/ t'/lat it a-iiouic/ evez iio-ve rfeen d’ozn / MORAL PHYSIOLOGY; 
OR, 
A BRIEF AND PLAIN TREATISE 
ON THE 
POPULATION (QUESTION. 
BV ROBERT DALE OWEN. 
The principle of utility is the foundation of the present-wor*. 
Bentliam on Morals and Legislation, 
TENTH EDITION, WITH NOTES BY THE PUBLISHER, 
/ bodying ad Modern Discoveries—illustrated by Anatomical and 
Physiological Engravings. 
BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY J. P. MENDUM, 
AT THE OFFICE OF THE “ BOSTON INVESTIGATOH.” 
1 8 7 6. *, The frontispit ee which accompanies this treatise, represents a poor mcthei 
abandoning her infimt, at the gate of the Ilota Erffans Ironves, (Foe-filing 
llospit.il) at Paris. The original painting, from wmon tins is a faithfu. copy, is 
by Vig teron, a French artist of celebrity ; it was purchased at the price of one 
thousand dollars for the Galerie Royale, and is now in the possession of the 
French king. 
The Hotel des Enfans trouves, than which a more humane institution was 
never founded, exhibits, in its every arrangement, order, economy, and, above 
all, a beautiful tenderness of the feelings of those poor creatures who are tints 
compelled to avail themselves, for their offspring, of the asylum it affords. No 
obtrusive observation is made, no unfeeling question asked : the infant charge is 
received in silence, and either trained and supported until maturity, or, if cir- 
cumstances, at any subsequent period, enable the parents to claim their offspring, 
it is restored to their care. 
There is surely no sect, of creed so frozen, or ritual so rigid, that it can sys 
tematize away the common feelings of humanity, or dry up, in the breasts of 
some gentler spirits, the milk of human kindness. The benevolent founder and 
indefatigable supporter of this nobis institution was a Jesuit! Be the good deeds 
of St. Vincent de Paul remembered, long after the intrigues and cruelties of 
his fellow sectaries are forgotten ! 
The case selected is one of mild, of modified,—I had almost said, of favoured 
misfortune : an extreme case were too revolting for representation. But even 
under these comparatively happy circumstances, when benevolence extends her 
Samaritan care to the destitute and the forsaken, who that regards for a moment 
the abandoned helplessness of the deserted child, and the mute distress of the 
departing mother, but will join in the exclamation “Atoal tutu, a auould ever 
liave been bom!” PREFACE. 
It may be proper to state, in few words, the immediate circumstances 
which induced me, at the present time, to write and publish this treatise. 
Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with 
him two pretty specimens of English typography. One represented a 
triumphal arch with a statue of the late king, and was made up of 17,000 
different pieces of common printing type; the other, an altar piece, 
having the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments, printed within 
it, and compose*’ of about 13,000 separate pieces. The gentleman was 
requested by a Brighton printer who executed them, to present these, as 
specimens of English typography, to some of his brethren craftsmen in 
America. He presented them to me; I admired the ingenuity displayed 
in the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented 
rather to some printers’ society than to an individual. I therefore ad- 
dressed them to our Typographical Society in New-York, accompa- 
nied by a note simply requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as 
specimens of the art in England. 
I thought no more of the matter, until I received, the other day, my 
specimens back again, with a long and not a little angry letter, signed by 
three of the members, accusing Robert Dale Owen of principles subver- 
sive of every virtue under heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction 
of every commandment in the decalogue; and, more especially, accusing 
him of having given his sanction to a work, as they expressed it, “ hold- 
ing out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their daughters, 
sisters, and wives.” 
I subsequently learned, from one of the society, circumstances which 
somewhat extenuate (albeit nothing can excuse) their childish incivility. 
A gentleman who busied himself last year in making out a notable re- 
ply to the “ Society for the Protection of Industry,” got up, at a late Ty- 
pographical meeting, and read to the Society several detached extracts 
from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile, entitled “ Every Woman’s 
Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be excessively indecent; and 
asked the Society whether they would receive any thing at the hands 
of a man who publicly approved a book of a tendency so dreadfully 
immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society were (or affected IV 
PREFACE, 
to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee to return to me 
the heretical specimens, which committee penned the letter to which I 
have alluded. 
Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be 
of pernicious tendency. Had some garbled extracts only from it been 
read to me, I might possibly have utterly misconceived its tone and ten- 
dency, and its author’s motives. But he must be blind indeed, who can 
read the pamphlet through, and then (whether he approve it or not) 
can attribute other than good intentions to the individual who was bold 
enough to put it forth. 
As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing 
in Indiana, to publish it, and declined doing so. My chief reasons were, 
that I doubted its physiological correctness; that I did not consider its 
style and tone in good taste ; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the New 
Harmony Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this coun- 
try only “ to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the cu- 
riosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of 
the philanthropist, of the physiologist, and of every father and mother 
of a family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, 
that my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well 
founded. 
My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a 
duty to the cause of reform to step forward and vindicate them ; and 
this the rather, because, unless I give my own sentiments, I shall be un- 
derstood as unqualifiedly endorsing Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one 
more admires than I do the courage and strength of mind which induced 
that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject; and to him 
be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But the man- 
ner of his book Ido not admire. There is in it that which was repul- 
sive (I will not say revolting) to my feelings, on the first perusal; and 
though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not 
attributable, in a great measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that 
a similar, and even a more unfavourable impression, will be made on the 
minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardized. Then 
again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat incor- 
rect as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error 
might be of fatal consequence. 
It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from 
similar objections; yet I have taken groat pains to render it so, 
R. D. O. 
P. S. {to the fourth edition.') Communications from intelligent in 
dividuals, on whose physiological knowledge I place reliance, have ena- 
bled and induced me somewhat to modify the text, and alter the arrange- 
ment, of the sixth chapter. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
I sit down to write alittle treatise, which will subject me 
to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from 
the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly 
prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many 
more will misconceive its tendency. I would have de 
layed its publication, had the choice been permitted me, 
until the popular mind was better prepared to receive it. 
but the enemies of reform have already foisted the sub- 
ject, under an odious form, on the public; and I have 
no choice left. If, therefore, I prematurely touch the 
honest prejudices of any, let them bear in mind, that 
the occasion is not of my seeking. 
The subject I intend to discuss is strictly a physiologi- 
cal subject, although connected, like many other phy- 
siological subjects, with political economy, morals, and 
social science. In discussing it, I must speak as plainly 
as physicians and physiologists do. What I mean, I 
must say. Pseudo-civilized man, that anomalous crea- 
ture who has been not inaptly defined “an animal asham- 
ed of his own body,” may take it ill that I speak simply: 
I cannot help that. 
A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to be- 
come queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the 
peninsula, famous for its manufactory of gloves and 
stockings. The magistrates of the place, eager to evince 
their loyalty towards their new queen, presented her, on 6 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
her arrival, with a sample of those commodities foi 
which alone their town was remarkable. The major 
domo, who conducted the princess, received the gloves 
very graciously; but, when the stockings were presented, 
he flung them away with great indignation, and severely 
reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious piece of 
indecency. “ Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain 
has no legs.”* 
I never could sympathize with this major domo deli- 
cacy ; and if you can, my reader, you had better throw 
this pamphlet aside at once. 
If you have travelled and observed much, you will al- 
ready have learnt the distinction between real and arti- 
ficial propriety. If you have been in Constantinople, 
you probably know, that when the grand seignor’s wives 
are ill, the physician is only allowed to see the wrist, 
which is thrust through an opening in the side of the 
room, because it is improper even for a physician to look 
upon another man’s wife; and it is thought better to 
sacrifice health than propriety.! 
If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Tur- 
comania, you know that they consider a woman’s virtue 
sacrificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop 
on the public road to speak to her lover:+ and if you have 
read Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very 
romantic story, in which a young Turcoman lady, hav- 
ing thus forfeited her reputation, is left for dead on the 
road by her brothers, who were determined their sister 
should not survive her dishonour. 
Perhaps you may have travelled in Asia. If so, you 
cannot be ignorant how grossly indecorous to Asiatic ears 
* See “Memoires de la Cour d’Espagne,” by Madame d’Annoy, 
t See Tournefort’s Travels in Turkey. 
t See Buckingham’s Travels in Asia. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
7 
it is, to enquire of a husband after his wife’s health; 
and probably you may know, that men have lost their 
lives to atone for such an impropriety. You know, too, 
of course, that in Eastern nations it is indecent for a 
woman to uncover her face ; but perhaps you may 
not know, unless your travels have extended to Abyssinia, 
that there the indecency consists in uncovering the feet.* 
In Central Africa, you may have seen women bathing 
in public, without the slightest sense of impropriety; but 
you were doubtless told, that men could not be permitted 
a similar liberty ; seeing that modesty requires they 
should perform their ablutions in private. 
If my reader has seen all or any of these countries 
and customs, I doubt not that he or she will read my 
little book and interpret it in the purity 
which springs from enlarged and enlightened views ; or, 
indeed, from common sense. If not—if you who now 
peruse these lines have been educated at home, and have 
never passed the boundary line of your own nation— 
perhaps of your own village—if you have not learnt 
that there are other proprieties besides those of your 
country; and that, after all, genuine modesty has its 
legitimate seat in the heart rather than in the outward 
form or sanctioned custom—then, I fear me, you may 
chance to cast these pages from you, as the major domo did 
the proffered stockings, unconscious that the indelicacy 
lies, not in my simple words, or the Spanish magistrates’ 
honest offering, but in the pruriently sensitive imagina- 
tion that discovers impropriety in either. Yet, even 
though unexperienced, if you be still young and pure- 
minded, you may read this pamphlet through, and I 
shall fear from your lips, or in your hearts, no odious 
misconstruction. 
* See Bruce’s Travels in Abyssinia, 8 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY 
Young men and women! you who, if ignorant, are 
uncormpied also; you in whose minds honest and simple 
words call up none but honest and simple ideas ; you 
who think no evil; you who are still believers in human 
virtue and human happiness ; you who, like our fabled 
first parents in their paradise, are yet unlearned alike in 
the hypocritical conventionalities and the odious vices 
of pseudo-civilization ; you, with whom love is stronger 
than fear, and the law within the breast more powerful 
than that in the statute book; you whose feelings are 
still unblunted, and whose sympathies still warm and 
generous; you who belong to the better portion of 
your species, and who have formed your opinion of man- 
kind from guileless spirits like your own—young men 
and women! it is to your pure feelings I would fain 
speak : it is by your unsophisticated hearts I would fain 
have my treatise and my motives judged. 
Libertines and debauchees ! this book is not for you. 
You have nothing to do with the subject of which it 
treats. Bringing to its discussion, as you do, a distrust 
or contempt of the human race—accustomed as you 
are to confound liberty with licence, and pleasure with 
debauchery, it is not for your palled feelings and brutal- 
ized senses to distinguish moral truth in its purity and 
simplicity. I never discuss this subject with such as you. 
It has been remarked, that nothing is so suspicious in a 
woman, as vehement pretensions to especial chastity : it 
is no less true, that the most obtrusive and sensitive 
stickler for the etiquette of orthodox morality is the heart- 
less lake. The little intercourse I have had with men 
of your stamp, warns me to avoid the serious discussion 
of any species of moral heresy with you. You approach 
the subject in a tone and spirit revolting alike to good 
taste and good feeling. You seem to presuppose—from MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
9 
your own experience, perhaps—that the hearts of all 
men, and more especially of all women, are deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked; that violence 
and vice are inherent in human nature, and that 
nothing but laws and ceremonies prevent the world 
from becoming a vast slaughter-house or a universal 
brothel. You judge your own sex and the other by the 
specimens you have met with in wretched haunts of 
mercenary profligacy ; and, with such a standard in 
your minds, I marvel not that you remain incorrigible 
unbelievers in any virtue, but that which is forced, on 
the prudish hot-bed of ceremonious orthodoxy. I won- 
der not, that you will not trust the natural soil, watered 
from the free skies and warmed by the life-bringing sun. 
How should you ? you have never seen it produce but 
weeds and poisons. Libertines and debauchees! cast 
my book aside ! You will find in it nothing to gratify a 
licentious curiosity; and, if you read it, you will pro- 
bably only give me credit for motives and impulses like 
your own. 
And you, prudes and hypocrites! you who strain at 
gnat and swallow a camel; you whom Jesus likened t« 
whited sepulchres, which without indeed are beautiful, 
but within are full of all uncleanness ; you who affect to 
blush if the ancle is incidentally mentioned in conver- 
sation, or displayed in crossing a style, but will read in- 
decencies enough, without scruple, in your closets; you 
who, at dinner, ask to be helped to the bosom of a duck, 
lest, by mention of the word breast, you call up improper 
associations ; you who have nothing but a head and feet 
and fingers ; you who look demure by daylight, and 
make appointments only in the dark—you, prudes and 
hypocrites! Ido not address. Even if honest in your 
prudery, your ideas of right and wrong are too artificial 10 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
and confused to profit by the present discussion ; if dis 
honest, I desire to have no communication with you. 
Reader ! if you belong to the class of prudes or of li 
bertines, I pray you, follow ray argument no farther. 
Stop here, and believe that my heresies will not suit you. 
As a prude, you would find them too honest; as a liber- 
tine, too temperate. In the former case, you might call 
me a very shocking person ; in the latter, a quiz or a bore. 
But if you be honest, upright, pure-minded ; if you be 
unconscious of unworthy motive or selfish passion; if 
truth be your ambition, and the welfare of our race your 
object—then approach with me a subject the most im- 
portant to man’s well-being ; and approach it, as I do, in 
a spirit of dispassionate, disinterested, free enquiry. Ap- 
proach it, resolving to prove all things, and hold fast that 
wThich is good. The discussion is one to which it is 
every man’s and every woman’s duty, (and ought to be 
every one’s business,) to attend. The welfare of the 
present generation, and—yet far more—of the next, re- 
quires it. Common sense sanctions it. And the nation- 
al motto of my former country, “ Honi soil qui mal y 
pense,”* may explain the spirit in which it is undertaken, 
and in which it ought to be received. 
Reader! it ought to concern you nothing who or what 
I am, who now address you. Truth is truth, if it fall 
from Satan’s lips ; and error ought to be rejected, though 
preached by an angel from heaven. Even as an anony- 
* One of the English kings, Edward 111., in the year 1344, picked up 
from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter belonging to a lady 
of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his cour- 
tiers with the words, “ Honi soit qui mal y pense !” or, paraphrased in 
English, “ Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The senti- 
ment was so greatly approved, that it has become the motto of the English 
national arms. It is one which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently 
applied in rebuking the mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of 
this hypocritical and profligate age. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
11 
mous work, therefore, this treatise ought to obtain a full 
and candid examination from you. But, that you may 
not imagine I am ashamed of honestly discussing a sub- 
ject so useful and important, I have given you my name 
on the title page. 
Neither is it any concern of yours what my character 
is, or has been. No man of sense or modesty unneces- 
sarily obtrudes personalities that regard himself on the 
public. And, most assuredly, it is neither to gratify your 
curiosity or my vanity, if I now do violence to my feel- 
ings, and speak a few words touching myself. Ido so, 
to disarm, if I can, prejudice of her sting ; and thus to 
obtain the ears, even of the prejudiced; and also to ac- 
quaint my readers, that they are conversing on such 
a subject as this, with one, whom circumstance and 
education have happily preserved from habits of excess 
and associations of profligacy. 
All those who have intimately known the life and pri- 
vate habits of the writer of this little treatise, will bear 
him witness, that what he now states is true, to the let- 
ter. He was indebted to his parents for habits of the 
strictest temperance—some would call it abstemiousness 
—in all things. He never, at any time, habitually 
used ardent spirits, wine, or strong drink of any kind: 
latterly, he has not even used animal food. He never 
chanced to enter a brothel in his life ; nor to associate, 
even for an evening, with those poor, unhappy victims, 
whom the brutal, yet tolerated vices of man, and some- 
times their own unsuspicious or ungoverned feelings, be- 
tray to misery and degradation. He never sought the com- 
pany but of the intellectual and self-respecting of the other 
sex, and has no associations connected with the name of wo- 
man, but those of esteem and respectful affection. To this 
day, he is even girlishly sensitive to the coarse and ribald 12 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
jests in which young men think it witty to indulge at 
the expense of a sex they cannot appreciate. The con- 
fidence with which women may have honoured him, he 
has never selfishly abused ; and, at this moment, he has 
not a single wrong with which to reproach himself to- 
wards a sex, which he considers the equal of man in all 
essentials of character, and his superior in generous dis- 
interestedness and moral worth. 
