptic, and his first
vision was the result on an epileptic convulsion or seizure. The
character of his visions was exactly like that of those visions which an
epileptic sees and describes at the present time. Mahomet believed in
his visions, and, what is more, got more than half the world to believe
in them also. Gautama was a dweller in the borderlands, yet his
followers now number five hundred millions.

The novel mode in which an insane man regards things may be an
inspiration which reflection could never attain, and it sometimes
happens that opinions which seem to the world to be the ravings of a
madman, have turned out to be true. The insane man has the world against
him, and though he may pose for a short time as a reformer, sooner or
later lands in the asylum.

It sometimes happens that the crank will succeed in getting converts. A
notable instance is Schweinfurth, or "the Christ," as he calls himself.
I am firmly convinced that this man believes in his delusions. One thing
is certain, and that is, his disciples believe in him implicitly. This
man is dangerous to society, inasmuch as he has caused the separation of
several wives from their husbands; the wives abandoning their husbands
to follow him to "Heaven," as he calls his farm house.

The crank is, generally, a harmless individual, and is not anti-social
unless his delusions take the form of homicidal impulse, pyromania,
kleptomania, etc.

Homicidal impulse is the most dangerous to society of the many mental
vagaries and derangements which afflict the dwellers in the borderlands.
Its invasion is sudden and its impulse is, generally, overpowering. A
man may be walking the streets presumably in perfect health, and yet
have, all the while, a voice whispering in his ear "kill, kill." His
insane desire at length reaches its acme, and he throws aside every
mental restraint and kills the first individual he may chance to meet.
Again, he may desire to kill some particular individual, and will
carefully and systematically arrange his plans for the successful
enactment of the homicide. The murderers of Garfield and Harrison
probably belong to this latter class, though in the case of Prendergast,
the slayer of Mayor Harrison, this opinion may be erroneous. There is
something about his photograph that leads me to believe that he is a
moral imbecile, rather than an intellectual dyscrasiac.

A clerk in a solicitor's office, at Alton, Hampshire, England, one
afternoon took a walk outside the town, when he met some children. He
persuaded one of these, a girl of nine, to go with him into a
neighboring garden. A short while after, he was seen walking quietly
home; he was seen to wash himself in the river and then go back to his
office. The little girl did not return home, and, search having been
instituted, her dismembered body was found strewn about the garden. The
clerk was arrested, and in his diary was found this entry, recently
made: "Killed a little girl; it was fine and hot." This man was either a
sadistic sexual pervert, or a victim of homicidal impulse. Maudsley
gives this instance as an example of the latter, while Krafft-Ebing
gives it as an example of the former. There is a great difference
between these two mental derangements. The victim of homicidal impulse
kills without any ulterior object, while the sadist kills in order to
gratify his unnatural and perverted sexual appetite.

The victim of homicidal impulse is, to all outward appearances,
perfectly sane otherwise. His impulse frequently leaves him for years
and then returns with overpowering force.

Epileptics who have just passed through violent convulsions, will
frequently attack bystanders with great fury. Some alienists declare
that homicidal mania is frequently only a masked epilepsy. All
epileptics should be carefully watched; they may become dangerous to
society at any moment. Numerous instances are recorded of murder
committed by sufferers from _petit mal_, a form of epilepsy. I once saw
a negro walk up to a white man, who was a stranger and unknown by him,
and fell him to the earth by striking him with a club. The negro was
arrested, and the next day swore that he was entirely unconscious of
having struck anyone. It was proven at his trial that he was subject to
mild epileptic attacks.

I believe that all suicides are due to mental aberration. It may be the
result of a momentary and sudden loss of mental equipoise, or the final
and fatal ending of a premeditated desire carried through days, weeks,
months, and even years.

We see a man, blessed with everything that makes life enjoyable, genial,
gay, with a ready smile and kindly word for everyone, suddenly, in a
moment, pass forever out into the unknown--self-killed, a victim of his
own creation. We stand amazed! Why did he do it? We can find nothing in
his past or present condition to warrant such an action.

He was the victim of momentary aberration, or, perhaps, deep in his
mind, buried and hidden even from himself, there dwelt a desire for
self-slaughter, when a "physical pain, an unexpected impression, a
moral affection, an indiscreet proposition" uncovered this desire, and
he at once committed the deed!

There are epidemics of suicide. Let the papers chronicle some peculiar
method of suicide selected by some unfortunate, and others will
immediately follow his example. Unconscious cerebration also hurls many
souls out of the world. I was called to see a gentleman who had
attempted suicide by slashing the radial artery at the wrist. I found
him holding a compress on the severed vessel and greatly alarmed. He
swore to me that he was totally unconscious how he had come to do the
deed, and that he did not know that he had cut himself until he felt the
pain and saw the blood flowing from the wound!

Viraginity and effemination, while not mental insanities, strictly
speaking, are, nevertheless, mental deformities, and their unfortunate
victims are dwellers in the borderlands. Mild forms of these types of
degeneration are very abundant. The effeminate, cigarette-smoking,
soda-drinking young man of the comic weeklies, and the loud, horsy,
slang-using, vulgar, masculine young woman are seen everywhere.

Effemination and viraginity are the results of the weakening effects of
luxury and consequent debauchery. Nations, time and again, have felt the
dire effects of effemination and have sunk beneath them. The Grecian,
the Roman, the Egyptian nations are familiar examples. The satirists of
the golden age of the Latin people dipped their _stili_, metaphorically,
in gall and bitter wormwood and berated the effeminate nobility time and
again. One of them advised the Roman ladies to look for _men_ among the
gladiators and the peasants! Anacreon's poems are filled with allusions
to effemination and the delights of psychic hermaphroditism.

In the time of Louis XIV., of France, the royal palaces were filled to
repletion with effeminants, who vied with the women in the splendor of
their robes and the salacious eccentricities of their conduct. The case
of Alice Mitchell, who killed Freda Ward in Memphis not long ago, was
one of pronounced viraginity.

Fortunately, for the good of the community at large, there are,
comparatively speaking, few viragints. The careful mother restrains,
tempers, and abolishes the hoydenish habits of her "tom-boy" girl early
in life, and turns her thoughts toward feminine pursuits and desires.
The unfortunate effeminant, however, is encouraged in his feminine
tastes and habits by his unwise mother, who likes her boy to sit beside
her and sew and knit, if he so desires. She discusses matters of the
toilet with him, and, in fact, treats him as she would a daughter. In
the end, his psychic hermaphroditism becomes complete, and one more
unfortunate goes out into the world to swell the ranks of crankdom!

Kleptomaniacs are greatly to be pitied, for they are generally women in
whom the moral sense is very much developed. The victim of kleptomania
will steal any and everything; they are like magpies in this respect. An
acquaintance of mine, a most estimable lady, a devout Christian, and a
most exemplary wife and mother, is the most incorrigible thief I ever
saw. She has often picked my pockets while I was engaged about her
sick-bed. The merchants of the city where she lives know her infirmity,
watch her while she is in their shops, and respectfully and kindly
relieve her of her pilferings when she starts to leave. She expresses
great sorrow for her unfortunate insane impulse, and has often begged
her husband to have her placed in an asylum. This he refuses to do, as
she is perfectly sane otherwise. The husband was called away for several
weeks, and, on his return, took me to his house and showed me her room.
In the room were the objects stolen during his absence. It was the most
miscellaneous collection of valuables and trash I ever saw. She had
gathered together everything from a darning-needle to a tombstone, a
small specimen of the latter forming a unit of this heterogeneous whole.
This form of mental dyscrasia is much more frequent than people suppose,
and the antecedents of shop-lifters and the like should be carefully
examined before a judgment on their criminality is passed.

"Eccentricity is certainly not always insanity, but there can be no
question that it is often the outcome of insane temperament, and may
approach very near to, or actually pass into, insanity." Alienists rely
on the eccentric and peculiar changes which take place in the characters
of their patients, who either present themselves or are brought to them
for treatment, to establish their diagnosis. If a modest and truthful
man suddenly becomes a braggart and a liar; or, if a humane man becomes
cruel, or a neat man slovenly, there is reason to suspect brain trouble.
The intellect may appear intact, so also the reasoning powers, but these
eccentricities indicate a deviation which may lead to mental
destruction. The last faculty to develop in the mind of man is the moral
faculty; this faculty is the one first lost by diseased brains. If a
man, who suddenly becomes dissolute and licentious (who, heretofore, has
led a virtuous, moral life), be examined, in nine cases in ten his brain
will be found to be diseased. The little cloud, which at first is no
larger than a man's hand, grows ever larger and larger, and in the end
overspreads the entire mental sky!




