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TESTIMONIALS.
   The following remarks, from the Annals of Education for 1834,
 are from the pen of William C. Woodbridge; whose long and
 zealous  devotion to the cause of education, and whose extensive
 travels and researches both  in Europe and America, and special
 attention to the subject of which  he here speaks, pre-eminently
 qualify him to judge accurately in the matter:

   " We are  rejoiced to see a work published in our country, on a
 topic in physiology which the  'artificial  modesty' to which we
 have formerly alluded, has covered  up, until a solitary, but fatal
 vice is spreading desolation through our schools and families, unno-
 ticed or unknown.  The experience of teachers, the case-books of
 physicians, and  the painful exposures which accident, or the dread-
 ful diseases which follow in its train, have occasionally produced,
 have at length forced it upon public attention ;  and we hope it will
 not again be forgotten.  The  work before us is the result of exten-
 sive observation and  study;—its  usefulness has been tested by its
 influence as a lecture ;  and its views of this evil are in accordance
 with  the experience of the few teachers  whom we  have known
 possessed of the moral courage to encounter it.  We would offer it
 to those who have earnestly desired a work on this subject, as one
 adapted  to their purposes.  We would recommend its perusal to
 every parent  and teacher.   We would  warn them that those who
 have been most confident of the safety of their charge, have often
 been most deceived ; and that the youthful bashfulness which seems
 to shrink  from  the bare mention of the subject, is sometimes the
 blush of shame for concealed  crime.  We feel bound to add, what
 abundant and decisive evidence has shown, that ignorance on this
 subject  is no protection from  the  vice;—nay, that it is  often the
 original cause or encouragement of it;  that it gives tenfold power
 to the evil example and influence which  are  so rarely escaped;
and that a cure can be effected only by the most careful instruction
and long  continued  discipline, both physical and  moral, directed
by sad experience, as is presented in this work."
               1 
TESTIMONIALS.
   The  following brief but  highly valuable testimony is from the
 distinguished superintendent of the Massachusetts Lunatic Hospital
 at  Worcester:

   " Dear Sir :—The subject of your Lecture to Young Men, has
 been much neglected, although of great importance.
  This lecture, while it sounds the alarm to the young, will not fail
 to awaken the attention of parents, if once perused.   It is couched
 in language as delicate as the nature of the subject will admit, and
 may be read with propriety and benefit by all.
  The evil of which it treats, if I mistake not, is more extensively
 sapping the foundation of physical vigor and moral purity, in the
rising generation, than is generally apprehended even by those who
are awake to the danger, and  who have witnessed the  deplorable
influence of it upon its victims.
                    Yours, with respect,
                                     S. B. WOODWARD.
  Worcester, July 15,1835."
   The following is  from Dr. Alcott, the editor of the Library of
 Health, and author of the Young Mother, the Young Man's Guide,
 the House I Live In, and several other valuable works :

  " Dear Sir :—The subject of your Lecture to Young Men is one
 of immense  importance, and demands the profound attention  of
 every friend of man.  It is vain longer to shuffle it off, when those
 whose opportunities best qualify them to give an  opinion, do not
 hesitate to say that solitary vice is  rapidly gaining ground among
 us.  It is a subject which must be met.
  In this view, I  rejoice  to find that an increasing demand for your
 little work has justified the publication of a second  edition.   I
 rejoice, especially, to see such sound principles in physiology incul-
 cated and  warmly enforced.  With the corrections and emendations
 which you will now be able to make, I have no hesitation in saying
 that it ought  to be circulated throughout  our country.   It would
 thus not only save many  a young person from the murderous fangs
of quackery, but—what is much better—it would prevent the neces- 
TESTIMONIALS.
sity of his applying either to quacks or physicians for relief from  a
situation in which he ought never to be placed.
  Accept, dear sir, my best  wishes  for your  success in the depart-
ment of human effort to which, by your pen and your tongue, you
have devoted yourself, and believe me,
                               Yours, truly,
                                       WM. A.  ALCOTT.
  Boston, Jan. 7,1837."
  The following is an extract from a letter written by the chaplain
of one of our New England State Prisons to a brother clergyman
in a neighboring state :

  " My Dear Sir :—For the letter and copy of Graham's Lecture
to Young Men which you were so good as to send  me, please to
accept my sincere thanks.   A better service  you could  scarcely
have  done me.  I have  obeyed you.  I have read  the book three
times, and derived more benefit from the last, than  from either of
the other readings.   I like this book.  Why is it not in the market ?
Why  is it not in the hands of every young man, especially in cities,
to counteract the  influence of indecent pictures and  corrupting
books ?   A young man here in prison from one of the most respec-
table families in one of the principal cities of New England, gives
me a painful account of the ease and  frequency with which books
of most corrupting character are  circulated  among the youth of
both sexes in high and low life in that city.
  One excellence in Graham's Lecture, as  it  strikes  me, is, that it
is so purely philosophical.  Even an atheist might see force  in his
statements.  A man must deny many of the best  established prin-
ciples of science, before he  can deny most of the  conclusions to
which the lecturer comes..
May 7,1836." 
 
A
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN,
                 ON

           CHASTITY.
INTENDED ALSO FOR THE SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF


    PARENTS AND  GUARDIANS.
BY SYLVESTER GRAHAM.
" Beware of fleshly lusts, which war against the soul."
          BOSTON:
LIGHT & STEARNS : CROCKER & BREWSTER.
    NEW YORK, LEAVITT, LORD & Co.
              1837. 