I check my pen. I have said enough, perhaps, to 
awaken the confidence of those whose confidence I value; 
and enough, assuredly, to excite the ridicule, or the sneer, 
of him who walks through life wrapped up in the cloak 
of conformity, and laughs, among his private boon com- 
panions, at the scruples of every novice, who will not, like 
himself, regard debauchery and seduction (in secret) as 
manly and spirited amusements. 
And now, reader! if I have succeeded in awakening 
your attention and enlisting in this enquiry your reason 
and your better feelings, approach with me a subject the 
most interesting and important to you, to me, to all our 
fellow-creatures. Reader! if you be a woman, forget 
that I am a man : if a man, listen to me as you would 
to a brother. Let us converse, not as men, nor as wo- 
men, but as human beings, with common interests, in- 
stincts, wants, weaknesses. Let us converse, if it be pos- 
sible, without prejudice and without passion. Reader ! 
whatever be your sex, sect, rank, or party, to you I would 
now, ere I commence, address the poet’s exhortation— 
here, far more strictly applicable, than in the invest iga- 
tion to which he applied it:— 
“ Retire ! the world shut out: thy thoughts call home. 
Imagination’s airy wing repress. 
Lock up thy senses; let no passion stir: 
Wake all to reason ; let her reign alone.” MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
13 
CHAPTER 11. 
STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT. 
Among the human instincts which contribute to man’s 
preservation and well-being, the instinct of reproduction 
holds a distinguished rank. It peoples the earth ; it per 
petnates the species. Controlled by reason and chasten 
ed by good feeling, it gives to social intercourse much of 
its charm and zest. Directed by selfishness, or govern- 
ed by force, it is prolific of misery and degradation. 
Whether wisely or unwisely directed, its influence is that 
of a master principle, that colours, brightly or darkly, 
much of the destiny of man. 
It is sometimes spoken of as a low and selfish pro- 
pensity ; and the Shakers call it a “ carnal and sensual 
passion.”* I see nothing in the instinct itself that merits 
such epithets. Like other instincts, it may assume a 
selfish, mercenary, or brutal character. But, in itself, it 
appears to me the most social and least selfish of all our 
instincts. It fits us to give, even while receiving, plea- 
sure ; and, among cultivated beings, the former power is 
ever more highly valued than the latter. Not one of 
our instincts, perhaps, affords larger scope for the exer- 
cise of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral 
♦ See “ A brief exposition of the principles of the United Society call 
ed Shakers,” published by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells, 1880 
9 14 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
>t our idee. Not one gives birth to relations 
more gentle, more humanizing and endearing ; not one 
lies more immediately at the root of the kindliest chari- 
ties and most generous impulses that honour and bless 
human nature. Its very power, indeed, gives fatal force 
to its aberrations; even as the waters of the calmest 
river, when dammed up or forced from their bed, flood 
and ruin the country; but. the gentle flow and fertilizing 
influence of the stream are the fit emblems of the in- 
stinct, when suffered, undisturbed by force or passion, to 
follow its own quiet channel. 
That such an instinct should be thought and spoken 
of as a low, selfish propensity, and, as such, that the 
discussion of its nature and consequences should be al- 
most interdicted in what is called decent society, is to me 
a proof of the profligacy of the age, and the impurity of 
the pseudo-civilized mind. I imagine that if all men 
and women were gluttons and drunkards, they would, 
in like manner, be ashamed to speak of diet or of tem- 
perance. 
Were I an optimist, and, as such, had I accustomed 
myself to judge and to admire the arrangements of na- 
ture, I should be inclined to put forward, as one of the 
most admirable, the arrangement according to which 
the temperate fidfilling of the dictates of this, as well as 
of almost all other instincts, confers pleasure. The de- 
sire of offspring would probably induce us to perpetuate 
the species, though no gratification were connected with 
the act. In the language ol the optimist, then, “ plea- 
sure is gratuitously superadded.'’ But, instead of paus- 
ing to admire arrangements and intentions, the great 
whole of which human reason seems little fitted to ap- 
preciate or comprehend, I content myself with remark- 
ing, that this very circumstance (in itself surely a fortu- MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
15 
Date one, inasmuch as it adds another to the sources of 
human happiness) has often been the cause of misery; 
and, from a blessing, has been perverted into a curse. 
Enjoyment has led to excess, and sometimes to tyranny 
and barbarous injustice. 
Were the reproductive instinct disconnected from plea- 
cure of any kind, it would neither afford enjoyment nor 
admit of abuse. As it is, the instinct is susceptible 
either; just as wisdom or ignorance governs human 
laws, habits, and customs. It behooves us, therefore, to 
be especially careful in its regulation; else what is a 
great good may become for us a great evil. 
This instinct, then, may be regarded in a two-fold 
light; first, as giving the power of reproduction : second- 
ly, as affording pleasure. 
And here, before I proceed, let me recall to the reader’s 
mind, that it is the province of rational beings to bear 
utility strictly in view. Reason recognizes as little 
the romantic and unearthly reveries of Stoicism, as she 
does the doctrines of health-destroying and mind-debas- 
ing debauchery. She reprobates equally a contemning 
and an abusing of pleasure. She bids us avoid asceti- 
cism on the one hand, and excess on the other. In all 
our enquiries, then, let reason guide us, and let utility 
be our polar star. 
I have often had long arguments with my friends, the 
Shakers,* touching the two-fold light in which the re- 
productive instinct may be regarded. They commonly 
stand out stoutly against the propriety of considering it 
except simply as a means of perpetuating the species; 
* I call them my friends, because, however little i am disposed to ac- 
cede to all their principles, I have met, from among their body, a greater 
proportion of individuals who have taken with them my friendship and 
sympathy, than perhaps from among any other sect or class of men 16 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
and, apart from that, they deny that it may be regarded 
as a legitimate source of enjoyment. In this I totally dis- 
sent from them. It is a much more noble, because less 
purely selfish, instinct, than hunger or thirst. It is an 
instinct that entwines itself around the warmest feelings 
and best affections of the heart; and, though it differ 
from hunger and thirst in this, that it may remain un- 
gratified without causing death, I have yet to learn, that 
because it is possible, it is therefore also desirable, to 
mortify and repress it. I admit, to the Shakers, that in 
the world, profligate and hypocritical as we see it, this in- 
stinct is the source of infinite misery; perhaps even, on 
the whole, of a balance of unhappiness: and I always 
freely admit to them, that if I had to choose between the 
life of the profligate man of the world and that of the 
ascetic Shaker, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer 
the latter. But, for admitting that the most social and 
kindly of human instincts is sensual and degrading in 
itself, I cannot. I think its influence moral, humanizing, 
polishing, beneficent; and that the social education of 
no man or woman is fully completed without it. Its 
mortification (though far less injurious than its excess) 
is yet very mischievous. If it do not give birth to pee- 
vishness, or melancholy, or incipient disease, or unnatu- 
ral practices, at least it almost always freezes and stif- 
fens the character, by checking the flow of its kindliest 
emotions ; and not unfrequently gives to it a solitary, anti- 
social, selfish stamp. 
I deny the position of the Shaker, then, that the in- 
stinct is justifiable (if, indeed, it be at all) only as neces- 
sary to the reproduction of the species. It is justifiable 
in my view, just in as far as it makes man a happier and 
a better being. It is justifiable, both as a source of tern MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
17 
perate enjoyment, and as a means by which the sexes 
can mutually polish and improve each other. 
If a Shaker has read my little book thus far, and can- 
not reconcile his mind to this idea, he may as well shut 
it at once. I found all my arguments on the position, 
that the pleasure derived from this instinct, independent 
of and totally distinct from, its ultimate object, the repro- 
duction of our race, is good, proper, worth securing and 
enjoying. I maintain, that its temperate enjoyment is 
a blessing, both in itself and in its influence on human 
character. 
Upon this distinction of the instinct into its two-fold 
character, hinges the chief point in the present discus- 
sion. It sometimes happens, nay, it happens every day 
and hour, that mankind obey its impulses, not from any 
calculation of consequences, but simply from animal im- 
pulse. Thus many children that are brought into the 
world owe their existence, not to deliberate conviction in 
their parents that their birth was really desirable, but 
simply to an unreasoning instinct, which men, in the 
mass, have not learnt either to resist or control. 
It is a serious question—and surely an exceedingly 
proper and important one—whether man can obtain, 
and whether he is benefitted by obtaining, control over 
this instinct. Is it desirable, that it should 
NEVER BE GRATIFIED WITHOUT AN INCREASE TO 
POPULATION? Or, IS IT DESIRABLE, THAT, IN 
GRATIFYING IT, MAN SHALL BE ABLE TO SAY 
WHETHER OFFSPRING SHALL BE THE RESULT OB 
NOT ? 
To answer the questions satisfactorily, it would be ne- 
cessary to substantiate, that such control may be obtain- 
ed without the slightest injury to the physical health, or 
violence to the moral feelings ; and also, that it should MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
be obtained without any real sacrifice of enjoyment; or, 
if that cannot be, with as little as possible. 
Thus have I plainly stated the subject. It resolves it- 
self, as my readers may observe, into two distinct heads : 
first, the desirability of such control; and, secondly, its 
possibility. 
In discussing its desirability, I enter a wide field, a 
field often traversed by political economists, by moralists, 
and by philosophers, though generally, it will be con- 
fessed, to little purpose. This maybe, in a great measure, 
attributed rather to their fear than their ignorance. The 
world would not permit them to say what they knew. I 
intend that my readers shall know all that I know on 
the subject; for I have long since ceased to ask the 
world’s leave to say what I think, and what I believe to 
be useful to the public. 
I propose to begin by considering the question in the 
abstract, and then to examine it in its political and social 
bearings. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
19 
CHAPTER HI. 
THE QUESTION EXAMINED IN THE ABSTRACT. 
Is it in itself desirable, that man should obtain control 
over the instinct of reproduction, so as to determine when 
its gratification shall produce offspring, and when it shall 
not? 
But that common sense is so scarce an article, and that 
the various superstitions of the nursery pervade the 
opinions and cramp the enquiries, even of after life—but 
for this, the very statement of the question might suffice 
to obtain for it the assent of every rational being. No- 
thing so elevates man above the brute creation, as the 
power he obtains over his instincts. The lower animal 
follows them blindly, unreflectingly. The serpent gorges 
himself; the bull fights, even to death, with his rival of 
the pasture; the dog makes deadly war for a bone. 
They know nothing of progressive improvement. The 
elephant or the beaver of the nineteenth century, are just 
as wise, and no wiser, than the elephant or the beaver 
of two thousand years ago. Man alone has the power to 
improve, cultivate, elevate his nature, from generation to 
generation. He alone can control his instincts by re- 
flection of consequences, and regulate his passions by 
the precepts of wisdom. 
It is strange, that even at this period of the world, we 20 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
should have to remind each other, that all knowledge of 
facts is useful; or, at the least, cannot be injurious. The 
knowledge of some facts may be unimportant; the 
knowledge of none is mischievous. A human being is a 
puppet—a slave, if his ignorance is to be the safeguard of 
his virtue. Nor shall we know where to stop, if we fol- 
low up this principle. Shall we give our sons lessons in 
mechanics? but they may thereby learn to pick locks. 
Shall we teach them to read? but they may thus obtain 
access to falsehood and folly. Shall we instruct them in 
writing ? but they may become forgers. 
Such, in effect, was the reasoning of men in the dark 
ages. When Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Lord 
Douglas, on the discovery of Marmion’s treachery, the 
following exclamation, it is strictly in accordance with 
the spirit and prevailing opinions of the times : 
“ A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed ! 
Did ever knight so foul a deed! 
At first in heart it liked me ill, 
When the king praised his clerkly skill. 
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine, 
Save Gawain, ne’er could pen a line: 
So swore I, and so swear I still, 
Let my boy bishop fret his fill.” 
But the days are gone by when ignorance may be 
the safeguard of virtue. The only rock-foundation for 
virtue is knowledge. There is no fact, in physics or m 
morals, that ought to be concealed from the enquiring 
mind. Let that parent who thinks to secure his sons' 
honesty or his daughters’ innocence by keeping back 
from them facts—let that parent know, that he is build- 
ing up their morality on a sandy foundation. The 
rains and the floods of the world’s influence shall beat 
upon that virtue, and great shall be the fall thereof. 
If man, then, can obtain control over this most im- MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
portant of instincts, it is, in principle, right that he 
should know it. If men, after obtaining such know- 
ledge, think fit not to use it; if they deem it nobler and 
more virtuous, to follow each animal impulse, like the 
beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, without a 
thought of its consequences, or an enquiry into its nature 
—then let them do so. The knowledge that they have 
the power to act more like rational beings, will not in- 
jure, if it fail to benefit them. They are at perfect liber- 
ty to set it aside, to neglect it, to forget it, if they can. 
Only let them show common sense enough to permit 
that others, who are more slow to incur sacred responsi- 
bilities, and more willing to give reason the control of in- 
stinct, should obtain the requisite knowledge, and follow 
out their prudent resolutions. 
If this little book were in the hands of every adult in 
the United States, not one need profit by it, unless he 
sees fit. Nor will any man admit that he can possibly 
be injured by it. Oh no. His virtue can bear any 
quantity of light. But then, his neighbour’s, or his 
son’s, or his daughter’s ! 
This would lead me to discuss the social hearings of 
the question. But, as conceiving it more in order, I 
shall first speak of it in connexion with political economy. 22 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE QUESTION IN ITS CONNEXION WITH POLITICAL 
ECONOMY. 
The population question, as it is called, has of late 
years occupied much attention, especially in Great Bri- 
tain. It was first prominently brought forward and dis- 
cussed, through two large volumes, by Mai thus, an 
English clergyman. Godwin, Ricardo, Thompson, 
Place, Mill, and other celebrated cotemporary writers, 
have all discussed it, with more or less reserve, and at 
greater or less length. 
Malthus’ work has become the text book of a large 
politico-economist party in England. His doctrine is, 
that <£ population, unrestrained, will advance beyond 
the means of subsistence.” He asserts, that in most 
countries population at this moment presses against the 
means of subsistence; and that, in all countries, it has a 
tendency so to do. He recommends, as a preventive of 
the growing evil, celibacy till a late age, say thirty years; 
and he asserts, that unless this 11 moral restraint” is ex- 
erted, vice, poverty and misery, will and must become 
the checks to population. His book, in my opinion, has 
done infinite mischief. I have heard his disciples open- 
ly declare, that they considered the crimes and wretch- 
edness of society to be necessary—to be the express or- MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
23 
dainings of Providence, intended to prevent the earth 
from being over-peopled. I have heard it argued by 
men of rank, wealth and influence, that the distinctions 
of rich and poor, and even of morality and immorality, 
of luxury and want, will and must exist to the end of 
the world; that he who attempts to remove them fights 
against God and nature ; and, if he partially succeed, 
will but afford the human race an opportunity to increase, 
until the earth shall no longer suffice to contain them, 
and they shall be compelled to prey on each other. It 
must be confessed, that this is a comfortable doctrine for 
the rich idler: it is a healing salve to the luxurious con- 
science ; an opiate to drown the still small voice of truth 
and humanity, which calls to every man to be up and do 
his part towards the alleviation of the human suffering 
that every where stares him in the face. 
It is vain to argue with these defenders of the evils 
that be, that the day of overstocking is afar off. They 
tell you, it must come at last; and that the more you do 
to remove vice and misery—those destroyers of popula- 
tion—the sooner it will come. And what reply can one 
make to the argument in the abstract ? I believe it to 
be proved, that population, unrestrained,* will double itself 
on an average every twenty-five to fifty years. If so, n 
is evident to a demonstration, that, if population be not 
restrained, morally or immorally, the earth will at last 
furnish no foothold for the human beings that will 
cover it. 
Take a medium calculation as to the natural rate of 
* By unrestrained, Malthus and his disciples mean, not restricted or 
destroyed by any incidental check whatever, moral or immoral, pruden- 
tial or violent. Thus, poverty, war, libertinism, famine, &c. are all 
powerful checks to population. In this sense, and not simply as ap- 
plying to preventative moral restraint, have I employed the word through- 
out this chapter. 24 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
increase, and say, that population, unrestrained, will 
double itself every thirty-three and a third years. That 
it has done so, (without reckoning the increase from emi- 
gration,) in many parts of this continent, is certain. 