GENIUS AND DEGENERATION.


That the psychical function or intellectuality is frequently developed
at the expense of the physical organism is well known, and that genius
is seldom or never unaccompanied by physical and mental degeneration is
a fact that can be no longer denied. I use the word degeneration in its
broadest sense, and intend it to include all kinds of abnormalities. The
facts noted above are by no means recent knowledge, but were vaguely
recognized and commented on centuries and decades of centuries ago by
the Hebrews and kindred races of people. The Hebrew word _nabi_ means
either madman or prophet, and it is now admitted that most of the
prophets gave evidences of insanity as well as genius. The Greeks and
the Romans recognized this kinship, and we read in the Bible of a
certain Festus, who, when confronted by a man of genius, and being
unable to answer his arguments, said to him, "Paul, much learning hath
made thee mad!" Lauvergne, when speaking of the oxycephalic (sugarloaf)
skull, an unquestionable example of degeneration, wrote many years ago,
"This head announces the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty
of man, genius, with the most pronounced impulses to rape, murder, and
theft."

The purpose of this paper is to show that wherever genius is observed,
we find it accompanied by degeneration, which is evinced by physical
abnormalties or mental eccentricities. It is a strange fact, however,
and one not noticed by Lombroso, or any other writer, as far as I know,
that mechanical geniuses, or those who, for the most part, deal with
material facts, do not, as a rule, show any signs of degeneration. I
have only to instance Darwin, Galileo, Edison, Watts, Rumsey, Howe, and
Morse to prove the truth of this assertion. It is only the genius of
æstheticism, the genius of the emotion, that is generally accompanied
by unmistakable signs of degeneration.

Saul, the first king of Israel, was a man of genius and, at times, a
madman. We read that, before his coronation, he was seized with an
attack of madness and joined a company of kindred eccentrics. His
friends and acquaintances were naturally surprised and exclaimed: "Is
Saul among the prophets?" _i. e._, "Has Saul become insane?" Again, we
are told that he was suddenly seized with an attack of homicidal
impulse, and tried to kill David. Before this time he had had repeated
attacks of madness, which only the harp of David could control and
subdue. David himself was a man whose mental equilibrium was not well
established, as his history clearly indicates. He forsook his God,
indulged in licentious practices, and was, withal, a very, immoral man
at times. At his time, the Hebrews had reached a high degree of
civilization. Abstract ethics had become very much developed, and any
example of great immorality occurring during this epoch is proof
positive of atavism or degeneration.

As I have intimated before, many of the ancient Hebrew prophets, who
were unquestionably men of genius, gave evidences of insanity; notably
Jeremiah, who made a long journey to the River Euphrates, where he hid a
linen girdle. He returned home, and in a few days made the same journey
and found the girdle rotten and good for nothing; Ezekiel, who dug a
hole in the wall of his house, through which he removed his household
goods, instead of through the door; Hosea, who married a prostitute,
because God, so he declared, had told him so to do; and Isaiah, who
stripped himself naked and paraded up and down in sight of all the
people. King Solomon, a man of pre-eminent genius, was mentally
unbalanced. The "Song of Solomon" shows very clearly that he was a
victim of some psychical disorder, sexual in its character and origin.
The poems of Anacreon are lascivious, lustful, and essentially carnal,
and history informs us that he was a sexual pervert.

Swinburne's poems show clearly the mental bias of their author, who is
described as being peculiar and eccentric. Many of the men of genius who
have assisted in making the history of the world have been the victims
of epilepsy. Julius Cæsar, military leader, statesman, politician, and
author, was an epileptic. Twice on the field of battle he was stricken
down by this disorder. On one occasion, while seated at the tribune, he
was unable to rise when the senators, consuls, and prætors paid him a
visit of ceremony and honor. They were offended at his seeming lack of
respect, and retired, showing signs of anger. Cæsar returned home,
stripped off his clothes, and offered his throat to be cut by anyone. He
then explained his conduct to the senate, saying that he was the victim
of a malady which, at times, rendered him incapable of standing. During
the attacks of this disorder "he felt shocks in his limbs, became giddy,
and at last lost consciousness." Molière was the victim of epilepsy; so
also was Petrarch, Flaubert, Charles V., Handel, St. Paul, Peter the
Great, and Dostoieffsky; Paganini, Mozart, Schiller, Alfieri, Pascal,
Richelieu, Newton, and Swift were the victims of diseases epileptoid in
character.

Many men of genius have suffered from spasmodic and choreic movements,
notably Lenau, Montesquieu, Buffon, Dr. Johnson, Santeuil, Crébillon,
Lombardini, Thomas Campbell, Carducci, Napoleon, and Socrates.

Suicide, essentially a symptom of mental disorder, has hurried many a
man of genius out into the unknown. The list begins with such eminent
men as Zeno, Cleanthes, Dionysius, Lucan, and Stilpo, and contains the
names of such immortals as Chatterton, Blount, Haydon, Clive, and David.

Alcoholism and morphinism, or an uncontrollable desire for alcohol or
opium in some form or other, are now recognized as evidences of
degeneration. Men of genius, both in the Old World and in the New, have
shown this form of degeneration. Says Lombroso: "Alexander died after
having emptied ten times the goblet of Hercules, and it was, without
doubt, in an alcoholic attack, while pursuing naked the infamous Thais,
that he killed his dearest friend. Cæsar was often carried home
intoxicated on the shoulders of his soldiers. Neither Socrates, nor
Seneca, nor Alcibiades, nor Cato, nor Peter the Great (nor his wife
Catherine, nor his daughter Elizabeth) were remarkable for their
abstinence. One recalls Horace's line, '_Narratur et prisci Cantonis
sæpe mero caluisse virtus._' Tiberius Nero was called by the Romans
Biberius Mero. Septimius Severus and Mahomet II. succumbed to
drunkenness or _delirium tremens_."

Among the men and women of genius of the Old World who abused the use of
alcohol and opium, were Coleridge, James Thomson, Carew, Sheridan,
Steele, Addison, Hoffman, Charles Lamb, Madame de Staël, Burns, Savage,
Alfred de Musset, Kleist, Caracci, Jan Steen, Morland Turner (the
painter), Gérard de Nerval, Hartley Coleridge, Dussek, Handel, Glück,
Praga, Rovani, and the poet Somerville. This list is by no means
complete, as the well-informed reader may see at a glance; it serves to
show, however, how very often this form of degeneration makes its
appearance in men of genius.

In men of genius the moral sense is sometimes obtunded, if not
altogether absent. Sallust, Seneca, and Bacon were suspected felons.
Rousseau, Byron, Foscolo, and Caresa were grossly immoral, while
Casanova, the gifted mathematician, was a common swindler. Murat,
Rousseau, Clement, Diderot, Praga, and Oscar Wilde were sexual perverts.

Genius, like insanity, lives in a world of its own, hence we find few,
if any, evidences of human affection in men of genius. Says Lombroso: "I
have been able to observe men of genius when they had scarce reached the
age of puberty; they did not manifest the deep aversions of moral
insanity, but I have noticed among all a strange apathy for everything
which does not concern them; as though, plunged in the hypnotic
condition, they did not perceive the troubles of others, or even the
most pressing needs of those who were dearest to them; if they observed
them, they grew tender, at once hastening to attend them; but it was a
fire of straw, soon extinguished, and it gave place to indifference and
weariness."

This emotional anæsthesia is indicative of psychical atavism, and is an
unmistakable evidence of degeneration. Lombroso gives a long list of the
men of genius who were celibates. I will mention a few of those with
whom the English-speaking world is most familiar: Kant, Newton, Pitt,
Fox, Beethoven, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Gray,
Dalton, Hume, Gibbon, Macaulay, Lamb, Bentham, Leonardo da Vinci,
Copernicus, Reynolds, Handel, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Schopenhauer,
Camoëns, and Voltaire. La Bruyère says of men of genius: "These men have
neither ancestors nor descendants; they themselves form their entire
posterity."