V
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by Syl-
  vester Graham, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
  Massachusetts.
MUi 
PREFACE TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION.
   I  am  fully aware of the delicacy and  difficulty
attending the discussion of  the subject of the follow-
ing  Lecture;  and have   seriously  and  solemnly
considered  all  the  objections  which can  be  made
against its publication.   But I  am also aware of the
immense importance, that  young men should be
correctly and  properly instructed on this  subject.
He who in  any manner  endeavors to excite  the
sensual appetites, and arouse the unchaste passions
of youth, is  one  of  the   most heinous  offenders
against  the welfare of mankind; and, so far as
effects are  considered, it is not enough that he who
meddles with  this matter, means well.  Irreparable
mischief may  be  done, with  the  best intentions.
There is no point of morality of more  importance;
and  none  that  is intrinsically connected  with so
much difficulty.   Through  a fear of  contaminating
the minds of youth, it has long  been  considered the 
8
PREFACE.
wisest measure to keep them in ignorance ; and too
generally, in  order  to sustain  this  measure, the
natural  inquisitiveness of the young mind has been
met by misrepresentation and falsehood, on the  part
of those who would preserve their purity; while on
the other hand, the  basest  of  human  cupidity has
eagerly  catered to the restless  and prying curiosity,
which has  thus  been exceedingly augmented.   So
that, while  parents  have been resting  securely in
the idea of the ignorance and purity of their children,
these have been clandestinely drinking in the most
corrupt  and  depraving knowledge from mercenary
and polluted  hands.
  I am fully convinced that mankind have erred in
judgment, and in practice,  on this  point.  Truth,
properly inculcated,  can  never be injurious.   The
only questions are,  When and How ?  As to the
when, I  am decidedly of  the opinion that  it should
be as early as the  young  mind  can be made to
understand the subject accurately; and in regard to
the manner,   or  the how, I  am satisfied  that  it
should  at first be as purely scientific  as possible.
Anatomy  and Physiology must become common
branches of education, and fundamental  principles
in all our systems  of instruction and government, 
PREFACE.
9
and all  our  domestic  and  social  customs, before
society reaches its highest good.   And this kind of
knowledge can never be corrupting in its effects nor
tendencies.   The more  perfectly scientific the young
mind becomes in anatomy and physiology,  the more
strongly is it secured against  the undue influences
of lewd  associations; and learns to  think, even of
the  sexual  organs, with as little lasciviousness as it
does of the stomach and lungs. But all this requires
great wisdom and prudence.1*
   When I  commenced my public career,  as a Lec-
turer  on the Science of  Human Life, it did not, in
any degree, enter into my plan, to treat on this deli-
cate subject: but the continual entreaties and impor-
tunities, and  heart-touching—and I might truly  say
  * The Rev. E. M. P. Wells, who has distinguished himself per-
haps more  than any other gentleman in New England by his suc-
cessful management of boys of every description, assures me that
he finds no difficulty in bringing this subject before his  pupils, and
in instructing them concerning their  sexual organs and appetites,
with perfect freedom.  " Occasionally,"  says  he, " an impure
minded boy, when he first hears me speak on the subject, will
evince, by his looks and manners, that his mind has been corrupted.
But in a few days all  this disappears, and he learns, like the other
members of the school, to listen to my instructions of this kind just
as he  listens to my instructions in regard to any other organs and
instincts of the body."—See also remarks from Annals of Educa-
tion, page 1, and Mr. Wells' Letter, Note G. 
10
PREFACE.
heart-rending—appeals which I received from young
men, constrained me to dare to do that  which I was
fully convinced ought to be done ; and the  result
has entirely justified my decision and conduct.  An
incalculable amount  of good has  already been
accomplished by it.  Hundreds, who have  listened
to the  following Lecture, have thereby been  saved
from the most calamitous evils: and great numbers,
among whom  are  many physicians and clergymen,
have urged me to publish it.  On  this point, I have
long hesitated:—not, however, because I  doubted
the intrinsic propriety of publishing it;  but  because
I  doubted  whether  the world  had sufficient virtue
to receive  it, without attempting  to crucify me for
the benefaction.  But the more  I have considered
the subject, and the more extensively I have become
acquainted with the  existence of the evils which it
is the object of the lecture  to remedy and prevent,
the stronger has become my moral courage to " dare
do all that would become a man."   The unanimous
expression of the opinion, in the American  Lyceum
at New York, in May last, that  such  a work was
wanted, more  than  any other;  and  the  urgent
appeal  which has  more recently been made to me,
from a  highly respected  source, have contributed to 
PREFACE.
11
bring my mind to the full conclusion to publish this
volume—with the  most entire  conviction  that  it
will be the means of  immeasurable good  to my
fellow creatures ; and that it cannot  possibly be the
means of evil to any one.
  There are already several works  on this subject,
in English print;  but many of them  have  been
put forth by empirics,  for very sinister purposes ;
and  most  of  them  are  exceedingly faulty,  and
dangerous  in their tendency; and, so far  as I have
seen,  every one  of them is radically erroneous in
its physiological views,  and does not more than half
way fathom the depths of this abyss of evil.
  Many of the facts  and phenomena, stated in the
following  Lecture,  are  to  be found  also in  other
works  on  this  subject;  yet the reader may  be
assured  that in  almost every  particular, I  have
stated  nothing  but what has come  under my own
observation;—nevertheless I have not shunned to
avail myself of all the advantages within my reach ;
and feel incomparably  more  desirous of effecting
good  by the  work, than of gaining  the  credit  of
authorship.
  It may, perhaps, be  said, that this work is better
calculated for adults than for young boys.  This is 
12                  PREFACE.
true, and is according to my intention. I am convinced
that the most important thing to be accomplished in
relation  to this  matter is, in the first place, to  open
the eyes of adults, and especially of parents, guar-
dians and teachers, to all that is true and real con-
cerning it.  It may then be found expedient  and
desirable that a  work should  be produced on the
subject,  more peculiarly  adapted to young minds.
I am however inclined  to  think, that oral instruc-
tions from parents, guardians and others having the
care of  youth, adapted to the  age, intelligence and
circumstances of those  instructed,  will  always  be
found preferable  to  books, in the first presentations
of this subject to the youthful mind.
  As it is generally known  that  I  have frequently
given lectures exclusively to females, and particu-
larly to  Mothers, and as many  erroneous impres-
sions  and misrepresentations  have gone  abroad
concerning  those  lectures,  it is   proper  that  I
should  take  this opportunity to  state, that  1 have
never given  them, but  at  the  particular request
of the  ladies themselves :  nor,  in  any  of those
lectures, have  I ever made even  an  allusion to
sexual intercourse; nor to any other subject which
may not properly be listened to, by the most delicate 
PREFACE.
13
and  refined lady.  So  far as my own feelings are
concerned, I should very greatly prefer  to have the
husband of each lady present;  for I am confident
that  every virtuous husband and father in the world
would highly approve of all I say; and it would be
far less embarrassing and painful to me, to address
an audience of husbands and wives,  than one of
females  only.    The exclusion,  therefore,  of  all
males from those lectures, is  not a measure  of my
own, but of the  ladies  who  attended  them.   And
certainly, when  ladies can  justly place a  proper
degree of confidence in the lecturer, there can be no
well grounded objection to  their attending lectures
on subjects  particularly appropriate to females ;  and
especially to mothers.
   " To the pure," says  St.  Paul, " all things are
pure :" and it may be added with equal truth, that
to the impure, all things are impure.   It seems that
most people are  incapable of conceiving  the possi-
bility, that  others  should possess those  virtues of
which  they are destitute themselves;  and hence
they always set about finding some extraordinarily
bad  motives for every extraordinary action in others.
But ignorance and prejudice are the principal  ele-
ments  of this turpitude of human character;  and 
14
PREFACE.
 the  best hopes  of every enlightened philanthropist
 rest upon  the  general extension  of correct know-
 ledge, and the sanctifying influences of truth.
   Ardently desiring to benefit my fellow creatures,
 I present this little volume to the  public;  with the
 most perfect  confidence that in due time it will be
 estimated  at  its true value, and that I shall receive
from  the world  just as much credit  as I  deserve
for it.
Providence, March 25,  1834. 
PREFACE TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION.