Then, if we suppose the present numerous checks to 
population, viz. want, war, vice, and misery, removed 
by rational reform, and if we assume the present popu- 
lation of the world at one thousand millions, we shall 
find the rate of increase as follows : 
At the end of 100 years, there will be 8,000 millions. 
2OO 64,000 
3OO 512 000 
4OO 4,096,000 
5OO 32,768,000 
And so on, multiplying by 8 for every additional hundred 
years. So that, in 500 years, there would be more than 
thirty thousand times as many as at present; and in 
1000 years, upwards of a thousand million times as 
many human beings as at this moment; consequently, 
one single pair, if suffered to increase without check, 
would, in 1000 years, increase to more than double the 
present population of the globe. 
It appears evident, then, to a demonstration, that popu- 
lation cannot be suffered to increase unrestrained for 
more than a very few hundred years. We are thus com- 
pelled to admit to Malthus, that, sooner or later, some 
restraint or other to population must be employed ; and 
compelled to admit to his aristocratic disciples, that if no 
other better restraint than vice and misery can be found, 
then vice and misery must be ; they are the lot of man, 
from generation to generation. 
Let me repeat it: it is no question—never can be a 
question—whether there shall be a restraint to popula- 
tion or not. There must be ; unless indeed we find the 
means of visiting other planets, so as to people them. In MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
the nature of things, there must be a check, of some 
kind, at some time. The only question is, what that 
check shall be—whether, as heretofore, the check of 
war, want, profligacy, misery; or a 4‘moral restraint,” 
sanctioned by reason and suggested by experience. 
Let those, then, who cry out against this little treatise, 
be told, that though they may postpone the question, no 
human power can evade it. It must come up. Had 
the friends of reform been left to choose their own time, 
it might, perhaps with advantage, have been postponed. 
And it is an imaginable case, that prejudice might delay 
it until a general famine or a universal civil war became 
the frightful checks. But will any man of common 
sense argue the propriety of suffering such a crisis to 
approach ? 
Malthus saw this. He saw that some check must 
exist; and, whatever some of his disciples might per- 
mit themselves to say, he did not choose to be consi- 
dered the apologist of vice and misery. His theory, 
indeed, supplied specious arguments to those who as- 
serted, with the ingenious author of the Fable of the 
Bees,* that “ private vices are public benefitsand in 
consequence, its tendency appears to me essentially aris- 
tocratic and demoralizing, as tending to produce supine 
contentment with a vicious and degrading order of things. 
But Malthus himself declares the only proper check to 
be, the general practice of celibacy to a late age. He 
employs all his eloquence to persuade men and women 
that they ought not to many till they are twenty-eight 
or thirty; and that, if they do, they are contributing jo 
the misery of the world.! 
* Mandeville. 
t Some wag, adverting to the fact, that Mr. Malthus himself has a 
large family, remarked, “ that the reverend gentleman knew better how 
to preach than to practise.” MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
Now. Mr. Malthas may preach for ever on this subject. 
Individuals may indeed be found, who will look to distant 
consequences, and sacrifice present enjoyment; even as 
individuals are found to become and remain Shaking 
Quakers : but to believe that the mass of mankind will 
abjure, through the ten fairest years of life, the nearest 
and dearest of social relations ; and during the very holi- 
day of existence, will live the life of monks and nuns— 
all to avert a catastrophe which is confessedly some hun- 
dreds of years distant—to believe this, requires a faith 
which no accurate observer of mankind possesses. 
This weak point the aristocratic expounders of Mal- 
thas’ doctrines were not slow to discover. They broadly 
asserted, that such “ moral restraint” would never be 
generally practised. They asked, whether a young 
woman, to whom a comfortable home and a pleasant 
companion were offered, would refuse to accept them, on 
this theory of population ; whether a young man who 
had a fair (or even but a very indifferent) prospect of 
maintaining a family, would doom himself to celibacy 
lest the world should be overpeopled. And they put it 
to the advocates of late marriages, whether, in one sex 
at least, the recommendation, if even nominally followed, 
would not almost certainly lead to vicious excess and de- 
grading associations ; thus resolving the check into vice 
and misery at last. If experience answered these ques- 
tions in the negative, was it not clear, (they would ex- 
ultingly ask,) that vice and misery are the natural lot of 
man ; and that it is quixotic, if not impious, to plague 
ourselves about them, or to attempt, by their suppression, 
to controvert the decrees of God ? 
It was very easy for generous feelings to reply to so 
heartless an argument. It was easy to ask, whether MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
27 
even the apparent hopelessness of the case formed any 
legitimate apology for supine indifference ; or whether, 
where we cannot cure, we are absolved from the duty of 
alleviating. But it was not very easy fully and fairly to 
meet the question. It was idle to deny that preaching 
would not put off marriage for ten years : and if no other 
species of moral restraint than ten years Shakerism could 
be proposed, it did appear evident enough, that moral re- 
straint would be by the mass neglected, and that the phy- 
sical checks of vice and misery must come into play at 
last. 
I pray my readers, then, distinctly to observe how the 
matter stands. Population, unrestrained, must increase 
beyond the possibility of the earth and its produce to sup- 
port. At present it is restrained by vice and misery. 
The only remedy which the orthodoxy of the English 
clergyman permits him to propose, is, late marriages. 
The most enlightened observers of mankind are agreed, 
that nothing contributes so positively and immediately to 
demoralize a nation, as when its youth refrain, until a 
late period, from forming disinterested connexions with 
those of the other sex. The frightful increase of pros- 
titutes, the destruction of health, the rapid spread of in- 
temperance, the ruin of moral feelings, are, to the mass, 
the certain consequences. Individuals there are, who 
escape the contagion ; individuals whose better feelings 
revolt, under any temptation, from the mercenary em- 
brace, or the Circean cup of intoxication; but these are 
exceptions only. The mass must have their pleasures; 
the pleasures of intellectual intercourse, of unbought, af- 
fection, and of good taste and good feeling, if they can; 
but if they cannot, then such pleasures (alas ! that lan- 
guage should be perverted to entitle them to the name !) 28 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY 
as the sacrifice of money and the ruin of body and mind 
can purchase.* 
But this is not all. Not only is Malthus’ proposition 
fraught with immorality, in that it discountenances to a 
late age those disinterested sexual connexions which can 
alone save youth from vice ; but it is impracticable. 
Men and women will scarcely pause to calculate the 
chances they have of affording support to their children 
ere they become parents: how, then, should they stop 
to calculate the chances of the world’s being overpeopled? 
Malthus may say what he pleases, they never will make 
any such calculation; and it is folly to expect they 
should. 
Let us observe, then; unless some less ascetic and 
more practicable species of “ moral restraint” be in- 
troduced, vice and misery will ultimately become the 
inevitable lot of man upon earth. He can no more 
escape them, than he can the light of the sun, or the 
stroke of death. 
"W hat an incitement, this, to the prosecution of our en- 
quiry ! Here is a principle set up, which is all but an 
apology for the apathy that prevails among the rich and 
the powerful—among governors and legislators—in re- 
gard to human improvement. How important, how es- 
sential for the interests of virtue, that it should be re- 
futed ! How beneficent that knowledge, which discloses 
to us some moral, practicable check to population, and 
relieves us from the despairing conclusion, that the irrevo- 
cable doom of man is misery, without remedy and without 
end ! In the absence of such knowledge, truly the pros- 
pects of the world were dark and cheerless. The modem 
* Lawrence, the ingenious author of the “ Empire of the Nairs,” 
says shrewdly enough, “ Wherever the women are prudes, the men will 
he drunkards.” MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
29 
doctrine of population has weighed like a spell on the 
exertions of benevolence, and chilled, almost to inaction, 
even the warm heart of charity. Philanthropy herself 
pauses, when she begins to fear that all her exertions 
are to result in hopeless disappointment. And yet—■ 
such is this world—even the ablest opponents of Malthus 
stop short when they come to the question, and leave an 
argument unanswered, which a dozen pages might suffice 
for ever to set at rest. 
Let one of the most intelligent of these opponents, a 
man of splendid and sterling talent—let Mill, the cele- 
brated political economist and talented author of “ British 
India,” speak for himself. 
I extract from the article “ Colony,” in the supplement 
to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and which is from the 
pen of Mill, the following paragraph : 
“ What are the best means of checking the progress 
of population, when it cannot go on unrestrained without 
producing one or other of two most undesirable effects, 
either drawing an undue portion of the population to the 
mere raising of food, or producing poverty and wretched- 
ness, it is not now the time to enquire. It is, indeed, 
the most important practical problem, to which the 
wisdom of the politician and the moralist ca,n he ap- 
plied. It has, till this time, been miserably evaded by 
all those who have meddled with the subject, as well as 
by those who were called upon by their situation to find 
a remedy for the evils to which it relates. And yet, if 
the superstitions of the nurse? y were disregarded, and 
the principle of utility kept steadily in view, a solution 
might not be very difficult to be found ; and the means 
of drying up one of the most copious sources of human 
evil—a source which if all other sources were taken 30 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY 
away, might alone suffice to retain the great mass of 
human beings in misery, might be seen to be neither 
doubtful nor difficult to be applied.” 
Let my readers bear in mind, that this is from the pen 
of one of the most justly admired writers of the present 
day; a man celebrated throughout all Europe, for his 
works on political economy, and whose writings are not 
unknown even on this side the Atlantic. He considers the 
question now under discussion to involve “ the most im- 
portant problem to which the wisdom of the politician 
and moralist can be applied.” This question, he admits, 
has ever been “ miserably evaded.” Yet even a man so 
influential and enlightened as Mill, must himself }deld to 
the weakness he reprobates ; must speak in parables, as 
the Nazarene reformer did before him ; and, even while 
commenting on the “ miserable evasion” of a subject so 
engrossingly important, must imitate the very evasion 
he despises. 
I will not imitate it. lam more independently situa- 
ted than the English economist; and I see, as clearly as 
he does, the extreme importance of the subject. What 
he saw and declared ought to be said, I will say. 
Before concluding this chapter, let me state distinctly, 
that I by no means agree with Malthus and other poli- 
tical economists in believing, that, at this moment, there 
is an actual excess of population in any country (China 
perhaps excepted) in the known world. I believe that 
there is more than enough land in every country of 
Europe to support, in perfect comfort, all its present 
inhabitants. That they are not supported in comfort, 
is, in my opinion, attributable, not to overpopulation, but 
to mal-govemment. Monopolies favour the rich, taxes 
oppress the poor, commercial rivalry grinds its victims to MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
the dust. To such causes as these, and not to over- 
population, at the time being, is the mass of distress (felt 
more or less over the civilized world) to be attributed. 
Thus, if the enemies of reform would but let us alone, 
we might long postpone to other and more important 
discussions, this population question. But they will not. 
They force it upon us. And though it might have 
evinced want of judgment to obtrude it unnecessarily 
or prematurely on the public, it would betray cowardice 
to evade it now, when thrust upon us. 
Besides, though it be undeniable that iniquitous laws 
and a vicious order of things often produce the result 
that is falsely attributed to overpopulation, it is yet equal- 
ly undeniable, that the most perfect system of laws in 
the world could not ultimately prevent the evils of a 
superabundant population. And it is no less certain, 
that, in the meantime, the pressure of a large family on 
the labouring man greatly augments the evil, and often 
deprives him of that very leisure which he might em- 
ploy in devising constitutional means to better his condi- 
tion, instead of leaving public business in the hands of 
political gamblers. Thus an answer to the population 
question is offered as an alleviation of existing evils, not 
as a cure for them. Population might be but half what 
it is, and unjust legislation and vicious customs would 
still give birth, as they now do, to luxury and want. 
The laws and customs ought to be, must be changed; 
but, while the grass is growing, let us prevent the horse 
from starving, if we can. 
Enough has been said, probably, in this chapter, to de- 
termine the question, whether it is, or is not, desirable, in 
a political point of view, that some check to population 
be sought and disclosed—some “ moral restraint” that 
shall not, like vice and misery, be demoralizing, nor, 
like late marriages, be ascetic and impracticable- 32 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
CHAPTER V. 
THE QUESTION CONSIDERED IN ITS SOCIAI 
BEARINGS. 
This is by far the most important branch of the qnes 
tion. The evils caused by an overstocking of the world, 
if even inevitable, are distant; and an abstract view of 
the subject, however unanswerable,does not come home to 
the mind with the force of detailed reality. 
What would be the probable effect, m social life, if 
mankind obtained and exercised a control over the in- 
stinct of reproduction ? 
My settled conviction is—and I am prepared to defend 
it—that the effect would be salutary, moral, civilizing; 
that it would prevent many crimes and more unhappi- 
ness ; that it would lessen intemperance and profligacy; 
that it would polish the manners and improve the moral 
feelings; that it would relieve the burden of the poor, 
and the cares of the rich; that it would most essentially 
benefit the rising generation, by enabling parents general- 
ly more carefully to educate, and more comfortably to pro- 
vide for, their offspring. I proceed to substantiate as I 
may these positions. 
And first, let us look solely to the situation of married 
persons. Is it not notorious, that the families of the 
married often increase beyond what a regard for the MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
33 
young beings coming into the world, or the happiness of 
those who give them birth, would dictate? In how many 
instances does the hard-working father, and more espe- 
cially the mother, of a poor family, remain slaves through- 
out their lives, tugging at the oar of incessant labour, 
toiling to live, and living only to die ; when, if their off- 
spring had been limited to two or three only, they might 
have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence ! How 
often is the health of the mother, giving birth every year 
to an infant—happy, if it be not twins !—and compelled 
to toil on, even at those times when nature imperiously 
calls for some relief from daily drudgery—how often is the 
mother’s comfort, health, nay, her life, thus sacrificed ! Or, 
if care and toil have weighed down the spirit, and at last 
broken the health of the father, how often is the widow 
left, unable, with the most virtuous intentions, to save her 
fatherless offspring from becoming degraded objects of 
charity, or profligate votaries of vice ! 
Fathers and mothers ! not you who have your nurse- 
ry and your nursery maids, and who leave your children 
at home, to frequent the crowded rout, or to glitter in 
the hot ball-room ; but you by the labour of whose hands 
your children are to live, and who, as you count their 
rising numbers, sigh to think how soon sickness or mis- 
fortune may lessen those wages which are now but just 
sufficient to afford them bread—fathers and mothers in 
humble life ! to you my argument comes home, with the 
force of reality. Others may impugn—may ridicule it. 
By bitter experience you know and feel its truth. 
It will be said, that government ought to provide for the 
support and education of all the children of the land. 
No one is less inclined to deny the position than I. 
But it does not support and educate them. And, if it 
did, a period must come at last, when even such an act 34 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
of justice would be no relief from the evils of over- 
population. 
Yet this is not all, Every physician knows, that 
there are many women so constituted that they cannot 
give birth to healthy—sometimes not to living children. 
Is it desirable—is it moral, that such women should 
become pregnant? Yet this is continually the case, 
the warnings of physicians to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. Others there are, who ought never to become pa- 
rents ; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their 
offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that 
worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a 
life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, 
and the world suffers by it. That a human being 
should give birth to a child, knowing that he transmits 
to it hereditary disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. 
But it is a folly to expect that we can ever induce all 
such persons to live the lives of Shakers. Nor is it ne- 
cessary : all that duty requires of them is, to refrain from 
becoming parents. Who can estimate the beneficial 
effect which rational moral restraint may thus have, on 
the health, beauty, and physical improvement of our 
race, throughout future generations ! 
But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most 
plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly desirable, that parents 
should have the poiver* to limit their offspring, whether 
they choose to exercise it or not ? Who can lose by 
their having this power ? and how many m,ay gain I 
* It may perhaps be argued, that all married persons have this power 
already, seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than 
the unmarried; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the 
Shakers do. But this Shaker remedy is, in the first place, utterly im- 
practicable, as a general rule ; and, secondly, it would chill and embitter 
domestic life, even if it were practicable. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
35 
may gain competency for themselves, and the opportuni- 
ty carefully to educate and provide for their children! 
How many may escape the jarrings, the quarrels, the dis- 
order, the anxiety, which an overgrown family too often 
causes in the domestic circle ! 
It sometimes happens, that individual instances come 
home to the feelings with greater force than any gene- 
ral reasoning. I shall, in this place, adduce one which 
came immediately under my cognizance. 
In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman 
of the first respectability, occupying a public situation 
in one of the western states, a letter, requesting to know 
whether I could afford any information or advice in a 
case which greatly interested him, and which regarded a 
young woman for whom he had ever experienced the 
sentiments of a father. In explanation of the circum- 
stances to which he alluded, he enclosed me a copy of a 
letter which she had just written to him, and which I 
here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from 
its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfor- 
tunate situation in which not one. but thousands, in mar- 
ried life, find themselves placed, I have never read. 