There is a form of mental obliquity which the French term _folie du
doute_. It is characterized by an incertitude in thought coördination,
and often leads its victims into the perpetration of nonsensical and
useless acts. Men of genius are very frequently afflicted with this form
of mental disorder. Dr. Johnson, who was a sufferer from _folie du
doute_, had to touch every post he passed. If he missed one he had to
retrace his steps and touch it. Again, if he started out of a door on
the wrong foot he would return and make another attempt, starting out on
the foot which he considered the correct one to use. Napoleon counted
and added up the rows of windows in every street through which he
passed. A celebrated statesman, who is a personal friend of the writer,
can never bear to place his feet on a crack in the pavement or floor.
When walking he will carefully step over and beyond all cracks or
crevices. This idiosyncracy annoys him greatly, but the impulse is
imperative, and he can not resist it.

Those who have been intimately associated with men of genius have
noticed that they are very frequently amnesic or "absent-minded." Newton
once tried to stuff his niece's finger into the bowl of his lighted
pipe, and Rovelle would lecture on some subject for hours at a time and
then conclude by saying: "But this is one of my arcana, which I tell to
no one." One of his students would then whisper what he had just said
into his ear, and Rovelle would believe that his pupil "had discovered
the arcanum by his own sagacity, and would beg him not to divulge what
he himself had just told to two hundred persons."

Lombroso has combed history, as it were, with a fine-tooth comb, and
very few geniuses have escaped his notice. This paper, so far, is hardly
more than a review of his extraordinarily comprehensive work; therefore,
I will conclude this portion of it with a list of men of genius, their
professions, and their evidences of degeneration, as gathered from his
book:

Carlo Dolce, painter, _religious monomania_.

Bacon, philosopher, _megalomania_, _moral anaesthesia_.

Balzac, writer, _masked epilepsy_, _megalomania_.

Cæsar, soldier, writer, _epilepsy_.

Beethoven, musician, _amnesia_, _melancholia_.

Cowper, writer, _melancholia_.

Chateaubriand, writer, _chorea_.

Alexander the Great, soldier, _alcoholism_.

Molière, dramatist, _epilepsy_, _phthisis pulmonalis_.

Lamb, writer, _alcoholism_, _melancholia_, _acute mania_.

Mozart, musician, _epilepsy_, _hallucinations_.

Heine, writer, _melancholia_, _spinal disease_.

Dr. Johnson, writer, _chorea_, _folie du doute_.

Malibran, _epilepsy_.

Newton, philosopher, _amnesia_.

Cavour, statesman, philosopher, _suicidal impulse_.

Ampère, mathematician, _amnesia_.

Thomas Campbell, writer, _chorea_.

Blake, painter, _hallucinations_.

Chopin, musician, _melancholia_.

Coleridge, writer, _alcoholism_, _morphinism_.

Donizetti, musician, _moral anaesthesia_.

Lenau, writer, _melancholia_.

Mahomet, theologian, _epilepsy_.

Manzoni, statesman, _folie du doute_.

Haller, writer, _hallucinations_.

Dupuytren, surgeon, _suicidal impulse_.

Paganini, musician, _epilepsy_.

Handel, musician, _epilepsy_.

Schiller, writer, _epilepsy_.

Richelieu, statesman, _epilepsy_.

Praga, writer, _alcoholism_, _sexual perversion_.

Tasso, writer, _alcoholism_, _melancholia_.

Savonarola, theologian, _hallucinations_.

Luther, theologian, _hallucinations_.

Schopenhauer, philosopher, _melancholia_, _omniphobia_.

Gogol, writer, _melancholia_, _tabes dorsalis_.

Lazaretti, theologian, _hallucinations_.

Mallarmé, writer, _suicidal impulse_.

Dostoieffsky, writer, _epilepsy_.

Napoleon, soldier, statesman, _folie du doute_, _epilepsy_.

Comte, philosopher, _hallucinations_.

Pascal, philosopher, _epilepsy_.

Poushkin, writer, _megalomania_.

Renan, philosopher, _folie du doute_.

Swift, writer, _paresis_.

Socrates, philosopher, _chorea_.

Schumann, musician, _paresis_.

Shelley, writer, _hallucinations_.

Bunyan, writer, _hallucinations_.

Swedenborg, theologian, _hallucinations_.

Loyola, theologian, _hallucinations_.

J. S. Mill, writer, _suicidal impulse_.

Linnæus, botanist, _paresis_.

The reader will observe that I have made use of the comprehensive word,
writer, to designate all kinds of literary work except theology and
philosophy. The above list is by no means complete, and only contains
the names of those geniuses with whom the world is well acquainted.

When we come to the geniuses of the New World, we find that, though few
in number, they, nevertheless, show erraticism and degeneration. Poe was
undoubtedly a man of great genius, and his degeneration was indicated by
his excessive use of alcohol. Aaron Burr was the victim of moral
anæsthesia, and Jefferson was pseudo-epileptic and neurasthenic.
Randolph was a man of marked eccentricity, and Benedict Arnold was,
morally, anæsthetic. Daniel Webster was addicted to an over-indulgence
in alcohol, likewise Thomas Marshall and the elder Booth. Booth also had
attacks of acute mania. His son Edwin had paresis; so also had John
McCullough, John T. Raymond, and Bartley Campbell. A distinguished
statesman and politician, and a man who stands high in the councils of
the nation, has, for a number of years, given evidence of mental
obliquity by his uncontrollable desire for alcohol. No power, outside of
bodily restraint, can control him and keep him from indulging his
appetite for alcohol when this desire seizes him. One of the most noted
poets of to-day, whose verses stir the heart with their pathos and bring
smiles to the gravest countenances with their humor, was, for a number
of years (and still is, so I have been told), an inordinate user of
alcohol.

Robert Ingersoll was undoubtedly a man of genius and of considerable
originality, and a close study of his writings shows conclusively his
mental eccentricity. Judging wholly from his printed utterances, Mr.
Ingersoll was only a superficial scientist and mediocre scholar. His
power lay in his wonderful word imagery, and his intricately constructed
verbal arabesques. He was a verbal symbolist. Symbolism, wherever
found, and in whatever art, if carried to any extent, must necessarily
be an evidence of atavism, consequently of degeneration.

Thomas Paine gave evidences of a lack of mental equipoise. We find
scattered throughout his works the most brilliant, irrefutable, and
logical truths side by side with the most inane, illogical, and stolid
crudities. Among other men of genius who showed signs of degeneration we
may include Alexander Stevens, Joel Hart, Adams, Train, Breckenridge,
Webster, Blaine, Van Buren, Houston, Grant, Hawthorne, Bartholow, Walt
Whitman. We must not confound genius and talent--the two are widely
different. Genius is essentially original and spontaneous, while talent
is to some extent acquired. Genius is a _quasi_ abnormality, and one for
which the world should be devoutly grateful. _Psychos_, in the case of
genius, is not uniformly developed, one part, being more favored than
the others, absorbs and uses more than its share of that element,
whatsoever it be, which goes to make up intellectuality, hence the less
favored or less acquisitive parts show degeneration.




THE EFFECT OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE ON POSTERITY.

     _The greatest, best, and highest law of higher civilization is that
     which declares that man should strive to benefit, not himself
     alone, but his posterity._


I. THE ORIGIN OF THE MATRIARCHATE.

In the very beginning woman was, by function, a mother; by virtue of her
surroundings, a housewife. Man was then, as now, the active, dominant
factor in those affairs outside the immediate pale of the fireside. Life
was collective; "communal was the habitation, and communal the wives
with the children; the men pursued the same prey, and devoured it
together after the manner of wolves; all felt, all thought, all acted in
concert." Primitive men were like their simian ancestors, which never
paired, and which roamed through the forest in bands and troops. This
collectivism is plainly noticeable in certain races of primitive folks
which are yet in existence, notably the autochthons of the Aleutian
Islands. Huddled together in their communal _kachims_, naked, without
any thought of immodesty, men, women, and children share the same fire
and eat from the same pot. They recognize no immorality in the fact of
the father cohabiting with his daughter--one of them naïvely remarking
to Langsdorf, who reproached him for having committed this crime: "Why
not? the otters do it!" Later in life the men and women mate; but even
then there is no sanctity in the marriage tie, for the Aleutian will
freely offer his wife to the stranger within his gates, and will
consider it an insult if he refuses to enjoy her company. "As with many
savages and half-civilized people, the man who would not offer his guest
the hospitality of the conjugal couch, or the company of his
best-looking daughter, would be considered an ill-bred person."