  Many good people have regarded  the publication
of the following lecture as a serious evil; and they
have censured me with much severity for publishing
it;  while a far greater number of equally good peo-
ple  have spoken of the lecture in high terms  of
commendation, and have regarded  the publication
of it as a great good to  the human family.
  Why is there  such a diversity of  opinion among
good men, on the same subject ?
  Because there  is a great want of true and proper
knowledge.   I therefore pray those good people who
condemn my lecture, to listen  to me for a few min-
utes, while I state some important facts, concerning
the  evils of which the lecture treats.
  In the first place, self-pollution is actually a very
gTeat and rapidly  increasing evil  in  our  country.
It is, indeed, all that I have described in the follow-
ing lecture—yes, far more than I dare describe, lest 
16
PREFACE.
I should do harm ; for  there  are  some things that
may not even be named.
  In the second place, illicit commerce between the
sexes is a very great  and rapidly increasing evil in
society.
  In the third place, sexual excess within  the pale
of wedlock is really a very considerable  and an
increasing evil.
  In the fourth place, efforts to encourage illicit and
promiscuous  commerce between  the sexes are al-
ready very extensive,  and are daily becoming more
extensive, bold and efficient.  It is believed by those
who are engaged in this enterprise, that if they can
destroy the authority of the  Bible, and  convince
mankind that that book is a forgery, then they will
be able to show that  marriage is  not a divine insti-
tution ; and, appealing to the depraved lusts of the
human race, they will be able easily to convince the
world that it is right and proper for man to indulge
those propensities which Nature has implanted in
him, and to enjoy those pleasures  for which Nature
has both capacitated him, and surrounded him with
the means and opportunities ; and  therefore, that
man is unjust to himself,  and disobedient to Na-
ture, to  submit to  any institutions  or  restraints 
PREFACE.
17
which are founded in error, and sustained by igno-
rance and imposture.
  Now, if this  reasoning is correct, it  must  and
will prevail;  but  if  it is totally and  dangerously
false, the sooner its fallacy is exposed, the better.
  It is too late in the day to reiterate the  assertion,
that it is impossible to speak of these things without
doing more evil than good. It is not for us to choose
whether  anything  shall  be  said  and printed on
this subject  or  not.   Unprincipled book-publishers
have found out that works on  this subject will sell
rapidly, and they have not neglected such an oppor-
tunity to get gain.  Extensive editions of works, of
various character, have already been published and
sold.  Works denouncing marriage  and the Bible,
and encouraging  promiscuous commerce  between
the  sexes ; works pretending  to teach  how preg-
nancy may be avoided, and thus encouraging illicit
commerce ;  works pointing out the evils of sexual
excesses, for the  sole  purpose  of selling vile patent
remedies ; and several other works  of  a  less excep-
tionable character, but still essentially defective, are
already flooding our country, and spreading corrup-
tion in their  course.
            2 
18                  PREFACE.
   These  things being so, I ask, in the  name  of
reason, and  philanthropy,  and chastity, and holi-
ness, and all the dearest interests  of social  life, and
the  highest  responsibilities of man,—What is to be
done?  Are  they who know the truth to hold their
peace, and stand still,  and see this destroying flood
of error and pollution roll  over  the earth ?   Hu-
manity, Virtue, Religion,  answer,  "No!  let  him
that  hath  a  tongue to speak  understandingly and
wisely, cry aloud, and  proclaim the truth to every
human ear!"
  But Humanity and Virtue and Religion all forbid
that  any one  should run before he  is sent, on this
vastly important errand.  A zeal  which  is  not ac-
cording to  knowledge, in this  matter, is extremely
dangerous, however good the intention may be.
  The difficulty of treating this subject .in the very
best  manner for the interests of truth and virtue, is
almost  inconceivably great;  and  the responsibility
is proportionable.
  With a full sense  of this difficulty and  responsi-
bility,  the following lecture  was  written and pub-
lished.  It is the only complete treatise on the sub-
ject,  in any language, that I have  seen or  heard of, 
PREFACE.
19
which is not essentially erroneous in its physiologi-
cal principles.
   I  did not write this  lecture to oppose infidelity,
nor to vindicate the Bible, but simply to set forth, in
a clear and concise  manner, the true physiological
and pathological principles which relate to the sex-
ual organization, functions, propensities and passions
of  man, and to illustrate their practical bearing;
and I am confident  that  I have done  this with an
accuracy of scientific truth which defies refutation;
and in  so  doing, without  going out of my way for
the purpose, I have proved beyond all controversy,
that the Bible doctrine of marriage  and sexual con-
tinence  and purity, is founded on  the physiological
principles established in the constitutional nature of
man.
  I love the good opinion of my fellow creatures,
and am deeply pained at  their censure ;  but  more
strongly and fervently do I love the real welfare of
mankind, and still more deeply am I pained at the
errors  and calamities of  the human race.  Freely
then do I consent to forfeit the  good opinion  of
many, and to bear the censures and bitter revilings
of more, for the sake of doing a great and lasting 
20
PREFACE.
and  extensive good.  The strongest desire I have
concerning the following lecture is, that it may be
carefully read by every parent and guardian, and
every adult young person, in the human world.
  Woman is, by nature, far more chaste than man,
in the present state  of the world;  but it is possible
to deprave even woman.   This consideration should
lead  mothers  to watch with  great care  over the
physical as well as mental and moral education and
habits of their daughters.   For every mother ought
to know that if,  by any possible means, her daugh-
ters  should become so depraved as to practice self-
pollution, all  that is said in the following lecture
concerning the dreadful effects of that vice on males,
is strictly true of  females.   Terrible evils of this
kind  have existed  in female  boarding-schools in
other countries ; and  human nature is radically the
same everywhere.   But Heaven forbid that the lux-
uries of the  table, and  other  depraving customs of
artificial life, should ever make such a Sodom of
our beloved land!   Forever may the females of our
blessed country remain pure  in themselves, and ex-
ert a purifying and exalting  influence on the other
sex.   And God. grant that purity,  and  health, and 
PREFACE.
21
peace,  and  happiness,  may soon  be enjoyed  by
every human being.
  I cannot better close these prefatory remarks, than
by quoting  the  language  of that  eminently holy
man, Jeremy Taylor, on the same subject.
  " Reader, stay, and read not the advices of  the
following pages, unless  thou hast a chaste  spirit, or
desirest to be chaste, or at  least art apt to consider
whether you  ought  or  no.   For  there are  some
spirits so  wholly imbued with  uncleanness,  that
they turn the most  prudent and chaste discourses
into  filthy apprehensions—like diseased  stomachs,
changing their very cordials and medicine  into  bit-
terness ; and, in a literal sense,  turning the  grace
of God into wantonness.  They study cases of con-
science in the matter of carnal  sins, not to avoid, but
to learn ways how to offend God and  pollute  them-
selves"; and  search  their  houses with a sunbeam,
that they may be instructed in  all the corners of
filthiness.  I have  used all the  care I could  in the
following period's, that  I might neither be wanting
to assist those  who need it, nor yet minister  any
occasion  of  fancy or vainer thoughts to  those that
need them not.  If any man will  snatch  the pure 
22
PREFACE.
taper from my hand, and hold it to the devil, he will
only burn his own fingers, but  shall not rob  me of
the reward of my care and good intention, since I
have taken heed how to express  the following duties,
and given him caution how to read them."