Dear Sir, 
L***, Kentucky, May 3, 1829. 
The friendship which has existed between you and 
my father, ever since I can remember; the unaffected 
kindness you used to express towards me, when you re- 
sided in our neighbourhood, during my childhood; the 
lively solicitude you have always seemed to feel for my 
welfare, and your benevolent and liberal character, in- 
duce me to lay before you, in a few words, my critical 
situation, and ask you for your kind advice. 
It is my lot to be united in wedlock to a young me- MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
chanic of industrious habits, good dispositions, pleasing 
manners, and agreeable features, excessively fond of our 
children and of me ; in short, eminently well qualified to 
render himself and family and all around him happy, 
were it not for the besetting sin of drunkenness. About 
once in every three or four weeks, if he meet, either acci- 
dentally or purposely, with some of his friends, of whom, 
either real or pretended, his good nature and liberality 
procure him many, he is sure to get intoxicated, so as to 
lose his reason; and, when thus beside himself, he 
trades and makes foolish bargains, so much to his dis- 
advantage, that he has almost reduced himself and fami- 
ly to beggary, being no longer able to keep a shop of his 
own, but obliged to work journey work. 
We have not been married quite four years, and have 
already given being to three dear little ones. Under pre- 
sent circumstances, what can I expect will be their fate 
and mine ? I shudder at the prospect before me. With 
my excellent constitution and industry, and the labour 
of my husband, I feel able to bring up these three little 
cherubs in decency, were I to have no more : but when 
I seriously consider my situation, I can see no other al- 
ternative left for me, than to tear myself away from the 
man who, though addicted to occasional intoxication, 
would sacrifice his life for ray sake ; and for whom, con- 
trary to my father’s will, I successively refused the hand 
and wealth of a lawyer and of a preacher ; or continue 
to witness his degradation, and bring into existence, in 
all probability, a numerous family of helpless and desti- 
tute children, who, on account of poverty, must inevita- 
bly be doomed to a life of ignorance, and consequent vice 
and misery. 
The dreadful sentence pronounced against me by my 
father for my disobedience, forbids me applying to him, 37 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
either for advice or any thing else. My husband being 
somewhat sceptical, my father attributes his intemper- 
ance to his infidelity ; though my brother, as you know, 
being a member of the same church with my father, is 
nevertheless, though he does not fool away his property, 
more of a drunkard than my husband, and ranks among 
the faithful. You will therefore plainly see, that for 
these and other reasons, I stand the more in need of your 
friendly advice; and I do hope and believe, you will 
give me such advice and counsel as you would to your 
own daughter, had you one in the same predicament 
that I am. In so doing, you will add new claims to the 
gratitude of your friend, M. W. 
Need I add one word of comment on such a case as 
this ? Every feeling mind must be touched by the amia- 
ble feeling and good sense that pervade the letter. Every 
rational being, surely, must admit, that the power of pre- 
venting, without injury or sacrifice, the increase of a 
family, under such circumstances, is a public benefit and 
a private blessing. 
Will it be asserted—and I know no other even plau- 
sible reply to these facts and arguments—will it be as- 
serted, that the thing is, in itself, immoral or unseemly? 
1 deny it; and I point to the population of France, in 
justification of my denial. Where will you find, on the 
face of the globe, a more polished or more civilized na- 
tion than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to 
any rudeness, coarseness, or indecorum ? You will find 
none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a 
proverb. Yet, as every intelligent traveller in France 
must have remarked, there is scarcely to be found, among 
the middle or upper classes, (and seldom even among 
the working classes,) such a thing as a large family; 38 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
very seldom more than three or four children. A French 
lady of the utmost delicacy and respectability will, in 
common conversation, say as simply—(ay, and as in- 
nocently, whatever the self-righteous prude may aver to 
the contrary)—as she would proffer any common remark 
about the weather : “ I have three children ; my hus- 
band and I think that is as many as we can do justice to, 
and I do not intend to have any more.”* 
I have stated notorious facts, facts which no traveller 
who has visited Paris, and seen any thing of the domes- 
tic life of its inhabitants, will attempt to deny. However 
heterodox, then, my view of the subject may be in this 
country, I am supported in it by the opinion and the 
practice of the most refined and most socially cultivated 
nation in the world. 
Will it still be argued, that the practice, if not coarse, 
is immoral? Again I appeal to France. I appeal to 
the details of the late glorious revolution—to the innu- 
merable instances of moderation, of courage, of honesty, 
of disinterestedness, of generosity, of magnanimity, dis- 
played on the memorable “ three days,” and ever since ; 
and I challenge comparison between the national charac- 
ter of France for virtue, as well as politeness, and that 
of any other nation under heaven. 
It is evident, then, that, to married persons, the power 
of limiting their offspring to their circumstances is most 
desirable. It may often promote the harmony, peace, 
and comfort of families ; sometimes it may save from 
bankruptcy and ruin, and sometimes it may rescue the 
mother from premature death. In no case can it, by 
* Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense 
and'simplicity of such an observation? Let me tell them, the 
indelicacy is in their own minds, not in the words of the French 
mother. 39 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
possibility, be worse than superfluous. In no case can 
it he mischievous. 
If the moral feelings were carefully cultivated, if we 
were taught to consult, in every thing, rather the wel- 
fare of those we love than our own, how strongly would 
these arguments be felt! No man ought even to desire 
that a woman should become the mother of his children, 
unless it was her express wish, and unless he knew it to 
be for her welfare, that she should. Her feelings, her 
interests, should be for him in this matter an imperative 
law. She it is who bears the burden, and therefore with 
her also should the decision rest. Surely it may well be 
a question whether it be desirable, or whether any man 
ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual, culti- 
vated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of 
twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her 
constitution, if not to the overstocking of the world. No 
man ought to require or expect it. 
Shall I be told, that this is the very romance of morali- 
ty ? Alas ! that what ought to be a matter of every day 
practice—a common-place exercise of the duties and 
charities of life—a bounden duty—an instance of do- 
mestic courtesy too universal either to excite remark or 
to merit commendation—alas ! that a virtue so humble 
that its absence ought to be reproached as a crime, 
should, to our selfish perceptions, seem but a fastidious 
refinement, or a fanciful supererogation ! 
But I pass from the case of married persons to that 
of young men and women who have yet formed no ma- 
trimonial connexion. 
In the present state of the world, when public opinion 
stamps with opprobrium every sexual connexion which 
has not received the orthodox sanction of an oath, al- 
most all young persons, on reaching the age of rnaturi- 40 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
ty, desire to marry. The heart must be very cold, or 
very isolated, that does not find some object on which 
to bestow its affections. Thus, early marriages would 
be almost universal, did not prudential considerations in- 
terfere. The young man thinks, “ I must not marry 
yet. I cannot support a family. I must make money 
first, and think of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.” 
And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely 
resolved, in a few years, to share it with her whom he 
now loves. But passions are strong, and temptations 
great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the com- 
pany of those poor creatures whom society first reduces 
to a dependence on the most miserable of mercenary 
trades, and then curses for being what she has made 
them. There his health and his moral feelings alike 
make shipwreck. The affections he had thought to 
treasure up for their first object, are chilled by dissipa- 
tion and blunted by excess. He scarcely retains a pas- 
sion but avarice. Years pass on—years of profligacy 
and speculation—and his first wish is accomplished ; hia 
fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and re- 
solves of his youth ? 
Like the dew on the mountain, 
Like the foam on the river, 
Like the bubble on the fountain, 
They are gone—and for ever! 
He is a man of pleasure—a man of the world. He 
laughs at the romance of his youth, and marries a for- 
tune. If gaudy equipages and gay parties confer hap- 
piness, he is happy. But if these be only the sunshine 
on the stormy ocean below, he is a victim to that sys- 
tem of morality, whicli forbids a reputable connexion 
until the period when provision has been made for a MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
41 
large, expected family. Had he married the first object 
of his choice, and simply delayed becoming a father until 
his prospects seemed to warrant it, how different might 
have been his lot! Until men and women are absolved 
from the fear of becoming parents, except when they 
themselves desire it, they ever will form mercenary and 
demoralizing connexions, and seek in dissipation the 
happiness they might have found in domestic life. 
I know that this, however common, is not a universal 
case. Sometimes the heavy responsibilities of a family 
are incurred, at all risks ; and who shall say how often 
a life of unremitting toil and poverty is the consequence? 
Sometimes—if even rarely—the young mind does hold 
to its first resolves. The youth plods through years of 
cold celibacy and solitary anxiety ; happy, if before the 
best hours of life are gone, and its warmest feelings 
withered, he may return to claim the reward of his for- 
bearance and his industry. But even in this compara- 
tively happy case, shall we count for nothing the years 
of ascetical sacrifice at which after-happiness is pur- 
chased ? The days of youth are not too man}q nor its 
affections too lasting. We may, indeed, if a great object 
require it, sacrifice the one and mortify the other. But 
is this, in itself, desirable ? Does not wisdom tell us, 
that such sacrifice is a dead loss—-to the warm-hearted 
often a grievous one ? Does not wisdom bid us tern 
perately enjoy the spring-time of life, “ while the evil 
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall 
say, 1 We have no pleasure in them ?’ ” 
Let us say, then, if we will, that the youth who thug 
sacrifices the present for the future, chooses wisely be- 
tween two evils, profligacy and asceticism. This is 
true. But let us not imagine the lesser evil to be a 
good. It is not good for man to be alone. It is for no MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
man’s or woman’s happiness or benefit, that they should 
be condemned to Shakerism. It is a violence done to 
the feelings, and an injury to the character. A life of 
rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of 
dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevish- 
ness, restlessness, vague longings, and instability of cha 
racter, are among the least of these. The mind is un- 
settled, and the judgment warped. Even the very in- 
stinct which is thus mortified, assumes an undue im- 
portance, and occupies a portion of the thoughts which 
does not of right or nature belong to it; and which, 
during a life of satisfied affection, it would not obtain. 
I speak not now of extreme cases, where solitary vice* 
or disease, or even insanity, has been the result of asceti- 
cal mortification. I speak of every day cases; and I 
am well convinced, that, (however wise it often is, in the 
present state of the world, to select and adhere to this al- 
ternative,) yet no man or woman can live the life of a 
conscientious Shaker, without suffering, more or less, 
both physically, mentally, and morally. This is the 
more to be regretted, because the very noblest portion of 
* For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no possible 
temptation, and therefore no existence, were not men unnatural- 
ly and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably, in 
monasteries; and has been perpetuated by the more or less 
anti-social and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to 
each other, in almost all countries. In estimating the consequen- 
ces of the present false situation of society, we must set down to 
the black account the wretched, wretched consequences (termi- 
nating not unfrequently in incurable insanity) of this vice, the 
preposterous offspring of modern civilization. Physicians say 
that onanism at present prevails, to a lamentable extent, both in 
this country and England. If the recommendations contained in 
this little treatise were generally followed, it would probably to- 
tally disappear in a single generation. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
43 
our species—the good, the pure, the high-minded, and 
the kind-hearted—are the chief victims. 
Thus, inasmuch as the scruple of incurring heav}7 
responsibilities deters from forming moral connexions, 
and encourages intemperance and prostitution, the know- 
ledge which enables man to limit his offspring, would, in 
the present state of things, save much unhappiness and 
prevent many crimes. Young persons sincerely attach- 
ed to each other, and who might wish to marry, would 
marry early; merely resolving not to become parents 
until prudence permitted it. The young man, instead 
of solitary toil or vulgar dissipation, would enjoy the 
society and the assistance of her he had chosen as his 
companion ; and the best years of life, whose pleasures 
never return, would not be squandered in riot, or lost 
through mortification. 
My readers will remark, that all the arguments 1 
have hitherto employed, apply strictly to the present 
order of things, and the present laws and system of 
marriage. No one, therefore, need be a moral heretic 
on this subject to admit and approve them. The mar- 
riage laws might all remain for ever as they are; and 
yet a moral check to population would be beneficent and 
important. 
But there are other cases, it will be said, where the 
knowledge of such a check would be mischievous. If 
young women, it will be argued, were absolved from the 
fear of consequences, they would rarely preserve their 
chastity. Unlegalized connexions would be common 
and seldom detected. Seduction would be facilitated. 
Let us dispassionately examine this argument. 
I fully agree with that most amiable of moral heretics, 
Shelley, that “ Seduction, which term could have no 44 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGV. 
meaning in a rational society, has now a most tremen 
dons one.”* It matters not how artificial the penalty 
which society has chosen to affix to a breach of her capri- 
cious decrees. Society has the power in her own hands ; 
and that moral Shylock, Public Opinion, enforces the 
penalty, even though it cost the life of the victim. The 
consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence 
is, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of 
the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were in- 
deed a crime of the blackest dye. And his conduct who, 
for a momentary, selfish gratification, will deliberately 
entail a life of wretchedness on one whose chief fault, 
perhaps, was her misplaced confidence in a villain, is 
not one whit excused by the folly and injustice of the 
sentence.! Some poet says, 
“ The man who lays his hand upon a woman 
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch 
Whom ’twere gross flattery to call a coward.” 
What epithet, then, belongs to him who makes it a 
trade to win a woman’s gentle affections, betray her 
generous confidence, and then, when the consequences 
become apparent, abandon her to dependence, and the 
scorn of a cold, a self-righteous, and a wicked world ; a 
* See letter of Percy Byssche Shelley, published in the “Lion,” 
of December 5, 1828. 
f Every reflecting mind will distinguish between the unrea- 
soning—sometimes even generous, imprudence of youthful pas- 
sion, and the calculating selfishness of the matured and heartless 
libertine. It is a melancholy truth, that pseudo-civilization pro- 
duces thousands of seducers by profession, who, while daily call- 
ing the heavens to witness their eternal affections, have no affec- 
tion for any thing on earth but their own precious and profligate 
selves. It is to characters so utterly worthless as these that my 
observations apply. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
45 
world which will forgive any thing but rebellion against 
its tyranny, and in whose eyes it seems the greatest of 
crimes to be unsuspecting and warm-hearted ! I will 
give my hand freely to a galley-slave, and speak to the 
highway-robber as to an honest man; but there is one 
character with whom I desire to exchange neither word nor 
greeting—the cold-hearted, deliberate, practised, and 
calculating seducer! 
And, let me ask, what is it gives to the arts of seduc- 
tion their sting, and stamps to the world its victim ? 
Why is it, that the man goes free and enters society 
again, almost courted and applauded for his treachery 
while the woman is a mark for the finger of reproach, 
and a butt for the tongue of scandal ? Because she bears 
about her the mark of what is called her disgrace. She 
becomes a mother; and society has something tangible 
against which to direct its anathemas. Nine tenths, at 
least, of the misery and ruin which are caused by seduc- 
tion, even in the present state of public opinion on the 
subject, result from cases of pregnancy. Perhaps the 
unfeeling selfishness of him who fears to become a 
father, administers some noxious drug to procure abor- 
tion ; perhaps—for even such scenes our courts of jus- 
tice disclose !—perhaps the frenzy of the wretched mother 
takes the life of her infant, or seeks in suicide the con- 
summation of her wrongs and her woes ! Or, if the 
little being lives, the dove in the falcon’s claws is not 
more certain of death, than we may be, that society will 
visit, with its bitterest scoffs and reproaches, the bruised 
spirit of the mother and the unconscious innocence of 
the child. 
If, then, we cannot do all, shall we neglect a part ? 
If we cannot prevent every misery which man’s selfish- 
ness and the world’s cruelty entail on a sex which it 46 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
ought to be our pride and honour to cherish and defend; 
let us prevent as many as we can. If we cannot per- 
suade society to revoke its unmanly and unchristian* 
persecution of those who are often the best and gentlest 
of its members—let us, at the least, give to woman what 
defence we may, against its violence. 
I appeal to any father, trembling for the reputation of 
his child, whether, if she were induced to form an un- 
legalized connexion, her pregnancy would not be a 
frightful aggravation ? I appeal to him, whether any 
innocent preventive which shall save her from a situation 
that must soon disclose all to the world, would not be 
an act of mercy, of charity, of philanthropy—whether it 
might not save him from despair, and her from ruin ? 