This laxity in sexual relations was, at first, common to all races of
primitive men, but, after a time, there arose certain influences which
modified, to a certain extent, this free and indiscriminate intercourse.
Frequent wars must have occurred between hostile tribes of primitive
men, during which, some of them (physically or numerically weaker than
their opponents) must have been repeatedly vanquished, and many of their
females captured, for, in those old days (like those of more recent
times, for that matter) the women were the prizes for which the men
fought.

Under circumstances like these, the few remaining women must have served
as wives for all the men of the tribe; and, in this manner polyandry had
its inception. Polyandry gives women certain privileges which monandry
denies, and she is not slow to seize on these prerogatives, and to use
them in the furtherance of her own welfare. Polyandry, originating from
any cause whatever, will always end in the establishment of a
matriarchate, in which the women are either directly or indirectly at
the head of the government.

There are several matriarchates still extant in the world, and one of
the best known, as well as the most advanced, as far as civilization and
culture are concerned, is that of the Nairs, a people of India
inhabiting that portion of the country lying between Cape Comorin and
Mangalore, and the Ghâts and the Indian Ocean.

The Nairs are described as being the handsomest people in the world; the
men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are
slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is
carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say,
fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is
selected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as
the groom ties the _tali_, or marriage cord, about her neck, he is
feasted and is then dismissed; the wife must never again speak to, or
even look at, her husband. Once safely wedded, the girl becomes
emancipated, and can receive the attentions of as many men as she may
elect, though, I am informed, it is not considered fashionable, at
present, to have more than seven husbands, one for each day of the week.

Of no importance heretofore, after her farcical marriage the Nair woman
at once becomes a power in the councils of the nation; as a matter of
course, the higher her lovers the higher her rank becomes and the
greater her influence. Here is female suffrage in its primitive form,
brought about, it is true, by environment, and not by elective
franchise.

As far as the children are concerned, the power of the mother is
absolute; for they know no father, the maternal uncle standing in his
stead. Property, both personal and real, is vested in the woman; she is
the mistress and the ruler. "The mother reigns and governs; she has her
eldest daughter for prime minister in her household, through whom all
orders are transmitted to her little world. Formerly, in grand
ceremonials, the reigning prince himself yielded precedence to his
eldest daughter, and, of course, recognized still more humbly the
priority of his mother, before whom he did not venture to seat himself
until she had given him permission. Such was the rule from the palace to
the humblest dwelling of a Nair."

During the past fifty years, these people have made rapid strides toward
civilization, monandry and monogamy taking the places of polyandry and
polygamy, and fifty or a hundred years hence, this matriarchate will, in
all probability, entirely disappear.

I have demonstrated, I think, clearly and distinctly, that matriarchy,
or female government, is neither new nor advanced thought, but that it
is as old, almost, as the human race; that the "New Woman" was born many
thousands of years ago, and that her autotype, in some respects, is to
be found to-day in Mangalore! A return to matriarchy at the present time
would be distinctly and emphatically and essentially retrograde in every
particular. The right to vote carries with it the right to hold office,
and if women are granted the privilege of suffrage, they must also be
given the right to govern. Now let us see if we cannot find a reason for
this atavistic desire (matriarchy) in the physical and psychical
histories of its foremost advocates. I will discuss this question in
Part II of this paper.


II. THE VIRAGINT.

There are two kinds of genius. The first is progressive genius, which
always enunciates new and original matter of material benefit to the
human race, and which is, consequently, non-atavistic; the second is
atavistic or retrogressive genius, which is imitative and which always
enunciates dead and obsolete matter long since abandoned and thrown
aside as being utterly useless. The doctrines of communism and of
nihilism are the products of retrogressive genius and are clearly
atavistic, inasmuch as they are a reversion to the mental habitudes of
our savage ancestors. The doctrines of the matriarchate are likewise
degenerate beliefs, and, if held by any civilized being of to-day, are
evidences of psychic atavism.

Atavism invariably attacks the weak; and individuals of neurasthenic
type are more frequently its victims than are any other class of people.
Especially is this true in the case of those who suffer from psychical
atavism.

The woman of to-day who believes in and inculcates the doctrines of
matriarchy, doctrines which have been, as far as the civilized world is
concerned, thrown aside and abandoned these many hundred years, is as
much the victim of psychic atavism as was Alice Mitchell, who slew Freda
Ward in Memphis several years ago, and who was justly declared a
viragint by the court that tried her.

Without entering into the truthfulness or falseness of the theory
advanced by me elsewhere in this book, in regard to the primal cause of
psychic hermaphroditism, which I attributed and do still attribute to
psychic atavism, I think that I am perfectly safe in asserting that
every woman who has been at all prominent in advancing the cause of
equal rights in its entirety, has either given evidences or
masculo-femininity (viraginity), or has shown, conclusively, that she
was the victim of psycho-sexual aberrancy. Moreover, the history of
every viragint of any note in the history of the world shows that they
were either physically or psychically degenerate, or both.

Jeanne d'Arc was the victim of hystero-epilepsy, while Catharine the
Great was a dipsomaniac, and a creature of unbounded and inordinate
sensuality. Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius, a woman of
masculine type, whose very form embodied and shadowed forth the regnant
idea of her mind--absolute and utter rulership--was a woman of such
gross carnality, that her lecherous conduct shocked even the depraved
courtiers of her lewd and salacious court. The side-lights of history,
as Douglas Campbell has so cleverly pointed out in his "Puritan in
Holland, England, and America," declare that there is every reason to
believe that the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth of England, was not such a pure
and unspotted virgin as her admirers make her out to be. Sir Robert
Cecil says of her that "she was more man than woman," while history
shows conclusively that she was a pronounced viragint, with a slight
tendency toward megalomania. In a recent letter to me, Mr. George H.
Yeaman, ex-Minister to Denmark, writes as follows: "Whether it be the
relation of cause and effect, or only what logicians call a "mere
coincidence," the fact remains that in Rome, Russia, France, and
England, political corruption, cruelty of government, sexual
immorality--nay, downright, impudent, open, boastful indecency--have
culminated, for the most part, in the eras of the influence of viragints
on government or over governors."

Viraginity has many phases. We see a mild form of it in the tom-boy
who abandons her dolls and female companions for the marbles and
masculine sports of her boy acquaintances. In the loud-talking,
long-stepping, slang-using young woman we see another form; while
the square-shouldered, stolid, cold, unemotional, unfeminine android
(for she has the normal human form, without the normal human _psychos_)
is yet another. The most aggravated form of viraginity is that known as
homo-sexuality; with this form, however, this paper has nothing to do.

Another form of viraginity is technically known as gynandry, and may be
defined as follows: A victim of gynandry not only has the feelings and
desires of a man, but also the skeletal form, features, voice, etc., so
that the individual approaches the opposite sex anthropologically, and
in more than a psycho-sexual way (Krafft-Ebing).

As it is probable that this form of viraginity is sometimes acquired to
a certain extent, and that, too, very quickly, when a woman is placed
among the proper surroundings, I shall give the case of Sarolta,
Countess V., one of the most remarkable instances of gynandry on record.
If this woman, when a child, had been treated as a girl, she would in
all probability have gone through life as a woman, for she was born a
female in every sense of the word. At a very early age, however, her
father, who was an exceedingly eccentric nobleman, dressed her in boy's
clothing, called her Sandor, and taught her boyish games and sports.