   Northampton, Jan. 25, 1837. 
INTRODUCTION.
  The  wisest  and best men  of  every age, have
manifested a deep interest in the welfare of youth;
and  have considered  their  intellectual, moral  and
physical education, character and  condition, of the
utmost importance to the individual, social and civil
welfare  of mankind.
  The ancients were particularly  attentive to these
things.   Their most enlightened and philanthropic
sages and lawgivers regarded the  proper education
of youth, as the  foundation  of  national prosperity
and  happiness.   And  they who  have entertained
the most correct views  on this subject, have been
fully aware, that the intellectual, moral and physical
interests of man cannot be separated.
  In  every condition of the human race, the physi-
cal, as well as the moral  state of the people, is  of
the highest consideration; but more especially in a
country like ours, where  the aggregate  of individual
character and  individual  will, constitutes the founda- 
24
INTRODUCTION.
 tion  and  efficiency of all  our  civil and  political
 institutions.
   It  is  to little purpose that we are nicely accurate
 in  the  theoretical  abstractions  of political rights,
 while we neglect all the practical interests of polit-
 ical truth : for nothing  is  more  certain, than that,
 while statesmen  are devoting  their  talents to the
 subtle discussions of political metaphysics, and exer-
 cising their  learning  and  their  skill in heated
 controversies concerning  the abstract principles  of
 political philosophy, the prosperity of the state, and
 the welfare of the people, may suffer decay, from a
 neglect  of practical interests ;—nay,. indeed,  may
 fall  a sacrifice to this  very jealousy in regard  to
 rights.
  It  is  deeply to be regretted, that so much of the
 talent and energy and  influence  of our politicians
 and statesmen is  wasted in  fruitless controversies,
 and party  intrigues, while so little of their concern
 is given  to the physical  and moral education of our
 youth.
  I do not  say that political science is not  to be
 cultivated, nor  that  abstract  rights  are not' to  be
 insisted  on :—but  I contend that it is incomparably
better, to  be  practically  successful, without  theo- 
INTRODUCTION.
25
retical wisdom, than to be  theoretically wise, with-
out practical success.  I contend that it is infinitely
better to secure  the prosperity of the state through
the happiness  of the  people, than to sacrifice both
in the defence  of abstract metaphysical rights.
   All systems of republican  government which do
not recognize  the necessity  of  continual  effort in
qualifying men to sustain  such a  form of govern-
ment, must necessarily be unsuccessful;—for where
the will  of the  majority is  the  power  of law, no
written constitution  can  resist  that power, nor give
permanence to legislation: and  there  can be no
other  valid  guarantee for the righteousness of law,
and the sacredness of rights, than  individual  virtue
and integrity.
   Such is  the nature of our government, and such
is the  relation which our young men hold  to the
civil, as well as social  and  moral institutions of our
country,  that  it is  hardly  possible  to make  their
education, their character, and their condition of too
much importance.  It is by fixing their attention on
 these points, and applying their talents in this field
 of effort, that  statesmen  can do  more to secure the
prosperity and permanency of our Republic, and the
 real  welfare and happiness of the people, than by 
26
INTRODUCTION.
any other means  in  the compass of human ability.
Oh ! for some  Lycurgus, to teach us the important
relation between  the physical and moral education
of youth, and the  welfare of the state !
  " Know thyself! "  is a precept of wisdom, which
comes  with  peculiar emphasis to every American
youth,  from all the solemn and momentous responsi-
bilities which devolve upon him.
  The deep and cordial interest I have ever felt for
young  men, constrains  me to take a stand  in their
behalf, wThich,  I am  fully aware,  must  necessarily
expose me to  the misrepresentations, and  perhaps
the calumnies, of  the perverse, the debased, and the
malignant.   But  virtuous and high-minded young
men  will  sustain  me ;  and, knowing  the propriety
and importance of my cause, I  dare  commit  the
defence of  my conduct to their  virtue  and  gene-
rosity,  and  to the good sense of mankind at large:
feeling confident  that,  whether I receive the com-
mendation or  the  obloquy of the world,  for this
performance, I  shall hereby  discharge  one of  the
most important duties  to society, and do,  for  the
younger  portion  of  my  species,  one of the most
valuable  services  in the  scope  of human benefac-
tion. 
LECTURE.
  So numerous, and  universal, and continual,
are the evils which the human race have suf-
fered in  this world,  that we are  accustomed
to consider diseases and pain as the necessary
afflictions, which legitimately grow out of our
constitutional nature  and appropriate circum-
stances ;  and hence we either bear these afflic-
tions with what resignation we are capable of,
as the wise dispensations of a good and merci-
ful  Creator, or sullenly and  proudly endure
them, with what  fortitude  we possess,  as the
blind and unavoidable casualties of inexorable
fate.  In both cases we are almost equally in
error; and, by our false notions, prevent those
advantages  which we might otherwise gain
by our experience. 
28         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

  Be  assured, my young friends, the human
system is constructed entirely upon principles
of benevolence,  and perfectly adapted to an
end of utility and enjoyment.   Disease and
suffering are, in no degree, the legitimate and
necessary results of the operations of our bodily
organs, and by no means necessarily incident
to human life.   The  constitutional nature of
man  is  established  upon  principles which,
when strictly obeyed, will always  secure his
highest  good and happiness; and  every dis-
ease,  and every suffering which human nature
bears, results from the violation of  the  consti-
tutional laws of our nature.
  If mankind always lived precisely as  they
ought to  live, they would—as a general rule—
most  certainly pass through the several stages
of life, from  infancy to  extreme old age, with-
out sickness and distress,  enjoying,  through
their  long protracted years, health,  and seren-
ity, and peace,  and individual and social hap-
piness,  and  gradually  wear out  their vital
energies, and finally lie  down and fall asleep
in death, without an agony—without a pain, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         29

  Young  friends,  I  am  not fanciful; I only
assert  the constitutional capabilities of your
nature.   God made  you  to be happy.   He
gave  you  all your powers and faculties  for
good;  and if you suffer evil, depend upon it,
it  comes  not from the legitimate and  undis-
turbed economy of your original constitution.
   Whatever,  therefore, increases your  know-
ledge of your constitutional nature, and makes
you better acquainted with those laws of life
upon which your health and happiness depend,
cannot be otherwise than interesting to you.

   Constituted as man is, two grand  functions
of his system are necessary for his existence
as an individual  and as a species.   The first
is Nutrition ; the second is Reproduction.
   Nutrition  is the general function  by which
the body  is nourished and sustained ;  and in-
cludes, in its detail,  digestion, absorption, cir-
 culation,  respiration, secretion, excretion, &c.
 Reproduction is  the function by which  an
 organized being propagates its kind.  The first
 is necessary for man's  individual bodily exist- 
 30        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

 ence;  the second is necessary for the continua-
 tion of his species.  Man  is accordingly fur-
 nished with organs fitted for these great func-
 tions of life.
   As the  function  of nutrition is necessary for
 the  sustenance,  and  growth, and  continual
 subsistence of the  body, so it must commence
 when his  individual existence commences, and
 continue constantly while his bodily existence
 continues; and  therefore the organs consti-
 tuting  the apparatus necessary for this  great
 function, are among the first formed portions
 of his  system, and  are complete at the time of
 his birth.*
   But  the function of reproduction is not neces-
 sary to man's individual existence, and there-
 fore its final cause, or  constitutional  purpose,
 does not require its constant exercise ; and ac-
cordingly,  the  organs constituting  the  appa-
ratus necessary for this function,  are not all
complete in their development and functional
powers, until many years after birth.
  * The teeth are not essential to the function of nutri-
tion, especially in early childhood. 
           -LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        31