The fastidious conformist may frown upon the question, 
but to the father it comes home; and, whatever his 
lips may say, his heart will acknowledge the soundness 
and the force of the argument it conveys.!- 
* Jesus said unto her, “ Neither do I condemn thee.”—John 
viii. 11. 
f What is the actual state of society in Great Britain, and even 
in this republic, that pseudo-civilization, in her superlative deli- 
cacy, should so fastidiously scruple to speak of or to sanction a 
simple, moral, effectual check to population ? Are her sons all 
chaste and temperate, and her daughters all passionless and 
pure ? I might disclose, if I would, in this very city of New- 
York—and in our neighbour city of Philadelphia—scenes and 
practices that have come to light from time to time, and that 
would furnish no very favourable answer to the question. 1 
might ask, whether all the houses of assignation in these two 
cities are frequented by the known profligate alone ? or, whether 
some of the most outwardly respectable fathers—ay, mothers of 
families—have not been found in resorts supported and frequented 
only by “ good society” like themselves ? 
As regards Great Britain, I might quote the evidence deliver- 
ed before a “ Committee of the House of Commons, on Labourers’ MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
47 
It may be, that some sticklers for orthodox morality 
will still demur to the positions I defend. They will 
perhaps tell me, as the Committee of a certain Society 
in this city lately did, that the power of preventing con- 
ceptions “holdsout inducements and facilities for the pros- 
titution of their daughters, their sisters, and their wives.”* 
Wages,” by Henry Drummond, a banker, magistrate, and large 
land-owner in the county of Surry, in which the following ques- 
tion and answer occur : Q,. “ What is the practice you allude 
to of forcing marriages?” A. “ I believe nothing is more erro- 
neous than the assertion, that the poor laws tend to imprudent 
marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being married 
until she wras with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking 
place through a calculation tor future support.” Mr. Drum- 
mond’s assertions were confirmed by oilier equally respectable 
witnesses; and from what I have myself learnt in conversation 
,vith some of the chief manufacturers of England, I am con- 
vinced, that the statement, as regards the working population in 
the chief manufacturing districts, is scarcely exaggerated. 
I might go on to state, that the spot on which the Foundling 
Hospital in Dublin now stands, formerly wmnt by the name of 
“ Murderer’s Lane,” from the number of child murders that were 
perpetrated in the vicinity. 
I might adduce the testimony of respectable witnesses in proof, 
that, even among the married, the blighting effects of ergot are 
not unfrequently incurred; by those very persons, probably, who, 
in public, would think fit to be terribly shocked at this little book. 
But why multiply proofs ? The records of every court of jus- 
tice, nay, the tittle tattle of every fashionable drawing-room, suf- 
ficiently marks the real character of this prudish and pharisaical 
world of ours. 
* See letter of the Committee of the Typographical Society to 
Robert Dale Owen, published in the Commercial Advertiser of 
the 29th of September, and copied into the Free Enquirer of the 
9th of October, 1830. 
For a statement of the circumstances connected with that let- 
ter, and which induced me, at this time, to write and publish the 
present treatise, see Preface. 48 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
Truly, but they pay their wives, their sisters, and 
their daughters, a poor compliment! Is, then, this 
vaunted chastity a mere thing of circumstance and oc- 
casion ? Is there but the difference of opportunity be- 
tween it and prostitution? Would their wives, and 
their sisters, and their daughters, if once absolved from 
the fear of offspring, all become prostitutes—all sell their 
embraces for gold, and descend to a level with the most 
degraded? In truth, but they slander their own kin- 
dred ; they libel their own wives, sisters, and daughters. 
If they spoke truth—-if fear were indeed the only safe- 
guard of their relatives’ chastity, little value should I 
place on a virtue like that! and small would I esteem 
his offence, who should attempt or seduce it.* 
* I should like to hear these gentlemen explain, according to 
what principle they imagine the chastity of their wives to grow 
out of a fear of offspring ; so that, if released from such fear, 
prostitution would follow. I can readily comprehend that the 
unmarried may be supposed careful to avoid that situation to 
which no legal cause can be assigned ; but a wife must be espe- 
cially dull, if she cannot assign, in all cases, a legal cause; and 
a husband must be especially sagacious, if he can tell whether the 
true cause be assigned or not. This safeguard to married chasti- 
ty, therefore, to which the gentlemen of the Typographical Com- 
mittee seem to look with so implicit a confidence, is a mere broken 
reed ; and has been so, ever since the days of Bathsheba. 
Yet conjugal chastity is that which is especially valued. The 
Inconstancy of a wife commonly cuts much deeper than the dis- 
honour of a sister. In that case, then, which the world usually 
considers of the highest importance, the fear of offspring imposes 
no check whatever. It cannot make one iota of difference whether 
g married woman be knowing in physiology or not; except per- 
haps, indeed, to the husband’s advantage; in cases where the 
wife’s conscience induces her at least to guard against the possi- 
oility of burthening her legal lord with the care and support of 
cnildren that are not his. Constancy, where it actually exists, 
is the offspring of something more efficacious than ignorance MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
49 
That chastity which is worth preserving is not the 
chastity that owes its birth to fear and to ignorance. If 
to enlighten a woman regarding a simple physiological 
fact will make her a prostitute, she must be especially 
predisposed to profligacy. But it is a libel on the sex. 
Few, indeed, there are, who would continue so miserable 
and degrading a calling, could they but escape from it. 
For one prostitute that is made by inclination, ten are 
made by necessity. Reform the laws—equalize the 
comforts of society, and you need withhold no knowledge 
from your wives and daughters. It is want, not know- 
ledge, that leads to prostitution. 
For myself, I would withhold from no sister, or daugh- 
ter, or wife of mine, any ascertained fact whatever. It 
should be to me a duty and a pleasure to communicate 
to them all I knew myself; and 1 should hold it an in- 
sult to their understandings and their hearts to imagine, 
that their virtue would diminish as their knowledge in- 
creased. Vice is never the offspring of just knowledge; 
and they who say it is, slander their own nature. 
Would we but trust human nature, instead of con- 
tinually suspecting it, and guarding it by bolts and bars, 
and thinking to make it very chaste by keeping it very 
ignorant, what a different world we should have of it! 
And if in the wife’s case, men must and do trust to something 
else, why not in all other cases, where restraint may be consider- 
ed desirable ? Shall men trust in the greater, and fear to trust 
in the less ? Whatever any one may choose to assert regarding 
his relatives’ secret inclinations to profligacy, these arguments 
may convince him, that if he has any safeguard at present, a pe- 
rusal of Moral Physiology will not destroy it. 
’Tis strange that men, by way of suborning an argument, 
should be willing thus to vilify their relatives’ character and mo- 
tives, without first carefully examining whether any thing was 
gained to their cause, after all, by the vilification. 50 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
The virtue of ignorance is a sickly plant, ever exposed 
to the caterpillar of corruption, liable to be scorched and 
blasted even by the free light of heaven; of precarious 
growth ; and, even if at last artificially matured, of little 
or no real value. 
I know that parents often think it right and proper to 
withhold from their children—especially from their daugh- 
ters—facts the most influential on their future lives, and 
the knowledge of which is essential to every man and 
woman’s well-being.* Such a coarse has ever appeared 
to me ill-judged and productive of very injurious effects. 
A girl is surely no whit the better for believing, until her 
marriage night, that children are found among the cab- 
bage leaves in the garden. The imagination is excited, 
the curiosity kept continually on the stretch; and that 
which, if simply explained, would have been recollected 
only as any other physiological phenomenon, assumes 
all the rank and importance and engrossing interest of 
a mystery. Nay, lam well convinced, that mere curiosi- 
ty has often led ignorant young people into situations, 
from which a little more confidence and openness on the 
part of their parents or guardians, would have effectually 
secured them. 
In the monkish days of mental darkness, when it was 
taught and believed, that all the imaginations and all the 
* Instances innumerable might be adduced. Not one young 
person, for example, in twenty, is ever told, that sexual intercourse 
during the period of a woman’s courses is not unfrequently pro- 
ductive, to the woman of a species of fluor albus, and sometimes 
(as a consequent) to the man of symptoms very similar- to those 
of syphilis, but more easily removed. Yet what fact more im- 
portant to be communicated? And how ridiculous the mis- 
chievously prudish refinement that conceals from human beings 
what it most deeply concerns them to know ? MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
51 
thoughts of man are only evil continually—when it was 
deemed right and proper to secure the submission of the 
mass by withholding from them the knowledge even how 
to read and write—in those days, it was all very well to 
shut up the physiological page, and tell us, that on the 
day we read therein we should surely die. But those 
times are past. In this nineteenth century, men and 
women read, think, discuss, enquire, judge for them- 
selves. If, in these latter days, there is to be virtue at 
all, she must be the offspring of knowledge and of free 
enquiry, not of ignorance and mystery. We cannot 
prevent the spread of any real knowledge, even if we 
would ; we ought not, even if we could. 
This book will make its way through the whole Uni- 
ted States. Curiosity and the notoriety which has al- 
ready been given to the subject, will suffice at first to 
obtain for it circulation. The practical importance of 
the subject it treats will do the rest. It needed but some 
one to start the stone ; its own momentum will suffice to 
carry it forward. 
But, if we could prevent the circulation of truth, why 
should we? We are not afraid of it ourselves. No 
man thinks his morality will suffer by it. Each feels 
certain that his virtue can stand any degree of know- 
ledge. And is it not the height of egregious presump- 
tion in each to imagine that his neighbour is so much 
weaker than himself' and requires a bandage which he 
can do without? Most of all, is it presumptuous to sup- 
pose, that that knowledge which the man of the world 
can bear with impunity, will corrupt the young and the 
pure-hearted. It is the sullied conscience only that 
suggests such fears. Trust youth and innocence. 
Speak to them openly. Show them that you respect 
them, by treating them with confidence ; and they will 52 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
quickly learn to respect and to govern themselves. Yon 
enlist even their pride in your behalf; and you will 
soon see them make it their boast and their highest 
pleasure to merit your confidence. But watch them, 
and show your suspicion of them but once—and you are 
the jailor, who will keep his prisoners just as long as 
bars and bolts shall prevent their escape. The world 
was never made for a prison-house ; it is too large and 
ill-guarded : nor were parents ever intended for goal- 
keepers ; their very affections unfit them for the task. 
There is no more beautiful sight upon earth, than a 
family among whom there are no secrets and no re- 
serves ; where the young people confide every thing to 
their elder friends—for such to them are their parents— 
and where the parents trust every thing to their chil- 
dren ; where each thought is communicated as freely 
as it arises ; and ail knowledge given, as simply as it is 
received. If the world contain a prototype of that Para- 
dise, where nature is said to have known no sin or im- 
propriety, it is such a family. And if there be a serpent 
that can poison the innocence of its inmates, that ser- 
pent is Suspicion. 
I ask no greater pleasure than thus to be the guar- 
dian and companion of young beings whose innocence 
shall speak to me as unreservedly as it thinks to itself; 
of young beings who shall never imagine that there is 
guilt in their thoughts, or sin in their confidence ; and to 
whom, in return, I may impart every important and 
useful fact that is known to myself. Their virtue shall 
be of that hardy growth, which all facts tend to nourish 
and strengthen. 
I put it to my readers, whether such a view of human 
nature, and such a mode of treating it, be not in accord- 
ance with the noblest feelings of their hearts. I put it MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
53 
to them, whether they have not felt themselves encoura- 
ged, improved, strengthened in every virtuous resolu- 
tion, when they were generously trusted ; and whethei 
they have not felt abased and degraded, when they 
were suspiciously watched, and spied after, and kept in 
ignorance. If they find such feelings in their own 
hearts, let them not self-righteously imagine, that they 
only can be won by generosity, or that the nature of 
their fellow-creatures is different from their own. 
There are other considerations connected with this 
subject, which farther attest the social advantages of 
the control I advocate. Human affections are mutable, 
and the sincerest of mortal resolutions may change.* 
Every day furnishes instances of alienations, and of 
separations ; sometimes almost before the honey-moon 
is well expired. In such cases of unsuitability, it can- 
not be considered desirable that there should be offspring; 
and the power of refraining from becoming parents until 
intimacy had, in a measure, established the likelihood 
of permanent harmony of views and feelings, must be 
confessed to be advantageous. 
The limits which my numerous avocations prescribe 
10 this little treatise, permit me not to meet every argu- 
ment in detail, which ingenuity or prejudice might put 
forward. If the world were not actually afraid to think 
freely or to listen to the suggestions of common sense, 
three fourths of what has already been said would be 
superfluous ; for most of the arguments employed would 
* Le premier serment que se firent deux fitres de chair, ce fut 
au pied d’un rocher, qui tomhait en poussiere; ils attesterent de 
leur Constance un ciel qui n’est pas un instant le merne: tout pas- 
sait en eux, et autour d’eux; et ils croyaient leurs cceurs affran- 
chis de vicissitudes. O enfans! toujours enfans! 
Diderot ; Jacques et son maitre. 54 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
occur spontaneously to any rational, reasoning being. 
But the mass of mankind have still, in a measure, every 
thing to learn on this subject. The world seems to me 
much to resemble a company of gourmands, who sit 
down to a plentiful repast, first very punctiliously saying 
grace over it; and then, under sanction of the priest’s 
blessing, think to gorge themselves with impunity ; as 
conceiving, that gluttony after grace is no sin. So it is 
with popular customs and popular morality. Every 
thing is permitted, if external forms be but respected. 
Legal roguery is no crime, and ceremony-sanctioned ex- 
cess no profligacy. The substance is sacrificed to the 
form, the virtue to the outward observance. The world 
troubles its head little about whether a man be honest 
or dishonest, so he knows how to avoid the penitentiary 
and escape the hangman. In like manner, the world 
seldom thinks it worth while to enquire whether a man 
be temperate or intemperate, prudent or thoughtless. It 
takes especial care to inform itself whether in all things 
he conforms to orthodox requirements; and, if he does, 
all is right. Thus men too often learn to consider an 
oath an absolution from all subsequent decencies and 
duties, and a full release from all after responsibilities. 
If a husband maltreat his wife, the offence is venal; 
for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an “honest 
woman.” If a married father neglect his children, it is 
a trifle; for grace was regularly said, before they were 
born. 
So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to 
throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and 
jarrings, and much of the indifference and carelessness 
of each others’ feelings that is exhibited in married life, 
might be traced to the almost universal custom (in this 
country, though not in France) of man and wife con- MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
55 
tinually occupying the same he put it to us 
whether such a forced and too frequent familiarity were 
not calculated to lessen the charms and pleasures, and 
diminish the respectful regard and deference, which 
ought ever to characterize the intercourse of human 
beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things to 
forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky 
idea as this, ten to one the married portion of the com- 
munity would fall upon him without mercy, as an im- 
pertinent intermeddler in their most legitimate rights and 
prerogatives. 
With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to 
reason. After listening to all I have said, it may per- 
haps cut me short by reminding me, that nature herself 
declares it to be right and proper, that we should repro- 
duce our species without calculation or restraint. I 
will ask, in reply, whether nature also declares it to 
be right and proper, that, when the thermometer is at 
96, we should drink greedily of cold water, and drop 
down dead in the streets ? Let the world be told, that 
if nature gave us our passions and propensities, she 
gave us also the power wisely to control them ; and 
that, when we hesitate to exercise that power, we de- 
scend to a level with the brute creation, and become 
the sport of fortune—the mere slaves of circumstance.* 
* Some German poet, whose name has escaped me, says, 
“ Tapfer ist der Lowensieger, 
Tapfer is der Weltbezwinger, 
Tapferer, wer sich selhst bezwang!” 
“ Brave is the lion-victor, 
Brave the conqueror of a world, 
Braver, he who controls himself!15 
It is a noble sentiment, and very appropriate to the present dis- 
cussion. 56 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth 
while to advert, but that it has been already speciously 
used to excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that 
to recommend to mankind prudential restraint in cases 
where children cannot be provided for, is an insult to 
the poor man; since all ought to be so circumstanced 
that they might provide amply for the largest family. 
Most assuredly all ought to be so circumstanced ; but all 
are not. And there would be just as much propriety in 
bidding a poor man go and take by force a piece of Saxo- 
ny broadcloth from his neighbour’s store, because he 
ought to be able to purchase it, as to encourage him to 
go on producing children, because he ought to have 
wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every nerve 
to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results 
from a vicious order of things ; but, until we have done 
so, let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend 
that which grievously aggravates the evil; which in- 
creases the burden on the present generation, and 
threatens with neglect and ignorance the next. 