"Sarolta-Sandor remained under her father's influence till her twelfth
year, and then came under the care of her maternal grandmother, in
Dresden, by whom, when the masculine play became too obvious, she was
placed in an institute and made to wear female attire. At thirteen she
had a love relation with an English girl, to whom she represented
herself as a boy, and ran away with her. She was finally returned to her
mother, who could do nothing with her, and was forced to allow her to
resume the name of Sandor and to put on boy's clothes. She accompanied
her father on long journeys, always as a young gentleman; she became a
_roué_, frequenting brothels and _cafés_ and often becoming intoxicated.
All of her sports were masculine; so were her tastes and so were her
desires. She had many love affairs with women, always skillfully hiding
the fact that she herself was a woman. She even carried her masquerade
so far as to enter into matrimony with the daughter of a distinguished
official and to live with her for some time before the imposition was
discovered." The woman whom Sandor married is described as being "a girl
of incredible simplicity and innocence;" in sooth, she must have been!

Notwithstanding this woman's passion for those of her own sex, she
distinctly states that in her thirteenth year she experienced normal
sexual desire. Her environments, however, had been those of a male
instead of a female, consequently her psychical weakness, occasioned by
degeneration inherited from an eccentric father, turned her into the
gulf of viraginity, from which she at last emerged, a victim of complete
gynandry. I have given this instance more prominence than it really
deserves, simply because I wish to call attention to the fact that
environment is one of the great factors in evolutionary development.

Many women of to-day who are in favor of female suffrage are influenced
by a single idea; they have some great reform in view, such as the
establishment of universal temperance, or the elevation of social
morals. Suffrage in its entirety, that suffrage which will give them a
share in the government, is not desired by them; they do not belong to
the class of viragints, unsexed individuals, whose main object is the
establishment of a matriarchate.

Woman is a creature of the emotions, of impulses, of sentiment, and of
feeling; in her the logical faculty is subordinate. She is influenced by
the object immediately in view, and does not hesitate to form a judgment
which is based on no other grounds save those of intuition. Logical men
look beyond the immediate effects of an action and predicate its
results on posterity. The percepts and recepts which form the concept of
equal rights also embody an eject which, though conjectural, is yet
capable of logical demonstration, and which declares that the final and
ultimate effect of female suffrage on posterity would be exceedingly
harmful.

We have seen that the pronounced advocates and chief promoters of equal
rights are probably viragints--individuals who plainly show that they
are psychically abnormal; furthermore, we have seen that the abnormality
is occasioned by degeneration, either acquired or inherent, in the
individual. Now let us see, if the right of female suffrage were
allowed, what effect it would produce on the present environment of the
woman of to-day, and, if any, what effect this changed environment would
have on the psychical habitudes of the woman of the future. This portion
of the subject will be discussed in Part III of this paper.


III. THE DECADENCE.

It is conceded that man completed his cycle of physical development many
thousands of years ago. Since his evolution from his pithecoid ancestor
the forces of nature have been at work evolving man's psychical being.
Now, man's psychical being is intimately connected with, and dependent
upon, his physical being; therefore it follows that degeneration of his
physical organism will necessarily engender psychical degeneration also.
Hence, if I can prove that woman, by leading a life in which her present
environments are changed, produces physical degeneration, it will
naturally follow that psychical degeneration will also accrue; and,
since one of the invariable results of degeneration, both physical and
psychical, is atavism, the phenomenon of a social revolution in which
the present form of government will be overthrown and a matriarchate
established in its stead, will be not a possibility of the future, but a
probability.

That the leaders of this movement in favor of equal rights look for such
a result, I have not the slightest doubt; for, not many days ago, Susan
B. Anthony stood beside the chair of a circuit judge in one of our
courthouses and, before taking her seat, remarked that there were those
in her audience who doubtless thought "that she was guilty of
presumption and usurpation" (in taking the judge's chair), but that
there would come a day when they would no longer think so!

Statistics show clearly and conclusively that there is an alarming
increase of suicide and insanity among women, and I attribute this
wholly to the already changed environment of our women. As the matter
stands they have already too much liberty. The restraining influences
which formerly made woman peculiarly a housewife have been, in a
measure, removed, and woman mixes freely with the world. Any new duty
added to woman as a member of society would modify her environment to
some extent and call for increased nervous activity. When a duty like
suffrage is added the change in her environment must necessarily be
marked and radical, with great demands for an increased activity. The
right of suffrage would, unquestionably, very materially change the
environment of woman at the present time, and would entail new and
additional desires and emotions which would be other and most exhausting
draughts on her nervous organism.

The effects of degeneration are slow in making their appearance, yet
they are exceedingly certain. The longer woman lived amid surroundings
calling for increased nervous expenditure, the greater would be the
effects of the accruing degeneration on her posterity. "Periods of
moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with
times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only
be conceived as occurring with increased demands on the nervous system,
which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of
nervousness there is increase of sensuality, and since this leads to
excess among the masses it undermines the foundations of society--the
morality and purity of family life" (Krafft-Ebing).

The inherited psychical habitudes, handed down through hundreds and
thousands of years, would prevent the immediate destruction of that
ethical purity for which woman is noted, and in the possession of which
she stands so far above man. I do not think that this ethical purity
would be lost in a day or a year, or a hundred years, for that matter;
yet there would come a time when the morality of to-day would be
utterly lost, and society would sink into some such state of existence
as we now find _en evidence_ among the Nairs. In support of this
proposition I have only to instance the doctrines promulgated by some of
the most advanced advocates of equal rights. The "free love" of some
advanced women, I take it, is but the free choice doctrine in vogue
among the Nairs and kindred races of people.

John Noyes, of the Oneida Community, where equal rights were observed,
preached the same doctrines. It is true that the people who advocate
such unethical principles are degenerate individuals, psychical
atavists, yet they faithfully foreshadow in their own persons that which
would be common to all men and women at some time in the future, if
equal rights were allowed, and carried out in their entirety.

This is an era of luxury, and it is a universally acknowledged fact that
luxury is one of the prime factors in the production of degeneration.
We see forms and phases of degeneration thickly scattered throughout all
circles of society, in the plays which we see performed in our theaters,
and in the books and papers published daily throughout the land. The
greater portion of the _clientèle_ of the alienist and neurologist is
made up of women who are suffering with neurotic troubles, generally of
a psychopathic nature. The number of viragints, gynandrists, androgynes,
and other psycho-sexual aberrants of the feminine gender is very large
indeed.

It is folly to deny the fact that the right of female suffrage will make
no change in the environment of woman. The New Woman glories in the
fact, that the era which she hopes to inaugurate will introduce her into
a new world. Not satisfied with the liberty she now enjoys, and which is
proving to be exceedingly harmful to her in more ways than one, she
longs for more freedom, a broader field of action. If nature provided
men and women with an inexhaustible supply of nervous energy, they might
set aside physical laws, and burn the candle at both ends without any
fear of its being burned up. Nature furnishes each individual with just
so much nervous force and no more; moreover, she holds every one
strictly accountable for every portion of nervous energy which he or she
may squander; therefore, it behooves us to build our causeway with
exceeding care, otherwise we will leave a chasm which will engulf
posterity.

The baneful effects resulting from female suffrage will not be seen
to-morrow, or next week, or week after next, or next month, or next
year, or a hundred years hence, perhaps. It is not a question of our day
and generation; it is a matter involving posterity. The simple right to
vote carries with it no immediate danger, the danger comes afterward;
probably many years after the establishment of female suffrage, when
woman, owing to her increased degeneration, gives free rein to her
atavistic tendencies, and hurries ever backward toward the savage state
of her barbarian ancestors. I see, in the establishment of equal rights,
the first step toward that abyss of immoral horrors so repugnant to our
cultivated ethical tastes--the matriarchate. Sunk as low as this,
civilized man will sink still lower--to the communal _kachims_ of the
Aleutian Islanders.




IS IT THE BEGINNING OF THE END?


When we come to examine the history of the world we find evidence that
certain nations have, at times, reached a high state of prosperity, and
have then degenerated to such a degree that they have either passed
entirely out of existence, or have lapsed into a state of
semi-barbarity. This has generally been brought about by conquest, but
the races conquered had first become enfeebled by their habitudes of
thought and manner of living. It is a well-established fact that luxury
brings debauchery, and that debauchery occasions degeneration. All
nations that have, heretofore, reached the zenith of their prosperity,
have been engulfed, at some time or other, in the maelstrom of luxurious
habits, and have fallen under the lethal influence of a degeneration
occasioned solely by debauchery; for the luxury and debauchery of one
class brought increased poverty on, as well as excess in, other classes,
and poverty and excess are prominent factors in the production of
degeneration, as we shall see further on in this paper. Says the
brilliant author of "Psychopathia Sexualis," Krafft-Ebing: "Periods of
moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with
times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only
be conceived as occurring with increased demands upon the nervous
system, which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of
nervousness, there is increase of sensuality, and, since this leads to
excesses among the masses, it undermines the foundations of society--the
morality and purity of family life. When this is destroyed by excesses,
unfaithfulness, and luxury, then the destruction of the state is
inevitably compassed in material, moral, and political ruin."