  In the lower orders of animals, both of these
important functions are  under  the control of
instinct; and therefore the range of  their ex-
ercise  is more strongly defined and limited.
They  have no artificial  means of rendering
their food pernicious, and therefore do not im-
pair' their organs of nutrition.  They are—in
a pure state of nature—instinctively periodical
in their sexual  desires,  and therefore do not
suffer from an excessive exercise of the func-
tion  of reproduction.   But in man, these  im-
portant functions—and especially that of re-
production—are. as to their exercise,  placed
under the control of the rational powers.
  I do not, however, mean to say, that there-
fore  man  may  indulge  his sexual  appetite
whenever he chooses, and to whatever extent
he pleases, without violating any of  the  con-
stitutional laws of his  nature.   But I mean to
assert  that, as the lower orders of animals
have no rational and moral powers to govern
the exercise of their  sexual  appetite, so have
they—in a pure state of nature—no artificial
means  of  destroying  the  government of the 
32         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

law of instinct, which simply incites them to
fulfil the purposes of their organization; while
man, who has the power and means to destroy
the government of the law of instinct, and of
inducing a depraved appetite, which prompts
him to go beyond the purposes of his organiza-
tion, and thus  violate the laws of his consti-
tution,  and  injure  his  system,  (always  in
proportion to the excess,)  is also endowed with
rational powers to ascertain those constitutional
laws, and moral powers to prevent that excess.
  Be it understood,  however, that man, in a
pure state  of nature, would  come  under the
government of instinct in regard to the func-
tions  of reproduction, equally with the lower
orders  of animals;  that  is, he would  have no
disposition to  exercise this function  to any
injurious excess, beyond  the purposes  of his
organization.*   It is by  abusing  his organs,
  * By "a pure  state of nature," be it remembered, I
never mean  the savage state of man, for that is not
his natural state.  But I mean that state in which man
lives in accordance  with all the physiological laws of
his nature. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         33
and depraving his instinctive appetites, through
the devices of his  rational powers, that the
body of man  has  become  a living volcano of
unclean propensities and passions.  By all that
reason, therefore, renders man capable of ele-
vating himself above the brute creation,  by so
much the deeper does he  sink himself in de-
generacy below the brutes, when he  devotes
his reason to the depravity of his nature; and
it  is a deeply humiliating consideration, that
of all the animals which inhabit this beautiful
sphere, where everything,  in uncontaminated
nature, is so benevolently fitted for enjoyment,
proud, rational man is  the only one who has
degraded  his  nature,  and, by his voluntary
depravity,  rendered this life a pilgrimage  of
pain, and the world one vast lazar-house for
his species, and the earth  a mighty sepulchre,
for those who prematurely fall the victims  of
the innumerable diseases  which result  from
the violation of the laws of life.   How impor-
tant, then,  is  it, that  man  should understand
his nature and  relations,  that he may know
and perform his duties consistently with the
constitutional  laws of his life.
           3 
34         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

  The functions of nutrition and reproduction
depend on the vital properties of the tissues
which form the organs of the system—particu-
larly the muscular and nervous tissues, and
more especially the nervous.
  The nerves belonging to the human body
are divided into two classes.
  First, the Brain and Spinal Marrow, with
their various cords, branches, fibres and fila-
ments.   These  nerves appertain to what is
called animal life, and  are the  organs of sensa-
tion, perception,  intellection and volition, and
are connected  with the muscles of voluntary
motion.
  Second, the Ganglions and Plexuses, with
their various cords, branches, fibres and fila-
ments.  These nerves appertain to  what is
called  organic life.  They are  distributed to
the various internal organs, and  preside over
all the processes of vital chemistry; or in other
words, they are the immediate instruments or
conductors of that vital  energy by which the
living  body converts  food  into  chyme,  and
chyme into chyle, and chyle  into blood, and 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         35
blood into the various  solids and fluids of the
whole system.  The stomach, heart, arteries,
veins, lungs, liver,  kidneys, and all the other
organs  concerned in the general function of
nutrition, depend principally  or entirely  on
the nerves of organic life, for their  functional
power.   Hence  the  general function of nutri-
tion is  under the  dominion of the nerves of
organic life, except mastication and deglutition,
which, indeed, are not necessarily included.
  The  function  of reproduction  depends  on
both classes of nerves.   The power of the male
organs of generation,  to convert a  portion of
the arterial  blood into semen, and to deposite
that semen  in its appropriate receptacles, and
finally to eject  it with  peculiar convulsions,
depends on the nerves of organic life ;  but the
power to exercise the  organs of generation in
the fulfilment of the function of reproduction,
depends on  the  nerves of animal life.   Hence
the genital  organs  hold  important  relations,
both  to  the organs of  nutrition, and  to  the
brain and spinal marrow, and  to  the parts
supplied by them with nervous power. 
36        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
  The genital organs are,  as  it were, woven
into the same grand web of organic life with
the stomach, heart, lungs, &c, by being largely
supplied  with the  same class of  nerves  on
which the organs of nutrition depend for their
functional power : but the  genital organs are
also  supplied  with nerves of animal life, or
those which are connected  with the brain and
spinal marrow.   Hence the influences of the
brain may act directly on the  genital organs;
and of these  latter  on the  brain.  Lascivious
thoughts and imaginations will  excite  and
stimulate the genital  organs,  cause  an in-
creased quantity of blood to flow into them,
and augment their secretions and peculiar sen-
sibilities ; and, on the  other hand,  an excited
state  of  the  genital  organs, either  from the
stimulations of semen, or from diseased action
in the system, will throw its  influence  upon
the brain,  and force  lascivious  thoughts and
imaginations upon the mind.
   The  same reciprocity of  influence, also,
exists between the organs of reproduction and
nutrition.   The stomach,  heart, lungs, skin, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         37

&c., are immediately and strongly affected by
the condition of the genital organs ; and these
latter participate, to a greater or less extent, in
the  affections of  the  former;—and  always
share fully in those conditions of the  former,
which  result from the  general state  of the
nerves of organic life.
   The  nerves  appertaining  to  organic  life,
which  preside  over the  general  function of
nutrition, are, in  their natural  and  healthy
state, entirely destitute of animal sensibility;
and the perfect healtlifulness and integrity of
this general function, require such a  state of
these nerves.  All extraordinary and undue ex-
citements, however, whether caused by mental,
moral or  physical stimuli,  increase  the ex-
citability and unhealthy activity of the nerves
of organic life;  and tend  to  bring on, and es-
tablish in them, a state of diseased irritability
and sensibility, which is more or  less  diffused
over the whole  domain; and affects  all the
particular organs  and functions.  A frequent
repetition of these excitements, always.induces
a greater or less degree of debility and  diseased
*. 
38         LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.
irritability in the nerves of organic  life;—dis-
ordering and  deranging  the  functions,  and
often causing excessive morbid irritability and
sensibility and inflammation,, and even disor-
ganization  or  change  of structure  in  the
viscera—such  as  the brain,  stomach, lungs,
kidneys, heart, &c.
  Thus the  passions, such as anger,  fear, grief,
&c, when violent and frequent or  continued,
irritate  and  debilitate the nerves of organic
life,  and induce in  them  a  state  of  morbid
irritability,  and thereby disorder all the or-
ganic functions of the system, and lead to the
most painful and often the most fatal diseases.
The nerves of the genital organs partake, in
common with  those of the other  organs, of
this general debility and diseased excitability,
and become exceedingly susceptible of irrita-
tion ;—sympathizing powerfully with all the
disturbances of the  system, and especially of
the brain and  alimentary canal.   Their pe-
culiar  sensibilities  are augmented to a morbid
or preternatural state, of a chronic  character;
and thus a  diseased prurience,  or  concupis- 
LECTURE  TO YOUNG  MEN.         39
cence, is permanently established,—forcing the
sufferer  into  excessive desires,  and  unclean
thoughts, almost incessantly.    Hence  hypo-
chondriacs, and  those who are  afflicted with
nervous melancholy, are  generally  morbidly
lecherous; and hence, also, insanity, resulting
from the  morbid condition of the nerves of or-
ganic life, is generally attended with excessive
sexual  desire, and  the  mind becomes  filled
with unclean images.  This is the reason why
many people,  who  were perfectly  modest
while in  health, become exceedingly  obscene,
in their conduct and talk, when insane; and
often, if  they are not prevented, give  them-
selves up to  self-pollution, and  thus exceed-
ingly aggravate and confirm their disorders.*
  * While I was lecturing in New York in 1833, an ex-
cellent clergyman, who was much esteemed for his piety
and purity of character, came to consult me concerning
his health, which was very poor. After a careful exami-
nation of his case, I honestly told him that his symptoms
strongly indicated that his system had, at some period
of his life, been  exceedingly injured by  self-pollution,
or venereal excesses in some way or other.  He frankly 
 40         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