And now, let my readers pause. Let them review 
the various arguments I have placed before them. Let 
them reflect how intimately the instinct of which 1 treat 
is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them 
bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influ- 
ence, is it important that we should know how to con- 
trol and govern it; that, when we obtain such control, 
we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize 
much more highly, may save our companions and our 
offspring, from suffering or misery ; that, by such know- 
ledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead 
of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it, early 
marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and 
seduction of its sharpest sting ; that, by it, man may be 57 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY- 
saved from moral ruin, and woman from desolating dis- 
honour; that by it the first pure affections may be sooth- 
ed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or destroyed— 
let them call to mind all this, and then let them say, 
whether the possession of such control be not a blessing 
to man. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
CHAPTER YI 
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CON- 
NEXION WITH PHYSIOLOGY. 
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirabili- 
ty of obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to 
speak of its practicability. 
As, in this world, the value of labour is too often esti- 
mated almost in proportion to its inutility, so, in physical 
science, contested questions seem to have attracted at- 
tention and engaged research, almost in the inverse ratio 
of their practical importance. We have a hundred learn- 
ed hypotheses for one decisive practical experiment. We 
have many thousands of volumes written to explain fan- 
ciful theories, and scarcely as many dozens to record as- 
certained facts. 
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of 
the subject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories 
of generation which ancient and modern physiologists 
have put forth. I shall not enquire whether the fu- 
ture human being owes its first existence, as Hippo- 
crates and Galen asserted, and Buffon very ingeniously 
supports, to the union of two life-giving fLids, each a 
sort of extract of the body of the parent, and composed 
of organic particles similar to the future offspring; or 59 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposes 
in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps 
only by the aura seminalis ; or whether, according to 
the theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future 
man first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which 
the ovum becomes merely the nourishing receptacle ; or 
whether, as the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying 
worm be the more correct hypothesis ; or whether, final- 
ly, as Perault will have it,* the embryo beings (too won- 
derfully organized to be supposed the production of any 
mere physical phenomenon) must be imagined to come 
directly from the hands of the Creator, who has filled the 
universe with these little germs, too minute, indeed, to 
exercise all the animal functions, but still self-existent, 
and awaiting only the insinuation of some subtle essence 
into their microscopic pores, to come forth as human be- 
ings. Still less am I inclined to follow Hippocrates and 
Tertullian in their enquiries, whether the soul is merely 
introduced into the foetus, or pre-exists in the semen, and 
becomes, as it were, the architect of its future residence, 
the body ;t or to attempt a refutation of the hypothesis 
of the metaphysical naturalist,! who asserts, (and adduces 
the infinite indivisibility of matter in support of the as- 
sertion,) that the actual germs of the whole human race, 
and of all that are yet to be born, existed in the ovaria 
of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty other 
hypotheses as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed by 
* See “ Histoire de I’Academic des Sciences,” for the year 1679, 
page 279. 
t Hippocrates positively asserts this latter hypothesis, and is 
outrageous against all sceptics in his theory. In his work on 
diet, he tells us, “ Si quis non credat ammaw■ animce miscerix 
demons esi.” Tertullian warmly supports the orthodoxy of this 
opinion. 
I Bonner, I believe. 60 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
those who seem to make it a point of honour to leave no 
fact unexplained by some imagined theory; and I de- 
scend at once to the terra jirma of positive experience 
and actual observation. 
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not 
spend some small portion, at least, of the time and in- 
dustry which has been wasted on theoretical researches, 
in collecting and collating the actual experience of hu- 
man beings. But this task, too difficult for the ignorant, 
has generally been thought too simple and common- 
place for the learned. To this circumstance, joined to 
the fact, that it is not thought fitting or decent for hu- 
man beings freely to communicate their personal expe- 
rience on the important subject now under considera- 
tion—to these causes are attributable the great and other- 
wise unaccountable ignorance which so strangely pre- 
vails, even sometimes among medical men, as to the 
power which man may possess over the reproductive in- 
stinct. Many physicians will positively deny that man 
possesses any such power. And yet, if the thousandth 
part of the talent and research had been employed to in- 
vestigate this momentous fact, which has been turned 
to the building up of idle theories, no commonly intelli- 
gent individual could well be ignorant of the truth. 
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of 
the most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and 
France on this subject; (opinions which popular preju- 
dice will not permit them to offer publicly in their works,) 
and they all concur in admitting, what the experience of 
the French nation positively proves, that man may 
have a perfect control over this instinct; and that men 
and women may, without any injury to health, or the 
slightest violence done to the moral feelings, and with 
but small diminution of the pleasure which accompanies 61 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
the gratification of the instinct, refrain at will from be- 
coming parents. It has chanced to me, also, to win the 
confidence of several individuals, who have communica- 
ted to me, without reserve, their own experience; and 
all this has been corroborative of the same opinion. 
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively to the 
details of a subject, which will then only be fully un- 
derstood when men acquire sense enough simply and 
unreservedly to discuss it, I may venture to assure my 
readers, that the main fact is incontrovertible. I shall 
adduce such facts in proof of this as may occur to me in 
the course of this investigation. 
However various and contradictory the different theo- 
ries of generation, almost all physiologists are agreed, 
that the entrance of the sperm itself (or of some volatile 
particles proceeding from it) into the uterus, must precede 
conception. This it was that probably first suggested 
the possibility of preventing conception at will. 
Among1 the modes of preventing conception which may 
have prevailed in various countries, that which has been 
adopted, and is now universally practised, by the cultiva- 
ted classes on the continent of Europe, by the French, the 
Italians, and, I believe, by the Germans and Spaniards, 
consists of complete withdrawal, on the part of the man, 
immediately previous to emission. This is, in all cases, 
effectual. \ It may be objected, that the practice requires 
a mental effort and a partial sacrifice. I reply, that, in 
France, where men consider this, (as it ought ever to be 
considered, when the interests of the other sex require it,) 
a point of ho7iour-—all young men learn to make the 
necessary effort; and custom renders it easy and a mat- 
ter of course. As for the sacrifice, shall a trilling (and 
it is but a very trifling) diminution of physical enjoy- 62 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
meat be suffered to outweigh the most important con- 
siderations connected with the permanent welfare of 
those who are the nearest and dearest to us ? Shall it 
be suffered to outweigh the risk of incurring heavy and 
sacred responsibilities, ere we are prepared to meet and 
fulfil them ? Shall it be suffered to outweigh a regard 
for the comfort, the well-being—in some cases the life, 
of those whom we profess to love ? The most selfish 
will hesitate deliberately to reply, in the affirmative, to 
such questions as these. A cultivated young French- 
man, instructed as he is, even from his infancy, careful- 
ly to consult, on all occasions, the wishes, and punc- 
tiliously to care for the comfort and welfare, of the gentler 
sex, would learn almost with incredulity, that, in other 
countries, there are men to be found, pretending to cul- 
tivation, who were less scrupulously honourable on this 
point than himself. You could not offer him a greater 
insult than to presuppose the possibility of his forgetting 
himself so far, as thus to put his own momentary gratifi- 
cation, for an instant, in competition with the wish or 
the well-being of any one to whom he professed regard 
or affection.* 
I know it will be argued, that men in the mass are 
* A Frenchman belonging to the cultivated classes, would as 
soon bear to be called a coward, as to be accused of causing the 
pregnancy of a woman, who did not desire it; and that, too, whe- 
ther the matrimonial law had given him legal rights over her per- 
son or not. Such an imputation, if substantiated, would shut him 
out for ever from all decent society; and most properly so. It is 
a perfect barbarity, and ought to be treated as such. 
When we begin to look to genuine morality, instead of empty 
or offensive forms, these are the principles of honour we shall im- 
plant in our children’s minds: and then we shall have a world 
of courtesy and kindness, instead of a scene of legal outrage, oj 
hypocritical profession MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
63 
not sufficiently moral to adopt this recommendation; 
because „ney will not make any voluntary sacrifice of 
animal enjoyment, however trifling. Ido not see that. 
Hundreds of voluntary sacrifices are daily made to fa- 
shion—to public opinion. Let but public opinion bear 
on this point in other countries, as it does among the 
more enlightened classes in France, and similar effects 
will be produced. 
Besides, the matter is a trifle. The mere act of ani- 
mal satisfaction, counts with any man of commonly cul- 
tivated feelings, as but a small item in the aggregate of 
enjoyment which satisfied affection affords ; and, surely, 
whether that act be at all times attended with the utmost 
degree of physical pleasure or not, must, even with the 
selfish, be a secondary and unimportant consideration. 
His moral sentiments must be especially weak or uncul- 
tivated, who will not admit, that it is the gratification of 
the social feelings—the repose of the affections—whic; 
.at all times, constitutes the chief charm of human in- 
tercourse. 
The least injurious among the present checks to popu- 
lation, celibacy, is a mortification of the affections, a vio- 
lence done to the social feelings, sometimes a sacrifice 
even of the health. Not one of these objections can be 
urged to the trifling restraint proposed. 
As to the cry which prejudice may raise against it as 
being unnatural, it is just as unnatural (and no more so) 
as to refrain, in a sultry summer’s day, from drinking, 
perhaps, more than a pint of water at a draught, which 
prudence tells us is enough, while inclination would bid 
us drink a quart. All thwarting of any human wish or 
impulse may, in one sense, be called unnatural; it is 
not, however, ofttimes the less prudent and proper, on 
that account. 64 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
As to the practical efficacy of this simple preventive, 
the experience of France, where it is universally prac- 
tised, might suffice in proof. I know, at this moment, 
several married persons who have told me, that, after 
having had as many children as they thought prudent, 
they had for years employed this check, with perfect 
success. For the satisfaction of my readers, I will select 
one particular instance. 
I knew personally and intimately for many years a 
young man of strict honour, in whose sincerity I ever 
placed perfect confidence, and who confided to me the 
particulars of his situation. He was just entering on life, 
with slender means, and his circumstances forbade him 
to have a large family of children. He, therefore, having 
consulted with his young wife, practised this restraint, I 
believe for about eighteen months, and with perfect suc- 
cess. At the expiration of that period, their situation be- 
ing more favourable, Unresolved to become parents; and, 
in a fortnight after, the wife found herself pregnant. 
My friend told me, that though he felt the partial priva- 
tion a little at first, a few weeks’ habit perfectly reconciled 
him to it; and that nothing but a deliberate conviction 
that he might prudently now become a parent, and a 
strong desire on his wife’s part to have a child, induced 
him to alter his first practice. I believe I was the only 
one among his friends to whom he ever communicated 
the real state of the case ; and I doubt not there are, even 
in this country, hundreds of similar cases which the 
world never learns any thing about. Hence the doubts 
and ignorance which exist on the subject. 
I add another instance. A few weeks since, a re- 
spectable and very intelligent father of a family, about 
thirty-five years of age, who resides west of the moun- 
tains, called at our office. Conversation turned on the MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
65 
present subject, and I expressed to him my conviction, 
that this check was effectual. He told me he could speak 
from personal experience. He had married young, and 
soon had three children. These he could support in 
comfort, without running into debt or difficulty; but, 
the price of produce sinking in his neighbourhood, there 
did not appear a fair prospect of supporting a large fami- 
ly. In consequence, he and his wife determined to 
limit their offspring to three. They have accordingly 
employed the above check for seven or eight years; have 
had no more children ; and have been rewarded for their 
prudence by finding their situation and prospects im- 
proving every year. He confirmed an opinion I have 
already expressed, by slating, that custom completely 
reconciled him to any slight privation he might at first 
have felt. I asked him, whether his neighbours gene- 
rally followed the same practice. He replied, that he 
could not tell; for he had not thought it prudent to 
with any but his own relations on the subject, one or 
two of whom, he knew, had profited by his advice, and 
afterwards expressed to him their gratitude for the im- 
portant information. 
It is unnecessary farther to multiply instances. The 
fact that tins check is in common practice, and univer- 
sally known to be efficacious, in France, is alone suffi- 
cient evidence of its practicability and safety. 
I can readily imagine, that there are men, who, in 
part from temperament, but much more from the con- 
tinued habit of unrestrained indulgence, may have so 
little command over their passions, as to find difficulty 
in practising it; and some, it may be, who will declare 
it to be impossible. If any there be to whom it is im- 
possible, (which I very much doubt,) I am at least con- 
vinced that the number is exceedingly small; not a 66 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
fiftieth part of those who may at first imagine such to 
be their case. 
I may add, that partial withdrawal, though recom- 
mended in a letter published in Carlile’s Republican, is 
not an infallible preventive of conception. 
Other modes of prevention have been employed,* but 
this is at once the most simple, and the most efficacious; 
the only one, or nearly so, employed by the cultivated 
among European nations; and the only one I here 
venture to recommend. From all I have heard, as 
well from physicians as from private individuals, it is, as 
regards health, at the least, perfectly innocent: it has 
been even said to produce upon the human system an 
effect similar to that of temperance in diet; but whether 
there be truth in this hypothesis I know not. As re- 
regards any moral impropriety in its use, enough, me- 
thinks, has already been said, to convince all except 
those who will not be convinced, that to employ it, in 
all cases where prudence or the well-being of our com- 
panions requires it, is an act of practical virtue. 
It may be said, and said truly, that this check places 
the power chiefly in the hands of the man, and not, 
* One of these modes, that of the sponge, is particularly recommend- 
ed in Carlile’s “ Every Woman’s Book.” Ido not allude to it in the 
text: because I believe it to be of doubtful efficacy ; and, more certainly, 
physically disagreeable in its effects ; and because I feel convinced, that 
the selfish of either sex will adopt no expedient, while the well-disposed 
will adopt the best in preference. Garble supposes this to be the check 
common among the cultivated classes in Prance. I n this he is mistaken. 
It is not employed, and scarcely known there. Had Garble had an op- 
portunity of conversing with French physicians, he would have satis- 
factorily ascertained this fact. 
I also pass over all allusion to the baudruche, which is every way in- 
convenient, and is chiefly used to guard against syphilis. Ido not write 
to facilitate, but, on the contrary, effectually to prevent, the degrading 
intercourse of which it is intended to obviate the penalty. J.MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
67 
where it ought to be, in those of the woman. She, win 
is the sufferer, is not secured against the culpable care- 
lessness, or perhaps the deliberate selfishness, of him who 
goes free and unblamed, whatever may happen. To 
this, the reply is, that the best and only effectual defence 
for women is to refuse connexion with any man void of 
honour. An (almost omnipotent) public opinion would 
thus be speedily formed ; one of immense moral utility, 
by means of which the man’s social reputation would be 
placed, as it should be, in the keeping of women, whose 
moral tact and nice discrimination in such matters is far 
superiour to ours. How mighty and how beneficent the 
power which such an influence might exert, and how 
essentially and rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, 
but. thorough extirpation of those selfish vices, legal and 
illegal, which now disgrace and brutify our species, it is 
difficult even to imagine. 
In the silent, but resistless progress of human im- 
provement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We 
are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice 
and of brutal force; and, day by day, rational liberty 
and cultivated refinement, win an accession of power. 
Violence yields to benevolence, compulsion to kindness, 
the letter of law to the spirit of justice : and, day by day, 
men and women become more willing, and better pre- 
pared, to entrust the most sacred duties (social as well as 
political) more to good feeling and less to idle form— 
more to moral and less to legal keeping. 
It is no question whether such reform will come: no 
human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or 
how rapidly it may come, is a question; and depends, 
in some degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should 
this little book prove one among the number of circum- 
stances to accelerate, however slightly, that progress, its 68 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
author will be repaid, ten times over, for any trifling la 
hour it may have cost him. 
In conclusion, it may be useful to state to the reader 
the following facts;—A knowledge of this and other 
checks to population has been, for many years, exten- 
sively disseminated in most of the populous towns in 
Great Britain : not only through the medium of “Every 
Woman’s Book,” but, previously to its publication, by 
hundreds of thousands of handbills, which were gratui- 
tously distributed from benevolent motives. The men 
who were first instrumental in making them known in 
England, are all elderly men, fathers of families of chil- 
dren grown up to be men and women ; men of unim- 
peachable integrity, and of first rate moral character; 
many of them men of science, and some of them known 
as the first political economists and philanthropists of the 
age. Besides the allusion to the subject already given 
from the Encyclopedia Britan nica, it is adverted to in 
Mill’s “ Elements of Political Economy in Place’s “ Il- 
lustrations of the Principle of Population in Thomp- 
son’s “ Distribution of Wealth,” and probably in other 
works with which I am unacquainted. It was also 
(disguisedly) broached in several English newspapers, 
and was preached in lectures to the labouring classes, by 
a most benevolent man, at Leeds. Ido not believe the 
subject has ever been touched upon, in one single in- 
stance, except by men of irreproachable moral character, 
and generally of high standing in society. The chief 
difference between this little treatise, and the allusions 
made by the distinguished authors above mentioned, is, 
that what public opinion would only permit them to in- 
sinuate, I venture to say plainly. 