Such was the condition of the Latin race when the fierce and hardy
Vandals overran the Roman peninsula; such was the condition of the
Assyrians when Babylon fell beneath the onslaughts of the great
Macedonian; such was the condition of the Egyptians when the northern
myriads swept down upon the fertile valley of the Nile, and destroyed
forever the once powerful and all-conquering kingdom of the Pharaohs;
and such, too, was the condition of the French nation in 1794, when
Anarchy unfurled its red banner at the head of the most gigantic social
revolution the world has ever known.

At the present time, community of interests, as well as higher
civilization, would utterly forbid the total subjugation of one
civilized nation by another, such as occurred in the olden times; hence
no nation need fear annihilation from such a source. The danger comes
from another point, and consists in the almost certain uprising, at some
time in the future, of degenerate individuals in open warfare and
rebellion against society.

The question whether the world is growing better or worse is often
debated, and can be answered affirmatively on both sides. Better,
because superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism have given way, to a great
extent, to the tolerance and freedom of higher civilization and purer
ethics in normal, healthy man; worse, because crime (and I mean by crime
_all_ anti-social acts) has greatly increased on account of the
pernicious influence of degeneration.

That superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism are on the wane, and that they
will, sooner or later, be entombed in that depository of obsolete savage
mental habitudes--absolute and utter oblivion--a glance at the success
that science has achieved in the warfare waged against it by the Church,
will at once declare. (Throughout this article I use the word Church to
express priests of any and every denomination, whether Jew, Gentile, or
Pagan, Protestant or Catholic.) A short incursion into this subject, _i.
e._, the Church's warfare on science, is absolutely necessary. For the
triumph of science over its enemies--superstition, bigotry, and
dogmatism, coincidently, ignorance and illiterateness--shows that the
civilized world, at the present time, is markedly different in some
respects from the world of ancient, medieval, and even comparatively
recent times; and, in summing up, this changed condition will be a
weighty factor in making up an answer to the question which heads this
paper.

When Olympus first faded away from the enlightened eyesight of the
Greeks, and changed into space besprinkled with stars; when Zeus no
longer held his divine court on its mystic summit; when oracles became
mute and the fabled wonders of the "Odyssey" either vanished, or
resolved themselves into prosaic commonplaces under the investigations
of the skeptic or the accidental discoverer, the Church made a most
strenuous protest against the destruction of its traditions.

Many of these early seekers after truth were even killed and their goods
confiscated. The Church issued its edict against heresy (and any
doctrine that taught a belief antagonistic to the accepted tenets of
pagan mythology and theogony was heresy), and hurled its anathemas
against the heretic. Olympus, in the eyes of the Church, still existed,
and Zeus, the man-god, still quaffed the sacred ambrosia in its shady
groves. The Sirens still sang their entrancing songs, while Scylla and
Charybdis were ever stretching out eager arms toward unwary mariners.
Gigantic one-eyed Cyclops, with Polyphemus as their leader, still
patrolled the shores of Sicily, and kept their "ever-watchful eyes"
turned toward the open sea.

The hardy Greek sailor landed on the Cyclopean island, and discovered
that Polyphemus, and Arges, and Brontes, and Steropes, and all the
other one-eyed monsters were nothing but sea-wrack, bowlders, and weeds.
He sailed farther, past Scylla and Charybdis, and discovered no greater
dangers than sharp rocks and whirlpools. Yet farther he sailed out into
the unknown sea, and the only Siren's song he heard was the whistling of
the wind through the cordage of his vessel.

In vain the Church thundered against the daring investigator. Neither
fire, nor sword, nor imprisonment, nor death itself could check the
march of truth. Mythology and pagan theogony had received their
death-blows; superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism were elbowed aside and
gave place to dawning science. The Church held that that which had been
believed by pious men for untold ages must necessarily be true. Science,
in the garb of philosophy, with cold, dispassionate criticism, proved
that these hitherto accepted truths were arrant fallacies. The poets
and writers then took up the subject, and finally the people fell into
line, so superstitious, bigoted, dogmatic mythology died,
intellectuality took its place, and higher civilization took a step
forward.

Thomas H. Huxley writes, in his preface to "Science and Christian
Tradition," as follows: "I have never 'gone out of my way' to attack the
Bible or anything else; it was the dominant, ecclesiasticism of my early
days, which, as I believe, without any warrant from the Bible itself,
thrust the book in my way.

"I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of
exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's
breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue; and
yet I found that, whatever route I took, before long I came to a tall
and formidable looking fence. Confident as I might be in the existence
of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood the thorny
barrier with its comminatory notice-board--'NO THOROUGHFARE. By order.
MOSES.' There seemed no way over; nor did the prospect of creeping
round, as I saw some do attract me.... The only alternatives were either
to give up my journey--which I was not minded to do--or to break the
fence down and go through it."

Huxley found that this Mosaic fence, as erected by dogmatic theologians
and scholasticists, was but a flimsy structure at best, and one that was
easily overthrown and destroyed.

Dogmatic theology teaches that man was created from the dust of the
earth, and that he at once fell heir to an estate of physical and
psychical habitudes which were God-like in character; scientific
investigation, on the contrary, demonstrated the fact that man's
inception begins in bathybian protoplasm and culminates, as far as his
general physical organism is concerned, in the last link of an
evolutionary chain that reaches back and back, through countless eons of
ages, to the very beginnings of life.

The History of Life written upon the rocky frame-work of this gray and
hoary old world, declares that man's physical being is but the result of
the laws of evolution. He did not spring into being, like the sea-born
Venus, a creature of physical grace, and strength, and beauty; nor did
the sacred flame of an inborn intelligence at once illumine his
countenance. For thousands of years, the forbears of the present
civilized _homo sapiens_ were but slightly above the _Alalus_ (ape-like
man) of Haeckel in point of personal pulchritude; and for thousands of
years, the ancestors of the civilized man of to-day were savages, with
all the psychical traits of primitive peoples.

Social ethics are as much the result of evolutionary growth as is man
himself. Civilization, which is but another name for ethical culture,
is the outcome of the inherited experiences of thousands of years. These
experiences were the results of law, and that law can be embraced in one
comprehensive word--evolution.

Now, one of the most noticeable facts in biological history is the
tendency that animal structures or organisms, under certain
circumstances, have toward atavism or reversion to ancestral types. Not
only is this to be observed in the physical organisms of animals, but
also in their psychical beings as well.

Atavism is invariably the result of degeneration, as I will endeavor to
demonstrate later on in this paper.

I believe that we are rapidly hurrying toward a social cataclysm, beside
which the downfall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of ancient
Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations, and the bloody days of the French
Revolution will sink into utter insignificance. I believe, also, and
think that I can demonstrate the truthfulness of my belief, that the
inciting cause of this social revolution will not be found in those
citizens of the United States of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic parentage, but
that it will be observed among our Slavonic, Teutonic, and Latinic
citizens. But, in order to furnish a parallel (from which you may draw
your own conclusions), before I enter fully into the discussion of this
part of my subject, I wish to review, very briefly, certain historical
epochs.

When the first conquerors of Egypt, about whom history can tell us so
little, first occupied the fertile valley of the Nile, the country, in
all probability, was inhabited by negroes. The conquering race drove out
or enslaved the native population and founded the ancient kingdom of
Egypt. This kingdom waxed strong and mighty until, at the time of
Rameses the Great, more than three thousand two hundred years ago, it
was the most powerful monarchy in the whole world. The mighty son of
Ra, Meiamoun Ra, or Rameses, as he is most generally styled, was a
warrior and a statesman. He led his victorious troops north, east, and
west, conquering nations as he went, until he dominated and brought into
a state of vassalage over two-thirds of the then known world.