   All kinds  of stimulating and heating sub-
 stances, high-seasoned food,  rich dishes,  the
 free  use of flesh,  and even  the excess of ali-
 ment, all, more or  less—and  some  to a  very
 great degree—increase the  concupiscent  exci-
 tability and sensibility of the  genital  organs,
 and augment their influence  on the functions
 of  organic life, and  on the  intellectual and
 moral faculties.
  Sexual  Desire,  again, in  turn,  throws its
influence over the whole domain of the nerves
of organic life, as well as of the cephalo-spinal
replied that my opinion was undoubtedly correct;—that
he had had the severe misfortune to be afflicted with
insanity for several months, and that while in that con-
dition, he was left to practice self-pollution to an extent
which, he had been convinced, since the recovery of his
reason, had nearly ruined his physical constitution, and
greatly impaired  his  intellectual and moral faculties.
The  propensity to this pernicious indulgence is so com-
mon  and so powerful in those  who are laboring under
insanity resulting from the morbid  condition  of the
nerves of organic life, that no means should be neglected
by which the practice can  be prevented in such cases. 
           LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         41

nerves,  or those  of animal life;—particularly
affecting the stomach, brain and heart, and, to
a greater or less extent, all the other organs of
the body; and when it kindles into a passion,
its influence is so extensive and powerful, that
it  disturbs  and  disorders all the  functions of
the system.   Digestion is retarded, or wholly
interrupted;—circulation  is   accelerated,  and
an increased quantity of  blood is  injected into
the  brain,  stomach,  lungs, and  other impor-
tant  organs; respiration is  obstructed  and
oppressed,  and   imperfectly  performed,—and
insensible perspiration is considerably dimin-
ished.   These  irritations  and  disturbances
                          *
cannot  long be  continued, nor frequently re-
peated, without  serious  injury to  the whole
system.    A  general  debility and increased
irritability  of the  nerves of organic  life  are
necessarily produced ; the nervous energy and
muscular contractibility  of  all the organs is
diminished, and  their functional power is con-
sequently impaired.   The brain,  partaking of
the  general irritation,  its exceedingly delicate
and  important organs  are debilitated, and the 
42         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

mental  powers  more immediately connected
with these organs, are proportionately injured;
while the sympathy and  reciprocity of influ-
ence, between the mental  and moral faculties
and the genital organs, become excessive and
irresistible.
  The convulsive paroxysms attending vene-
real indulgence, are connected with the most
intense excitement,  and cause the most power-
ful  agitation to the whole  system, that it is
ever subject  to.  The brain, stomach,  heart,
lungs, liver,  skin, and the  other organs, feel
it sweeping  over them,  with the tremendous
violence of a tornado.   The powerfully exci-
ted  and convulsed  heart  drives the blood, in
fearful congestion, to the  principal viscera,—
producing oppression, irritation, debility, rup-
ture, inflammation, and sometimes  disorgani-
zation;—and this violent paroxysm is generally
succeeded by great exhaustion, relaxation, las-
situde and even prostration.
  These  excesses,  too  frequently  repeated,
cannot fail to produce the  most terrible effects.
The nervous system, even to its most minute 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         43

filamentary extremities,  is  tortured  into  a
shocking state of debility, and excessive irrita-
bility, and uncontrollable mobility, and aching
sensibility; and the vital contractility of the
muscular tissues throughout the whole system
becomes exceedingly impaired, and the muscles,
generally,  become  relaxed  and  flaccid;  and
consequently,  all the organs and vessels of the
body, even to  the smallest capillaries, become
extremely debilitated;   and their  functional
powers exceedingly feeble.
  Such are the important relations  constitu-
tionally  established, in the  human  system,
between the organs and functions of Nutrition
and Reproduction and  Voluntary Motion, and
the Mental and Moral Faculties : and such
are the reciprocal influences of the organs and
functions of nutrition and reproduction upon
each other.

   We are told by some writers on this impor-
tant subject, that the genital secretion, or " the
semen, may be  called  the essential oil of ani-
mal  liquors—the  rectified  spirit—the  most 
44        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
subtile  and  spirituous  part  of the  animal
frame, which contributes to the support of the
nerves;—that the  greatest part of this refined
fluid is, in a healthy state and conduct of the
system, re-absorbed and mixed with the blood,
of which it constitutes the  most rarefied and
volatile part, and imparts to the body peculiar
sprightliness, vivacity, muscular strength—and
general vigor  and energy to the animal  ma-
chine ;—that it  causes the beard, hair  and
nails to grow,—gives depth of tone, and mas-
culine  scope  and power  to the  voice,  and
manliness and dignity to the countenance and
person,  and  energy, and  ardor, and  noble
daring to the mind; and  therefore  that the
emission of  semen,  enfeebles  the body  more
than the loss of twenty times the same quan-
tity of  blood,—more than  violent  cathartics
and  emetics :—and  hence  the  frequent  and
excessive loss  of it, cannot fail to produce the
most  extreme  debility,  *and  disorder,  and
wretchedness of both body and mind."
  That the  semen is a very important fluid,
and that it, like  all  other secretions of the 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         45

body, may, to  some extent,  be re-absorbed,
will  not be questioned by any correct  physi-
ologist ; and it is also very evident that there
is a peculiar relation  established between  the
development  of the  genital organs  and  the
voice, beard,  &c, and  the general masculine
aspect and bearing of the individual:—but the
importance of semen to the system, and  the
evils resulting from the mere  loss of it, have
been exceedingly overrated, by  all who have
treated  on this subject.
  We know  that at  or   about the  age of
puberty, when the genital organs  are,  in all
respects, completely developed, and their func-
tional faculties are perfected, the voice, ordi-
narily,  begins  to  assume  more  of the manly
tone, and perhaps  the  beard begins  to  put
forth with increased  vigor:—and we know,
also, that if  the  male be castrated  in early
childhood, the  voice  always  remains  small
and feminine,—the beard does not grow,—and
the development of the features,—the  confor-
mation of parts, and  the  general  aspect, air
and bearing  of the individual, are soft, deli- 
 46        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