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
the facts I have stated. Though, in the present state 
of public opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give 
names in proof, yet it is evident that I cannot have the 
shadow of a motive to mislead or deceive. I shall con 
sider it a favour if any individuals who can adduce, from 
personal experience, facts connected with this subject, 
will communicate them to me. 
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “ Esquisse 
des progres de Vesprit humain,” very distinctly alludes to the 
safety and facility with which population might be restrained, “if 
reason should but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the 
idle prejudices ol superstition should cease to shed over human 
morals an austerity corrupting and degrading, not purifying or 
elevating.” See his Esquisse, pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822. 
Malthus (see his “Essays on Population,” Book 3, chap. 1) 
'* professes not to understand” the French philosopher. No French- 
man could misunderstand him. MORAL PHYSIOLOGV. 
CHAPTER VIL 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
That most practical of philosophers, Franklin., inter 
prets chastity to mean, the regulated and strictly tem- 
perate satisfaction, 'ivithout injury to others, of those 
desires which are natural to all healthy adult beings. 
In this sense, chastity is the first of virtues, and one most 
rarely practised, either by young men or by married per- 
sons, even when the latter most scrupulously conform 
to the letter of the law. * 
The promotion of such chastity is the chief object of 
the present work. It is all-important for the welfare of 
our race, that the reproductive instinct should never be 
selfishly indulged ; never gratified at the expense of the 
well-being of our companions. A man who, in this 
matter, will not consult, with scrupulous deference, the 
slightest wishes of the other sex ; a man who will ever 
put his desires in competition with theirs, and who will 
prize more highly the pleasure he receives than that he 
may be capable of bestowing—such a man appears to 
me, in the essentials of character, a brute. The brutes 
commonly seek the satisfaction of their propensities with 
straight-forward selfishness, and never calculate whether 
their companions are gratified or teased by their impor- 
* My father, Robert Owen’s definition of chastity is also an excellent 
one: “Prostitution, Sexual intercourse without affection; Chastity, 
Sexual intercourse with affection. MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
71 
tunities. Man cannot assimilate his nature more closely 
to theiis, than by imitating them in this. 
Again. There is no instinct in regard to which strict 
temperance is more essential. All our animal desires 
have hitherto occupied an undue share of human 
thoughts; but none more generally than this. The 
imaginations of the young and the passions of the adult 
are inflamed by mystery or excited by restraint, and a 
fall half of all the thoughts and intrigues of the world 
has a direct reference to this single instinct. Even 
those who, like the Shakers, “ crucify the flesh,” are not 
the less occupied by it in their secret thoughts; as the 
Shaker writings themselves may afford proof. Neither 
human institutions nor human prejudices can destroy the 
instinct. Strange it is, that men should not be content 
rationally to control, and wisely to regulate it. 
It is a question of passing importance, “ How may it 
best be regulated 7” Not by a Shaker vow of monkish 
chastity. Assuredly not by the world’s favourite regula- 
tor, ignorance. No. Do we wish to bring this instinct 
under easy government, and to assign it only its due 
rank among human sentiments 7 Then let us culti- 
vate the intellect, let us exercise the body, let us useful- 
ly occupy the time, of every human being. What is it 
gives to passion its sway, and to desires their empire, 
now 7 It is vacancy of mind ; it is listlessness of body ; 
it is idleness. A cultivated race are never sensual; a 
hardy race are seldom love-sick; an industrious race 
have no time to be sentimental. Develope the moral 
sentiments, and they will govern the physical instincts. 
Occupy the mind and body usefully, intellectually; and 
the propensities will obtain that care and time only which 
they merit. Upon any other principle we may doctor 
poor human nature for ever, and shall only prove our- 72 
MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
selves empirics in the end. Mortifications, vestal vowa, 
mysteries, bolts and bars, prudish prejudices—these are 
all quack-medicines ; and are only calculated to prostrate 
the strength and spirits, or to heighten the fever, of the 
patient. If we will dislodge error and passion from the 
mind, we must replace them by something better. They 
say that a vacuum cannot exist in nature. Least of all 
can it exist in the human mind. Empty it of one folly, 
cure it of one vice, and another flows in to fill the vacan- 
cy, unless it find it already occupied by intellectual ex- 
ercise and common sense. 
Husbands and fathers ! study Franklin’s definition of 
chastity. Your fears, your jealousies, have hitherto been 
on the stretch to watch and guard: reflect whether it be 
nut pleasanter and better, to enlighten and trust. 
Honest ascetics ! you have striven to mortify the 
flesh ; ask yourselves whether it be not wiser to control 
it. You have sought to crucify the body; consider 
whether it be not more effectual to cultivate the mind. 
Have you succeeded in spiritualizing your secret 
thoughts? If not, enquire whether all human propen- 
sities, duly governed, be not a benefit and a blessing to 
the nature in which they are inherent. 
Human beings, of whatever sex or class ! examine 
dispassionately and narrowly the influence which the 
control here recommended will produce throughout so- 
ciety. Reflect whether it will not lighten the burdens 
of one sex, while it affords scope for the exercise of the 
best feelings of the other. Consider whether its tenden- 
cy be not benignant and elevating; conducive to the 
exercise of practical virtue, and to the permanent welfare 
of the human race. APPENDIX 
TO THE FIFTH EDITION. 
deception of the Work hy the Public. Opinion of a talented Author. Opinion of 
a Physician and Professor. Letter from a Mechanic. The work never intended 
as a political Panacea. Transmission of hereditary disease. Letter on the sub- 
ject. Letter from a French gentleman. Physiological argument in favour of 
temperance. Experience of two members of the Society of Friends. Objection 
of J. W. Objections by a physician of Indiana. Answer to them. 
New- York, June 25, 1831. 
Seven months have not yet elapsed since the first publication 
of “ Moral Physiologyand already I am called upon to pre- 
pare a fifth edition. If lam pleased (as what author is not) to 
see that my labours are not unappreciated by the public. I am 
also reminded of the additional obligations I lie under, to render 
the little treatise as complete and as free from error and inac- 
curacy as possible. 
I have therefore carefully revised the work, and made such 
amendments as have suggested themselves during these seven 
months. And as, in the course of that time, I have received a 
multitude of communications (some verbal, but chiefly 'ey let- 
ter) on the subject in question, I shall here add, in the shape of 
Appendix, such extracts from, and comments on, a few of these, 
as seem to me interesting and useful. 
I expected much opprobrium from the work ; and have been 
not a little surprised to find my expectations most agreeably 
disappointed. Never, in my life, have I written any thing that 
so nearly united the suffrages of all whose opinion I care for, or 
which has been suffered to spread more quietly by our oppo- 
nents. In this, these latter have acted wisely. Had they made 
any fuss about it, it would probably have been the Appendix to 
the not to the fifth, edition I should now be writing. 
The sentiments of approval which have reached me from va- 74 
APPENDIX. 
rious quarters, have, in the expressive language of the Old 
Book, “strengthened iny hands and encouraged my heartj’* 
for, though the world’s opinion be worth little, there are indi- 
viduals in it whose opinion is worth much; and though a con- 
sciousness of rectitude may support a man against all opinions, 
yet it is pleasant to find, now and then, in one’s progress, con- 
current sentiments from those we esteem. 
I imagine that it may alford similar encouragement, in a de- 
gree, to any of my readers who may chance to approve what 
they read, if I quote for them a few of these opinions. And, 
first, I select for the purpose two, which come from men both 
known to me, as to the American public, "nly by their writings. 
Could I give the names of the writers, these would be sufficient 
to secure for their opinions a weight which no anonymous 
sentiments can obtain. But, in the present state of public opi- 
nion, I do not feel myself, for obvious reasons, at liberty to do 
so. My readers must therefore be content to take my word 
for it, that both the writers are gentlemen who have displayed 
in their works talents of a high order, and whose personal ac 
quaintance I should consider it an honour to make. 
I extract from the first letter the following : 
“ I am greatly obliged to you for sending me your ‘ Moral 
Physiology.’ I have read it with pleasure and instruction. I 
see not why you should anticipate censure, from any quarter, 
for its publication. It contains no sentiment or doctrine which 
strikes me unfavourably, or which any person could wish 
suppressed. Had the same thoughts occurred to me, I should 
nave entertained them, and possibly published them, without 
the least suspicion of offence to delicacy or good morals. 
“ I fully concur with you, that truth can do the world no 
harm. Nor do I doubt that he should be deemed a benefactor, 
(even an exceedingly great benefactor,) who can teach man 
how to limit his powers of reproduction without abridging his 
enjoyments.” 
Again, the same correspondent says : 
“ The value of the power to limit offspring, is, I think, very 
separable from any theory which involves consequences arising 
from the extent of population which the earth can sustain. 
The limitation is a matter which concerns the present comfort 
of individuals, in their private capacity ; while the extent ot the earth’s ultimate fecundity concerns only the thoughts 01 
speculatists and politicians. I say this, because I am not 
troubled by the spectre of Malthus.” 
APPENDIX. 
75 
This appears to me an enlightened, and also a very practical 
view of the subject. The political economy of the question 
ought ever to be kept separate from its moral bearings. The 
consequences involved by the former, are distant, and may be 
called theoretical; while those resulting from the latter, are 
immediate, and of daily recurrence in practice. If there were 
no tendency whatever in the human race to increase beyond its 
present numbers, the question would still be one of vital in- 
terest, and the consequences it involves would still be of sur- 
passing importance to man in his social and domestic relations. 
The more I reflect on the subject, the more thoroughly con- 
vinced I am, that man can never attain to any thing like social 
cultivation, without a knowledge of the means to limit, at pleasure 
and without much sacrifice of enjoyment, his power of reproduc 
tion. And I cannot but think that all who have seen much ol 
the civilized world, and carefully traced out the various causes 
of the vices and miseries that pervade it, will, upon reflection, 
concur with me in the opinion. 
The second writer of whom I spoke (an eminent physician 
and professor) says: 
“ I have received your 1 Moral Physiology.’ Your bold 
ness and independence are entitled to great respect. It is a 
very important question, and ought to be brought forward, that 
the public opinion concerning it may be based on the only 
proper ground, full and free and patient public discussion. 
Your method of handling the subject I approve. Place, the 
political economist, suggests the remedy more boldly than any 
other.” 
The next communication from which I shall copy is from 
a young man of excellent character, living in a neighbouring 
state, and now one of the conductors of a popular periodical. 
After suggesting to me the propriety of re-publishing some 
English works now out of print, he proceeds as follows: 
“ Had I not been addressing you upon another subject, 1 
should not have ventured to obtrude on you my small meed of 
tc , February 23, 1831. 76 
APPENDIX. 
approbation, due to your last work; but I cannot let slip this 
apportunity of endeavouring to express how much I feel in- 
debted to you for its publication. 
“ To know how I am so indebted, it is necessary you should 
also know something of my situation in life: and when it is 
described, it is perhaps a description of the situation of two 
thirds of the journeymen mechanics of this country. 
“ I have been married nearly three years, and am the father 
of two children. Having nothing to depend upon but my own 
industry, you will readily acknowledge that I had reason to 
look forward with at least some degree of disquietude to the 
prospect of an increasing family and reduced wages; appa- 
rently the inevitable lot of the generality of working men. 
Under these circumstances, I saw W. Jackson’s article in the 
Delaware Free Press; but my feelings as a freeman (nominal- 
ly) revolted at it, and I must say that I felt greatly pleased when 
I found that his system did not meet your approbation. You 
had spoken upon the subject, but, like the Nazarene Reformer, 
you spoke in parables. ‘ Every Woman’s Book’ I could not 
see; and, had not Dr. Gibbons afforded me an example of how 
much you might be misrepresented, I might have been tempted 
to believe the slanders circulated regarding you. 
“ I had apparently nothing left but to let matters take their 
own course, when your { Moral Physiology’ made its appear- 
ance. 
“ I read it; and a new scene of existence seemed to open be- 
fore me. I found myself, in this all important matter, a free 
agent, and, in a degree, the arbiter of my own destiny. I could 
have said to you, as Selim said to Hassan, 
‘ Thoa’st hewed a mountain’s weight from off my heart.’ 
My visions of poverty and future distress vanished; the pre- 
sent seemed gilded with new charms, and the future appeared 
no longer to be dreaded. But you can better imagine, than I 
describe, the revolution of my feelings. 
“ I have since endeavoured to circulate the little book as 
widely as my limited opportunities permit, and shall continue 
to do so, believing it to be the most useful work that has made 
its appearance since the publication of Paine’s ‘ Common 
Senseand convinced that, by so doing, I shall render you the APPENDIX. 
most acceptable return in my power to make for the benefit 
you have conferred upon me as an individual. G.” 
And here I may remark, that, though 1 expected my little 
book, in such individual cases as the above, to be (as it seems 
it has been) the means of diminishing the suffering which ine- 
quality of condition and the pressure of poverty bring upon 
men and women, yet I desire it to be distinctly understood, 
that I have never put it forward, and do not now put it for- 
ward, as a remedy, but only as a palliative, of political evils.* 
Were all poor parents (an unlikely case, however) thus to 
limit their offspring, it might, perchance, but furnish excuse 
and opportunity, in the present state of commercial competi- 
tion, for their employers to lower their wages: for wages, as 
things are now arranged, too often sink nearly to the point of 
subsistence.! Economy in living is, like the parental foresight 
of which I have spoken, in itself an excellent thing; but he 
who expects, by the one recommendation or the other, to cure 
the ills of poverty, expects an effect from utterly inadequate 
causes. The root of the evil lies far deeper than this ; and its 
remedy must be of a more radical nature. This is not the 
place, however, to enter on such a discussion. The great im- 
portance of the work I conceive to lie more in its moral arid 
social, rather than in its political, bearings. It is addressed to 
each individual, rather as the member of a family, than the 
citizen of a state. 
The next extract, from an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, I have 
selected chiefly as it furnishes a beautiful, and, alas! a rare, ex- 
ample, of that parental conscientiousness which scruples to 
impart existence where it cannot also impart the conditions 
necessary to render that existence happy. In this view, the 
control in question is indeed all-important. Were such virtue 
as this cultivated in mankind generally, how soon might the 
very seeds of disease die out among us, instead of bearing, as 
now, their poison-fruit from generation to generation ! and how 
far might human beings, in succeeding ages, surpass their 
forefathers in strength, in health, and in beauty! 
* See page 31 of the work itself. 
t This, however, applies, atthepresent time, rather to Great Britain than to thhl 
country. APPENDIX. 
This view of the subject is to the physiologist, to the philo- 
sopher, to every friend of human improvement, a most interest- 
ing one. “So long,” to use the words of an eloquent lecturer, 
now in this city, “ as the tainted stream is unhesitatingly trans- 
mitted through the channel of nature, from parent to offspring, 
so long will the text be verified which ‘ visits the sins of the 
fathers on the children, even to the third and fourth genera- 
tion.’ ” And so long, I would add, will mankind (wise and 
successful whenever there is question of improving the animal 
races) be blind in perceiving, and listless in securing, that far 
nobler object, the physical, and thereby (in a measure) the 
mental and moral improvement of our own. 
I may seem an enthusiast—but so let me seem then—when 
I express my conviction, that there is not greater physical dis- 
parity between the dullest, shaggiest race of dwarf draught 
horses, and the fiery-spirited and silken-haired Arabian, than 
between man degenerate as he is, and man perfected as he 
might be: and though mental cultivation in this counts for 
much, yet organic melioration is an influential—is an indispen- 
sable accessary. 
Here is the extract which led to these remarks: 
“ , March 23, 1831. 
* * * “ I use n0 unless eggs may be considered such ; 
I drink neither tea, coffee, nor any thing more exciting than 
milk and water; and, like yourself, lam fully satisfied, having 
no craving after the luxuries of the table. With regard ta 
‘ Moral Physiology,’ let the following facts speak: 
“ I was born of poor parents, and early left an orphan. 
When of age, though my circumstances promised poorly foi 
the support of a family, I desired to marry, knowing that a 
good wife would greatly add to my happiness. The check 
spoken of in your book (withdrawal) presented itself to my 
mind. And for seven years that I have now been married, i 
have continued to practise it. I was successful in business, 
and acquired the means of maintaining a family; but still j 
have refrained, because my constitution is such an one as i 
think a parent ought not to transmit to his offspring. I prefei 
refraining from giving birth to sentient beings, unless I can 
give them those advantages, physical as well as moral and in 
tellectual, Avhich are essential to human happiness. APPENDIX. 