Wealth flowed into his kingdom from all the surrounding countries,
consequently, luxury, with its never-failing associate, debauchery, made
its appearance, and the decadence of this mighty kingdom set in.

It is true that many Pharaohs reigned after Rameses, and that the
monarchy maintained its greatness for a long period of time, but luxury
had taken hold on the Egyptians at the time of their greatest prosperity
and had sown the seeds of degeneration, which flourished and grew apace,
until the emasculated and effeminate people yielded up their
independence to the conquerors, and passed out of existence as a nation
forever.

The Roman people, under the leadership of their ancient heroes, was a
nation of hardy warriors and husbandmen. That preëminent military
genius, Julius Cæsar, had carefully fostered this warlike spirit in the
bosoms of his compatriots, and, by a series of brilliant campaigns, had
made the Roman nation the most powerful on the face of the globe. The
Roman legions were not only victorious on land, extending their
conquests into Iberia, farther Gaul, and still farther Britain, but the
Roman triremes also swept the Mediterranean, from the Pillars of
Hercules to the shores of Syria and Egypt. Wealth poured into the
country from all sides, and the people reveled in a boundless
prosperity.

Luxury had already begun to enervate the hardy soldiery at the time of
Cæsar's assassination, yet not enough to show the full effects of
degeneration and demoralization. The empire under the first emperors
steadily grew richer and more powerful, and the luxury of the rich more
unlimited and licentious. At length a change can be noticed. The Roman
legions, hitherto victorious over every foe, are now frequently
vanquished; conquered tribes uprear the standard of revolt and refuse to
pay tribute; the territorial boundaries of the empire materially shrink,
and its once conquered provinces pass out of its dominion forever.

The gradual degeneration of this nation is faithfully mirrored in the
character of the emperors who governed it. Nero, Caligula, Tiberius,
Caracalla, and Messalina, the depraved wife of Claudius and the daughter
of Domitia Lepida, herself a licentious and libidinous woman, were but
accentuated types of the luxurious and debauched nobility. Not only did
the nobility become victims of degeneration, but the poorer classes also
lost their virility, until at last we find the stability of the nation
preserved through the instrumentality of foreign mercenaries. The
greatness of this once widespread empire dwindled away (the freedom of
its institutions contracting along with its shrinking boundaries), until
we find it lapsed into a state of barbarian despotism under the son of
Aurelius; and, had it not been for outside influences, it would have
eventually fallen into a state of utter and complete savagery.

Now let us turn to a recent civilization. At the time of Louis XVI., the
French nation was thoroughly under the influence of degeneration
consequent to a luxury and licentiousness that had had a cumulative
action for several hundred years. The peasantry and the inhabitants of
the faubourgs, owing to their extreme poverty, itself a powerful factor
in the production of degeneration, had lapsed into a state closely akin
to that of their savage ancestors. The nobility were weak and
effeminate, the majority of them either sexual perverts or monsters of
sensuality and lechery.

The middle class, as ever the true conservators of society, seeing this
miserable state of affairs, attempted to remedy it. Not fully
understanding the danger of such a procedure, they allowed the
degenerate element to share in their deliberations. Their moderate and
sensible counsels were quickly overruled by their savage associates, who
brought about a Reign of Terror (with such psychical atavists as Marat,
Danton, and Robespierre at its head), the like of which the world had
never seen before, nor has ever experienced since.

I have demonstrated, in the three instances of history just cited, that
degeneration has invariably followed luxury, and that a social and
political cataclysm has been, invariably, the result of this
degeneration. That certain classes of the Old World, and of the New
World, also, are living in inordinate luxury; and that certain other
classes are, even now, struggling in the very depths of poverty, is a
well-known fact. That this state of affairs is rapidly increasing the
percentage of degenerates, such as sexual perverts, insane individuals,
and congenital criminals, is not generally known; yet it is a woeful
truth.

The factors in the production of degeneration are as multitudinous as
they are varied, and I can find space for only a few of them. The
artificiality of many peoples' lives, wherein night is turned into day,
is a prominent factor in the production of degeneration. Now, the long
continued influence of artificial light exerts a very deleterious effect
on the nervous system; hence it is not to be wondered at that so many
men and women of society are neurasthenic. Not only are those
individuals who, voluntarily and preferably, spend the greater portions
of their lives in artificial light, rendered nervously irritable, but
those, also, who are driven by force of circumstances to turn night
into day are likewise afflicted. Several years ago, I met a
distinguished editor at Waukesha, who was suffering greatly from nervous
exhaustion. He told me that he was so situated that he did all of his
work at night, often writing until three o'clock in the morning. I
advised him to quit this and to do his editorial work during daylight.
Not long after, he wrote me that he had followed my advice, and that he
was a new man in point of health.

The loss of nervous vitality makes itself evident by a feeling either of
exhaustion or irritability. The fashionable devotee, in order to
counteract this, either stimulates the system with alcohol, or exorcises
the "fidgets" by the use of sedatives, such as chloral or morphia. The
baneful effects of such medication are not at once appreciable, but, if
continued for any length of time, they will eventually result in a total
demoralization of the nervous system. Time and again have I seen
fashionable men and women, at the close of the season, veritable nervous
wrecks.

What necessarily would be the effect of physical and psychical lesions
like these on a child begotten by such parents? The inevitable result
would be degeneration in some form or other.

Again, many men and women stand the drain of a fashionable season on
their nervous systems without attempting to recoup through the agency of
drugs, and at the end find themselves physically and psychically
exhausted. They go to the seaside or some other resort, and, in a
measure, recover their nervous vitality, only to lose it again during
the next season. This continues for season after season, the nervous
system all the time becoming weaker, until some day there is a collapse,
ending in hysteria, paresis, or some other of the hundred forms of
neurotic disorder. What will be the effect on the progeny resulting from
the union of such individuals? Again the answer must necessarily
be--degeneration.

The long and continued intercourse of the sexes in the ball-room, where
the women are dressed so _décolleté_ that they excite sensuality in the
men, very frequently without the men being conscious of the fact, must
necessarily exert a deleterious effect on the nervous system.

Contact of the sexes in the dance is only pleasurable because of that
contact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and
denied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim
that no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. I know
from personal experiences that they are honest in this declaration, yet,
from a psychical standpoint, they are woefully in error. Aestheticism
and carnality are by no means as dissociate as the æsthete would have us
believe. _All pleasurable emotions that have their inception in the
senses are, fundamentally, of carnal origin._ The waltz is æsthetic,
yet all of its pleasure is based on an emotion closely akin to
sensuality. Men derive no pleasure from waltzing with one another, nor
do women under like circumstances.

Nature demands in the interest of health a certain amount of exercise.
The luxurious society man or woman utterly disregards this demand of
nature, consequently indigestion, with all of its associated ills, steps
in, and becomes an additional factor in the production of nervous
exhaustion. To tempt the appetite, highly seasoned foods, many of which
are deleterious and injurious, are prepared and taken into the torpid
and crippled stomach. Finally nature rebels and the unfortunate
dyspeptic is forced to go through life on a diet of oatmeal, or,
weakened by lack of healthy sustenance, the brain gives way, and the
victim passes the remainder of his or her life in a lunatic asylum.
Children begotten by miserable invalids like these, beyond a
peradventure, must necessarily be degenerate.

Indigestion is not the only ill that nature inflicts for any disregard
of her laws. She is a rough nurse but a safe one, consequently she
forbids the rearing of her hardiest creation, man, in hot houses, as
though he were a tender exotic. The luxurious individual pampers his
body, following the dictates of his own selfish desires and utterly
disregarding the laws of nature, and before he reaches middle age,
discovers that he has become an old, old man, weak in body, but still
weaker in mind.

The children resulting from the union of the various neurasthenics
described above are necessarily degenerate. As they grow up, they show
this degeneration by engaging in all kinds of licentious debauchery, and
unnatural and perverted indulgences of appetite. In nine cases out of
ten, they will spend the fortunes inherited from their parents in
riotous debauchery, and will eventually sink, if death does not
overtake them, to the level of their fellow degenerates--those who have
been brought into existence by poverty and debauchery, and who await
them at the foot of the social ladder. Among such degenerate beings, the
doctrines of socialism, of communism, of nihilism, and of anarchy have
their origin.