 cate and effeminate.   But if the male attains
 to the thirtieth year of his age, and all his
 organs are fully developed  and  established in
 their  functional powers, before castration is
 performed, the  voice undergoes  no perceptible
 change,  and the beard continues to grow as
 before;  nor  is there  any considerable diminu-
 tion of muscular strength nor mental power.
   Many other facts might  also be adduced, to
 demonstrate  that it  is not the  secretion and
 re-absorption of  the semen which  causes the
 masculine development of the vocal organs,—
 makes  the  beard grow,—and  gives  general
robustness, and vigor, and sprightliness,  and
 vivacity to the body;  and energy and activity
 to the mind :—nor is there the least evidence
that the mere loss of the semen, apart from the
concomitant  excitement, irritation, functional
disturbance, and expenditure  of vital power, is
the source of any considerable  injury to the
human system.   But  it is perfectly certain, on
the other hand, that  all the evils resulting
from the abuse of the genital  organs, occur, in
their very worst and most incorrigible forms, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         47

where there is  no secretion  and emission of
semen.
  That the undue determination of blood to
the brain, lungs, stomach, and other important
organs, during venereal indulgence,  producing
over-distension of the vessels of these viscera,
and resulting in  debility, relaxation, &c, is
the source of far greater evil to the system,
than  the mere loss of semen,  ought not to be
doubted:  nor is there  any reason  to doubt,
that* the general tension of the muscular  and
nervous  tissues,  the  convulsive  paroxysms,
and universal disturbance of functions, occa-
sioned by venereal indulgence, are  still more
injurious than visceral congestion.    But the
grand principle of mischief in this  matter, is
the peculiar excitement of  the nervous system.
  Physiologists  have indulged in a  great deal
of conjecture  and speculation concerning the
" animal  spirits—nervous  fluid—vital  elec-
tricity," &c. &c, but as yet, it is all conjecture
and  speculation.   We know that, by some
means or  other, the influence  of the will is
conveyed through certain nerves, to the organs 
48         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

of voluntary motion—that the  sense of touch
is  conveyed, or reflected, or transmitted from
the surface,  through  certain other nerves,  to
the brain:—and that vital energy is distributed
through certain other nerves, from the general
and particular centres of action, to the several
organs, for the supply of their functional pow-
ers :—and we know, too, that in the functional
exercise of the  genital organs, something very
analogous to electricity or  galvanism, diffuses
a peculiar  and powerful  excitement and'sen-
sation throughout the whole nervous system.
  Now whether these vital effects are produced
by means of nervous fluid  or  spirit, or some-
thing still  more subtile  and intangible, or  by
some other means, human research and inves-
tigation have not  ascertained,  and  perhaps
never will.   But we are perfectly certain, that
the peculiar excitement of venereal indulgence,
is more diffusive, universal and powerful, than
any other to which the system is ever subject;
and that it more  rapidly exhausts  the vital
properties of the tissues, and impairs the func-
tional powers of the organs: and consequently 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         49

that it,  in  a greater degree  than any  other
cause, deteriorates  all the  vital processes of
nutrition, from  beginning to end; and there-
fore, more injuriously affects the character and
condition of all the  fluids  and solids of the
body;—and  hence the terrible fact, that vene-
real excesses occasion the most loathsome, and
horrible, and calamitous  diseases that human
nature is capable of suffering.
  It is this peculiar excitement, or vital stimu-
lation, which causes the muscular tension and
convulsion, and increased action of the heart,
and occasions visceral congestion, and disturbs
all  the functions of the  system, and thus pro-
duces general debility, morbid irritability and
sympathy, and all the  consequent train   of
evils which  result.   And  this peculiar excite-
ment  or  vital stimulation may be produced  to
an extent sufficient to cause an increased deter-
mination of blood to the genital organs, and
an  increase  of  their secretions,  and of  their
peculiar  sensibilities,   sufficient to  cause  a
distraction of   functional  energy  from  the
digestive, and  other organs, and prevent the
          4 
50 '        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

normal distribution of it, from the general and
particular centres  of action, and thus disturb
and impair all the  functions, and debilitate all
the organs of the system,  and develope a gen-
eral morbid irritability and sympathy, without
amounting to the acme of coition, and causing
an emission  of semen,  and  the  convulsive
paroxysms which attend it.
  Hence,  therefore,  sexual desire, cherished
by the mind and dwelt on by the imagination,
not only increases  the excitability and peculiar
sensibility  of  the  genital organs themselves,
but always throws an influence, equal  to the
intensity of the  affection, over  the whole ner-
vous  domain ;—disturbing  all  the functions
depending  on the nerves for  vital  energy,
which is thereby increased upon, or distracted
from  them—and  if this  excitement  is  fre-
quently repeated, or long  continued, it inevita-
bly induces an increased  degree of irritability
and debility, and relaxation generally through-
out the nervous  and muscular tissues,  and
especially  the  nerves of organic  life.   And
hence, those lascivious day-dreams, and amor- 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        51

ous reveries, in which young people too gener-
ally,—and especially the idle, and the volup-
tuous, and the sedentary, and the nervous,—
are exceedingly apt to indulge,  are often the
sources of general debility,  effeminacy,  dis-
ordered functions,  and permanent disease, and
even  premature  death,  without  the  actual
exercise of the genital organs!   Indeed,  this
unchastity of  thought—this adultery  of the
mind—is the beginning of immeasurable evil to
the human family :—and,  while  children are
regularly, though unintentionally trained to it,
by all the  mistaken fondness of parents,  and
all  the  circumstances of civic  life, it is but
mockery in the ear of Heaven,  to deprecate
the evil consequences;  and  folly, little  short
of fatuity,  to attempt to arrest  the current of
crime that  flows from it.
  If we will train our offspring into the early
and free use of flesh-meat, and accustom  them
to high-seasoned  food,  and  richly prepared
dishes, and learn them to drink tea, and coffee,
and  wine, and to indulge in  various  other
stimulants, with  which  civic life  is  univer- 
52         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.
sally cursed, and effeminate  their bodies with
feather beds and enervating dress,—in  short,
if we will sedulously educate them to all  the
degenerating  habits  of luxury, indolence,  vo-
luptuousness and sensuality, we shall be more
indebted to their want of opportunity to  sin,
than to  any other cause, for  the preservation
of their bodily chastity,—if, indeed, we escape
the heart-rending anguish of seeing them the
early victims of passions, which we have been
instrumental  in  developing  to an irresistible
power!   For these lascivious, and exceedingly
pernicious day-dreams of  the young,  are  but
the first  buddings  of a  depraved  instinct,
which  will not  be satisfied  with the passive
reveries of the mind  and affections of the body.
  The delicate  susceptibilities of youth being
constantly tortured,  and  their young  blood
continually heated, by a stimulating  and de-
praving   diet,  their  animal  propensities are
much more rapidly developed than  are their
rational  and  moral  powers;  and  a  preter-
natural  excitability of the nerves of organic
life  is inevitably induced; while  other  habits 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         53