79 
£< One thing I have observed, that since I have adopted a 
simple diet, and laid by all artificial stimuli, not only is my 
health better, and my mind more clear, but I can abstain, at 
will, without injury or inconvenience, from sexual connexion 
for any length of time ;* and this without having, in the least, 
lost any power in that respect. T.” 
From the letter of an aged French gentleman, who holds a 
public office in the western country, I translate the following; 
and I would to heaven that every young man and woman in 
these United States could read it: 
“ I have read your little work with much interest, and desire 
that it may have a wide circulation, and that its recommenda- 
tions may be adopted in practice. If you publish a third edi- 
tion, I could wish that you would add a piece of advice of the 
greatest importance, especially to young married persons. 
Many women are ignorant, that, in the gratification of the re- 
productive instinct, the exhaustion to the man is much greater 
than to the woman : a fact most important to be known, the 
ignorance of which has caused more than one husband to for- 
feit his health, nay, his life. Tissot tells us, that the loss by 
an ounce of semen is equal to that by forty ounces of blood 
and that, in the case of the healthiest man, nature does not 
demand connexion oftener than once a month.j; 
* We applaud, as a marvel, the continence of Scipio. Such continence—and 
amid circumstances far more trying—is habitually found (under no other re- 
straint than that of public opinion) among the native Indians of our continent. A 
friend of mine, whose family was captured by a party of Mohawk Indians some 
fifty years ago, informed me, that four young women (two of them of considera- 
ble beauty) who were captured on that occasion, were not once, during a resi- 
dence of several years, addressed, even with the remotest degree of sexual im- 
portunity, by an Indian, old or young, though living with them in the same wig- 
wam. These young women were the near relatives of the friend who related 
this fact to me ; and it was from their own lips he obtained it. Yet these were 
savages! 
Such scrupulous regard to the feelings of others, would be a matter of too uni- 
versal prevalence among us even to cause remark, or call forth commendation, 
were it not for the artificial stimuli, and as artificial restraints, which fashion and 
law make common among us. R. D. O. 
t This, of course, must be rather a matter of conjecture and approximation, 
than of accurate calculation. R. D. O. 
| And I doubt whether she permits it, without more or less of injury, to the 
average of constitutions, oftener than once a week. Certain I am, that any young 80 
APPENDIX. 
“ How many young spouses, loving their husbands tenderly 
and disinterestedly, if they were but informed of these facts, 
would watch over and preserve their partners’ healths, instead 
of exciting them to over-indulgence. 
“ I send you a copy of Italian verses, appropriate, like the 
German stanza you have quoted in your work, to the above 
remarks: 
‘ Merta gli allori al crine 
Chi scende in campo armato, 
Chi a cento squadre a lato, 
Impallidir non sa; 
Ma pin gloria ha nel fronte 
Chi, alia ragion soggetto, 
D’un sconsigliato astello 
Trionfator si fa.’* 
L. Q." 
i extract the following from my journal: 
A member of the Society of Friends, from the country, 
called at our office; he informed me that he had been married 
twenty years, had six children, and would probably have had 
twice as many, had he not practised withdrawal, which he 
found, in every instance, efficacious. By this means he made 
an interval of two or three years between the births of each of 
his children. Having at last a family of six, his wife earnestly 
desired to have no more; and on one occasion, when she 
imagined that the necessary precautions had been neglected, 
she shed tears at the prospect of again becoming pregnant. He 
January 4, 1831. 
man who will carefully note and compare his sensations, will become convinced, 
that temperance positively forbids such indulgence, at any rate, more than twice 
a week; and that he trifles with his constitution who neglects the prohibition. 
How immeasurably important that parents should communicate to their sons, but 
especially to their daughters, facts like these 1 R. D. O. 
* For the English reader, I have attempted the following imitation of the above 
lines • 
Crown his brows with laurel wreath, 
Who can tread the field ci death— 
Tread—with armed thousands near— 
And know not what it is to fear. 
But greater far his meed of praise, 
Juster his claim to glory’s bays, 
Who, true to reason’s voice, to virtue’s call, 
Conquers himself, the noblest deed of all! R, D. O. 81 
said he knew, in his own neighbourhood, several married wo 
men who were rendered miserable on account of their con 
tinned pregnancy, and would have given any thing in the world 
to escape, but knew not how. 
APPENDIX. 
This gentleman corroborated the opinion I had suggested, 
(page 66,) that the habit of withdrawal had an influence simi- 
lar to that of temperance in diet. He had found it, he said, 
much less exhausting than unrestrained indulgence. 
Another gentleman, also belonging to the Society of Friends, 
has since confirmed to me (as a fact positively proved to him 
by personal experience) the above opinion. He likewise ex- 
pressed his conviction, that the habit was greatly conducive 
to the preservation of those first, fresh feelings, (so beautiful, 
and, alas! so evanescent,) under which the married usually 
come together. 
In reply to a correspondent, J. W., who cites a case of Pria- 
pism mentioned in a Medical Journal some eight or ten years 
since, and which pathological derangement he thinks was at- 
tributable to the habit of withdrawal, I would reply, that the 
concurrent testimony of all who can speak from experience on 
the subject, disproves, not of course the fact he cites, but the 
propriety of attributing the effect produced to the cause in ques- 
tion. Priapism, it is well known, is frequently caused by 
sexual excess ; and was probably so caused in the case alluded 
to. Such excess is much less likely to take place, when with- 
drawal is practised, than during unrestrained indulgence. 
It now remains for me to notice an important communica- 
tion which I recently received from a medical gentleman re- 
siding in Indiana, for whose talents and character I entertain 
much respect. It regards the physiological portion of the 
work, which the writer, Dr. S , thinks is altogether inac- 
curate. 
He refers me to Burns’, Denman’s, and Dewee’s Midwifery, 
and especially to an essay by Dr. Caldwell, of Transylvania 
University, on Generation, in proof, that all are not agreed that 
the semen must enter the uterus in order to effect impregnation. 
He instances a case published in the New-York Medical Re- 
pository, and another in the Western Quarterly Reporter, in 82 
which Impregnation was effected, though immediate!}* previ- 
ous to the child’s birth the vagina was found only large enough 
to admit a common knitting needle, and the medical attendant 
had, in consequence, to make an artificial passage. And he 
argues, on the authority of this and other instances where 
there existed such mechanical obstruction in the vagina, os 
tine® or collum uteri, as to render the passage of the seminal 
fluid next to impossible, that that fluid dees not enter the 
uterus at all, and, consequently, that the doctrine on which the 
whole work is founded, is physiologically false; and, as being 
false, is calculated to do much and cruel mischief. There are 
two chief theories, he says, now generally received on the sub- 
ject, the absorbent and the sympathetic; according to both of 
which, all that appears absolutely necessary to impregnation is, 
that the semen should be deposited somewhere in the vagina; 
perhaps, to be taken up by a set of absorbent vessels, and by 
them conveyed to the ovum, which ovum is, in its turn, taken 
up by the fimbriated ends of the Fallopian lube, and thereby 
deposited in the uterus; perhaps, (but I confess this seems to 
me a very poetical theory,) merely to produce simultaneous 
and sympathetic action, thereby effecting the great and secret 
work of nature. 
APPENDIX. 
Now, my expression was, that “ almost all physiologists are 
agreed, that the entrance of the sperm itself, or of some volatile 
particles proceeding from, it, into the uterus, must precede con- 
ception.”* The favourers of the absorbent theory ■will not, I 
presume, deny this ; the few advocates of the sympathetic, may. 
Nor am I tenacious as regards any theory whatever, on a sub- 
ject of which the arcana still remain shrouded in comparative 
mystery. Enough for my purpose, that the condition indis- 
pensable to reproduction is, (as Dr. S himself reminds us,) 
the deposition of the sperm in the vagina. The preventive sug- 
gested in “ Moral Physiology,” positively precludes the fulfil- 
* In proof that I have not spoken unadvisedly on this subject, I may quote what, 
I believe, is now considered the highest authority: 
“ If the most recent works on Physiology are to he credited, the uterus, during 
impregnation, opens a little, draws in the semen by inspiration, and directs it to 
the ovarium by means of the Fallopian tubes, whose fimbriated extremity closely 
embraces that organ.”—Magendie, p. 416, Philad. Ed. 
See also Blundell’s and Haighton’s experiments on the rabbit, at Guy’s hospi- 
tal. See also Spallanzani’s expedients. 83 
meni of this condition ; and it could only have been, I imagine, 
by confounding it with the partial expedient of which I have 
spoken, {page 66,) that my medical friend arrived at the con- 
clusions to which I have here alluded. 
APPENDIX. 
The only argument which I conceive can be fairly urged 
against it by the physiologist, is that to which I have adverted 
and replied: (last paragraph, of page 65.) 
Having thus answered all the objections which have hitherto 
reached me, I conceive it unnecessary to lengthen this Appen- 
dix by farther quotations approbatory of the or corrobo- 
rative of the facts it details. Let “ Moral Physiology” abide 
the ordeal of public examination; if found wanting, to be cast 
aside and forgotten ; but if deemed true and useful, to be re- 
membered and approved. NOTES BY THE PUBLISHER, 
ON 
ROBERT DALE OWEN’S MORAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
Since this work was published by Robert Dale Owen, a flood 
of information on the subject has been shed upon the world; 
and France, Germany, Spain, and England, have each been 
made to contribute to the United States its share. 
The following facts are now 'positively known : All female 
animals have their courses ; and at such periods in the human 
species, an ovum or egg is brought down from the ovaries into 
‘.he womb, through the Fallopian tubes (see plate). This ovum 
or egg arrives in the womb a day or two after the courses have 
ceased, but it may be longer. This is known from anatomy, 
and can be felt by an observing female, from a sense of weight 
and slight pain in the region of the Fallopian tubes, and across 
the lower abdomen. (See Dr. Hollick’s Marriage Guide, article 
“Impregnation.”) The egg in the womb is covered with a 
film, called the decedua, which retains it in the crown of the 
womb for some days: during that time the woman is liable to 
become pregnant, if she then indulge in sexuality, and to which 
act at that period Nature prompts the male by previous absti- 
nence, and the female in common with all female animals. 
The ovum or egg remains in the womb or Fallopian tubes in 
all about fifteen days at most, but generally a less time; and, 
if unimpregnated, corrupts and passes o(T with a thin fluid, 
wetting the adjacent external parts with something like the 
white of an egg. This is followed by the escape of a grayish- 
white clot, as large as a pea or bean, which is found to be the 
ovum or egg, enveloped by the decedua; and this also may be 
felt, seen, and examined, by the attentive subject. 
The mode of impregnation is also known. The semen of 
the male contains animalcules in bunches; these bunches de- 
velop rapidly, and ripen into individuals, in the shape of an 86 
NOTES BY THE PUBLISHER. 
eel (see engraving), with a propensity to dart or push forward. 
One of these, entering the ovum or egg, that becomes impreg- 
nated, if uncorrupted at that time. And such is the origin of 
a child, or man; and such was Napoleon, Charles XII., and 
Sir Isaac Newton. 
Consequently, to avoid impregnation, we must prevent the 
entrance of the animalcule into the womb when the ovum or 
egg is present, or destroy it when there. 
This object can be effected in various ways, any one or all 
of which it may be desirable to use in different circumstances. 
Avoid sexual union while liable to impregnation ; that is, till 
after the escape of the ovum or egg. Withdrawal on the part 
of the male, before emission, is an effectual prevention; but it 
is only practicable with safety by the male in the decline of 
life, when the semen is deposited slowly: in youth and mature 
manhood it is ejected promptly and with force ; it is therefore 
difficult to control. 
A partial withdrawal or deposite of semen within the vagina 
(see plate), but not near the womb (which is situated at the 
extremity of the vagina, or passage to the womb), is safe, if 
the semen be removed by a syringe immediately afterwards. 
The use of the syringe with cold water is effective immedi- 
ately after coition ; but rheumatism of the womb may be a 
consequence of this preventive. Nor will any ingredient, such 
as soda, prevent the consequence. 
A complete preventive is the use of the syringe with water 
and a little alcohol or common whiskey, &c., as strong as con- 
venient, which experience will discover. A folded cloth or 
sheet may be laid under the subject, and the remedy applied 
while in bed, with no inconvenience; and this may be relied 
upon, for the alcohol destroys the animalcules. Should the 
alcohol be unpleasant from its strength, the application of cold 
water will correct the error, and in such circumstances be 
perfectly safe. 
Most books on this subject reserve a secret, for which you 
have to remit a dollar. This is quackery. The foregoing 
may be relied upon ; it is all that is requisite, and has been 
thoroughly tested. 
The drugs employed by the medical faculty are opium, prus- 
sic acid, iodine (and strychnine by the French). We do not recommend them. Other remedies have been mentioned in 
NOTES BY THE PUBLISHER. 
87 
the body of the work. 
We subjoin a list of modern works in the English language 
upon this and collateral subjects, which may be consulted with 
advantage, and which can be had at our office:— 
Moral Physiology, a Plain Treatise on the Population Question, 
with Notes by the Publisher, G. Yale ; embracing all that is 
now known upon the subject, and illustrated by Anatomical 
Engravings. Paper, 37£ cts.; boards $ .50 
Hollick’s Male Organs 1.00 
Hollick’s Matron’s Manual 1.00 
Hollick’s Marriage Guide 1.00 
Nichols’s Esoteric Anthropology 1.00 
Nichols on Marriage 1.00 
Office, 5 Chatham Square, New York. 
NOTES ON THE TEXT. 
Onanism.—The vice of onanism, or self-pollution, is prac- 
tised by both sexes. The chief injury is in the nervous irrita- 
bility often kept up for a long while, and frequently repeated 
by those who know not the consequences. The loss of semen 
in the male is much easier repaired than the shattered nerves, 
occasioned by protracted excitement.—See page 42. 
The Baudruche.—The haudruche or condum is a cover or 
case to the male organ, made of fine skin or silk, and is used, 
as the author remarks, both to prevent conception and disease 
by contagion. As we cannot prevent vice, we see no reason 
for not abating the consequent misery. The free use of water, 
especially if a little soda be mixed, immediately after coition, 
will generally prevent the effects of contagion ; but its frequent 
use with the alkali named might be injurious. 
We have seen a new article, called “The French Safe,” 
made of India rubber and gutta percha, which appears admira- 
bly adapted to the object proposed. It is more durable, and 
less expensive. This has been introduced to us by Dr. Ralph 
Darby.—p. 66. 88 
Conception.—A wife can discover by a little attention when 
an emission is about to take place, and can therefore guard 
against the consequences, if necessary ; or the use of a sponge 
before, or of a female syringe afterwards, or both, will give 
her complete control. 
NOTES BY THE PUBLISHER. 
There is a fact connected with this subject, though known 
to many in practice, which has yet escaped the vigilance of 
previous writers; while anatomy has served to mislead, be- 
cause it can he practised only on the dead. On dissection of 
the female organs, the mouth of the womb is seen to be nearly 
closed, scarcely admitting a small wire, and hence some have 
supposed that the male organ could not enter, and these have 
doubted even if the semen, when ejected, could force an en- 
trance into the womb; they therefore supposed that absorption 
took place in some mysterious manner. The fact is, that the 
neck of the womb comes down in the act of coition, and the 
mouth opens, at least sufficiently to receive the end of a finger: 
and this coming down of the neck of the womb is connected 
with the extreme sensibility sometimes felt; and at those 
times the proof can be most easily obtained.—p. 67. 
Sexual Capacity.—This is so various in different individ- 
uals, both male and female, that no rule can have a general 
application. What would he excess in one, is harmless in 
another. A modification in the marriage laws, where much 
discrepancy exists, is the natural remedy.—p 80. 
OCT* This work is therefore recommended to those who re- 
quire its aid, as complete and without reserve. Nothing is 
kept back; all of any use, that is known, is given, and the in- 
formation is all-sufficient; while the price will place it in the 
hands of the poor as well as of the rich, a desirable object foi 
every useful work. 
New York, October, 1858. 
Gr. V. Tig. 1. 
1. A Vesicle in .the So* 
men containing a bunch cl 
Animalcules. 
2. The Vesicle broken, 
and Animalcules escaping. 
3. A perfect Animalcule. 
Pig. 2.—f f Fallopian Tubes.—e, e, Ovaries or Eggs.—W, Womb.— 
N, Neck of the Womb.—C, Passage into the Womb or Vagina.