Now let us turn our attention to the evidences of luxury and debauchery,
and the consequent evidences of degeneration, which obtrude themselves
on all sides. The reckless extravagance of the nobility of the Old World
is well known. Vice and licentiousness even penetrate to royal
households, and princes of the blood pose as roués and debauchees. As I
have demonstrated elsewhere, degeneration in the wealthy classes of
society generally makes itself evident by the appearance of
psycho-sexual disorders. The horrible abominations of the English
nobility, as portrayed in the revelations of Mr. Stead, are well known.
Charcot, Segalâs, Féré, and Bouvier give clear and succinct accounts of
the vast amount of sexual perversion existing among the French, while
Krafft-Ebing informs us that the German empire is cursed by the presence
of thousands of these unfortunates. When we come to examine this phase
of degeneration in our own country, we find that it is very prevalent.
This is especially noticeable in the larger cities, though we find
examples of it scattered broadcast throughout the land.

The editor of one of our leading magazines, in a remarkable series of
letters, has shown that the wealthy New Yorkers revel in a luxuriousness
that is absolutely startling in its license. Thousands are expended on a
single banquet, while the flower bills for a single year of some of
these modern Luculli would support a family of five people for three or
four years! Bacchanalian orgies that dim even those of the depraved,
corrupt, and degenerate Nero are of nightly occurrence.[AI] Drunkenness,
lechery, and gambling are the sports and pastimes of these ultra rich
men, and it is even whispered that milady is not much behind milord in
the pursuit of forbidden pleasures.

     [AI] I know from personal observation that "Seeley Dinners" are of
     frequent occurrence in New York, as well as in other large cities.
     J. W., Jr.

Psycho-sexual disorders are not the only evidences of degeneration in
the wealthy, by any means. Many a congenital criminal is born in the
purple, who shows his moral imbecility in many ways. Sometimes he sinks
at once to the level of a common thief, but generally his education
keeps him within the pale of the law. Always, however, his sensuality is
unbounded, and he will hesitate at nothing in order to gratify his
desires. This unbridled license has already had its effect elsewhere. We
see that it has even corrupted the guardians and conservators of the
public peace. The recent investigation of the police board of New York
shows a degree of corruption that is simply overwhelming, and that the
same state of affairs exists in Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and
other large cities, I have every reason to believe.

There are yet other evidences of degeneration; witness the eroticism
that is to be found in our literature. Unless a book appeals to the
degenerate tastes of its readers it might just as well never have been
published. This is not cynicism; it is plain, unvarnished truth. Again,
turn to the stage, and we find the same thing. The tragedies and
comedies of Shakespeare are shelved, while immoral "society plays" and
"living pictures" and "problem plays" hold the boards. Salacity, with
only sufficient and that is, degeneration. That which happened centuries
ago will happen again, for covering to hide downright lewdness, is
everywhere apparent. Now what is the result of this? There can be but
one answer, man is governed by the same laws of nature now as he was
then.

Statistics show that insanity is markedly on the increase. This is not
to be wondered at when we take into consideration the fact that
debauchery is the rule, and not the exception, among certain classes of
people. Syphilis, one of the most productive causes of degeneration, is
exceedingly active throughout the whole civilized world. Blashko states
that one out of every ten men in the city of Berlin is tainted with this
terrible malady. This is wholly attributable to the unbounded sensuality
of the people. Crime of every description is rearing its hydra-head, and
clasping in its destroying embrace an alarming proportion of human
beings.

I have shown elsewhere, that the congenital criminal is the result of
degeneration, and that he comes from all classes of society. He is,
however, most frequently the product of the lower classes, and lives
and dies among his congeners. I have shown, also, that the anarchist,
the nihilist, and the socialist belong to the same category of
degenerate beings. Poverty, brought on by high taxation, by war, and by
overcrowding, has been, during the last millenary period, very fertile
in the production of degenerates in the Old World. Lack of food and
sanitation, the usual adjuncts of poverty, are powerful factors in the
production of degenerate individuals. The Old World has gotten rid of
these people as rapidly as possible by unloading them on our shores.
Year after year, practically without restriction, thousands of these
anti-social men and women have swarmed into our country, until we,
comparatively speaking, a nation just born, contain as many of these
undesirable citizens as any of the older nations. They still continue to
enter our gates, and we ourselves are adding to their number, as I have
shown, by our own production.

Some day--and I greatly fear that day is not very far distant--some
professional anarchist (for there are professional anarchists as well as
professional thieves) will consider the time ripe for rebellion, and,
raising the fraudulent cry of "Labor against Capital!" instead of his
legitimate cry of "Rapine! Murder! Booty!" will lead this army of
degenerates, composed of anarchists, nihilists, sexual perverts, and
congenital criminals, against society. And who will bear the brunt of
this savage irruption? The ultra-rich? By no means! The great "middle
class"--the true conservators of society and civilization--will fight
this battle. It will be a fight between civilization and degeneration,
and civilization will carry the day. There would have been no French
revolution had the middle class been as wise then as it is to-day. It
was taken by surprise at that savage, bloody time, but as soon as it
recovered, how quickly it brought order out of chaos!

Education is the bulwark of civilization, and the great middle class,
freed of dogmatism, bigotry, and superstition, is welcoming education
with outstretched hands. It is gaining recruits, and is strengthening
its defenses, so that when the time comes its enemies may find it fully
prepared.

From the signs of the times and the evidence before me, I have no
hesitation in declaring that I believe that the beginning of the end is
at hand! This social cataclysm may not occur for many years, yet the
agencies through which it will finally be evolved are even now at work,
and are bringing the culmination of their labors ever nearer and nearer
as time passes!




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WAPPAUS: _Allgem. Bevoelkerungsstatistik_.

WALLACE: _Travels on the Amazon_.

WESTERMARCK: _Human Marriage_.

WHITE: _History of the Warfare of Science with Theology_.

WALLACE: _The Malay Archipelago_.

WEIR: _Dawn of Reason_.


  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
  |                Transcriber's Notes and Errata                |
  |                                                              |
  | There are two series of footnotes in this book. Footnotes    |
  | with Arabic numbers are references to external sources.      |
  | Footnotes with uppercase English letters are the author's    |
  | notes. There is one hand-written correction in the book      |
  | which has been marked with a third type of footnote, one     |
  | with a lowercase roman number.                               |
  |                                                              |
  | The trasliteration of a few Grek phrases has been inserted   |
  | in the text in square brackets immediately after the text.   |
  |                                                              |
  | The following words are found in both hyphenated and         |
  | unhyphenated form. The number of each instance is given in   |
  | parentheses.                                                 |
  |                                                              |
  |                |foot-note (1) |footnote (2) |                |
  |                                                              |
  | The following words were found in the text with acented and  |
  | unaccented letters, with ligatures and separated letters.    |
  | The number of each instance is given in parentheses.         |
  |                                                              |
  |              |anaesthesia (2) |anæsthesia (2) |              |
  |              |haematuria (1)  |hæmaturia (3)  |              |
  |              |hetarae (1)     |hetaræ (4)     |              |
  |              |Martene (2)     |Martène (3)    |              |
  |              |poeniteat (2)   |poèniteat (1)  |              |
  |              |Remusat (2)     |Rèmusat (2)    |              |
  |              |saepe (1)       |sæpe (1)       |              |
  |              |Wappaus (1)     |Wappäus (2)    |              |
  |                                                              |
  | The following typographic errors have been corrected.        |
  |                                                              |
  |                |Error        |Correction   |                 |
  |                |sancity      |sanctity     |                 |
  |                |phophylactic |prophylactic |                 |
  |                |Pharoahs     |Pharaohs     |                 |
  |                |hun-hundreds |hundreds     |                 |
  |                |errotic      |erotic       |                 |
  |                |Voltair      |Voltaire     |                 |
  |                |enverated    |enervated    |                 |
  |                |considerd    |considered   |                 |
  |                |Kraft-Ebing  |Krafft-Ebing |                 |
  |                |neuroloogist |neurologist  |                 |
  |                |Brittain     |Britain      |                 |
  +--------------------------------------------------------------+





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