of luxury and  effeminacy  serve  to  increase
the general debility of their  system, and assist
in throwing a common anarchical depravity
over  the  whole  domain of  instinct.   The
genital organs partake of the  common condi-
tion of the nervous system, and very early in
life—long  before  their  perfect  development
and final cause, justify and demand their func-
tional  exercise—acquire an increased  sensi-
bility,  and  what may be  called  a  morbid
prurience,  which  continually appeals to  the
brain, and throws its influence over the opera-
tions of  the intellectual  and moral  faculties;
controlling the decision of the  understanding,
and, at  times, even forcing the will against
the remonstrance of the moral sense.
  There are some  other auxiliary causes con-
cerned in this evil, of so much importance that
I must not omit  to name  them  here.  The
early attention to  the  mental, without  a due
regard to the  physical education of children,
causes a disproportionate exercise of the brain,
which leads to  a  general debility of the ner-
vous system, involving the genital organs, and 
54         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
greatly increasing the  reciprocity  of influence
between  them and the brain;  and again, su-
peradded to this, the sedentary habits too gen-
erally connected with early education, without
the counteraction of  frequent and vigorous
exercise of the body, necessarily produces a ca-
pillary congestion, or over-fulness of the minute
blood-vessels of the abdomen and  loins, and of
the parts generally in  that region,  by which
means,  likewise,  the  genital  organs  become
oppressed  and  irritated,  and  their peculiar
sensibilities are  increased, and their influence
over the brain and other organs augmented.
  Is it not, then, a matter of  course—and in-
deed a matter of moral necessity—when this
momentous evil  of  depraved instinct is  once
originated, and every habit, and circumstance,
and influence  contribute  to  perpetuate and
increase  it, that  young concupiscence  should
kindle into a passion of despotic power, and com-
pel the unwary youth, either to break through
the restraints of  civil  and moral  law,  to find
indulgence in illicit commerce, or more clan-
destinely to yield  to the more degrading and
destructive vice of self-pollution 7 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         55

  To what avail, then, are moral  laws,  and
civil legislation, and  philanthropic efforts, in
the cause of chastity, while all the elements
combine to give  invincible  efficiency to the
work of ruin ?  As well might we attempt to
prevent the eruption of volcanic mountains,
when the internal fires were kindled, and the
molten  entrails  were boiling and heaving like
the  exasperated  ocean!  As well  might  we
think to stand before  the gushing mouth of a
crater, and  roll back the burning  tide,  and
save the world below from desolation !—(See
Note A.)
  How  philosophically adapted  to the nature
and condition  and welfare of man,  therefore,
is the requisition of the gospel, which demands
spiritual chastity;  and forbids even the look of
lust, and the  lascivious thought!   But while
the benevolent gospel makes this holy requisi-
tion for the good of human beings, it does  not
explicitly teach us, in the detail, all the physi-
cal and moral means by which we  shall be
rendered capable of a full  compliance with it.
The knowledge of these  things, it has, with 
56         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

great propriety, left for the acquisition of our
rational  powers;  and thereby  implicitly im-
posed upon us the obligation  to  exercise our
intellectual  and moral faculties, to  the extent
of our abilities, on 'every subject that concerns
our  nature  and condition, and  our duties and
responsibilities.

  Exceedingly depraved as  mankind are, in
all their instinctive propensities, we are con-
tinually inclined  to justify  the  indulgence of
our  appetites,  on the ground  that  they are
instinctive;  and  that what nature has im-
planted in us, cannot, of itself, be wrong; nor
can  it  be our duty to suppress its exercises.
Hence,  young men  generally, if not actually
guilty of illicit amours, contemplate such in-
dulgences without abhorrence; and—such is
the  state  of morals  at the present  day—too
frequently,  they feel complacency  in  being
thought  successful libertines;—and it is much
to be feared, that there are those who  wear
the form of man, who can  reflect  with  satis-
faction  on  the  blight and lasting desolation 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        57
which they have caused to female  chastity
and happiness.
  Though every young man,  of any correct
moral discipline, must consider  a promiscuous
and unrestrained commerce between the sexes,
as equally destructive  to sound morality, and
social peace, and civil welfare, yet most young
men are  apt to think, that if it were not for
the moral, and  social, and civil disadvantages,
such  a  state  of  lawless  intercourse  were
exceedingly desirable.  But they who entertain
this sentiment,  are not aware, that moral and
civil laws, so far as they are right and proper,
are only the verbal forms of laws which are
constitutionally established  in  our   nature.
They do not  consider, that, however  destitute
society  might   be,  of all  moral and  civil
restraints, in regard  to  sexual  commerce,  yet
there are  fixed and  permanent laws, estab-
lished in  their  very constitutions, which  they
cannot  violate without inevitably incurring
penalty;—and  that, in the present depraved
state of man's  instinctive propensities, such a
lawless, commerce would, with the certainty 
58         LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.

of necessity, lead to the  most calamitous and
loathsome diseases and sufferings, that human
nature is capable of enduring!  Many of the
most terrible plagues  which have swept over
the earth,  and  threatened  to  depopulate  it,
have  been connected with  such excesses!—
(See Note B.)
  It is  true,  that  in  the  perfectly natural,
undepraved and healthy   state of  human
nature, when all  the laws of constitution and
relation are observed, instinct,  so far as the
physical welfare of man  is concerned, would
be  a  sufficient law to govern  sexual  com-
merce :—and so  far  as  physiology  and our
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  things   may
govern our  reasonings on this  subject,  there
is  every evidence that, in  such a  state, the
sexual commerce of the human species would
not be much more frequent  than that of other
species of animals,  of the same class, whose
period of  pregnancy  is  the  same.   But  the
moment man  begins  to  violate  the laws  of
constitution and relation, either  in diet, or in
any other respect, that moment he  begins to 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        59
deprave  his  instinctive  propensities,  and  to
develope a power of appetite which, the more
it is  yielded to, the more  it is increased; and
leads to the worst of consequences, both to the
individual himself, and to society at large.
  Our  benevolent  Creator has  endowed us
with  peculiar  powers,  and  set  no  bounds
to our intellectual and moral acquisition; and
by all these great bestowments, he calls us to
the cultivation of our higher capabilities, and
has placed around us elevated motives, to lead
us onward in an upward course of intellectual
and moral greatness, and virtue, and glory.
  Constituted as we are, our bodies must be
sustained, for the good of our nobler powers;
and  with the performance of the voluntary
and  necessary functions  of our bodies,  God
has  connected  enjoyment;—so that while we
perform those functions for the physical good
of our  bodies, and  of our species,  with the
ulterior  and  paramount  regard  to  the  best
condition of  our  nobler powers,  we fulfil the
purposes of our bodily functions with pleasure
and   satisfaction,  and secure our  permanent 
60        LECTURE  TO  YOUNG MEN.
welfare, and our highest good.  But when we
reverse the  proper order of things, and make
our  sensual enjoyment  the  motive  of  our
actions—the object  of our lives—and bring
our rational powers  into  subserviency to such
an end, we  pervert the intentions of divine
benevolence, and bring disorder, and disease,
and misery upon ourselves, and on our species.
Thus,  when we eat and drink for the purpose
of sustaining our bodies in the best condition,
with the ulterior view of promoting the  health-
iest and most vigorous state of our intellectual
and moral faculties,  we  have great gustatory
enjoyment and  satisfaction in the performance
of those offices, and promote the permanent
welfare of the body and the mind:—for, when
this is the  paramount object in eating  and
drinking, we honestly and seriously apply our
rational powers to ascertain the constitutional
laws of our nature,  and the proper quality,
and quantity, and condition of our food  and
drink, for the purpose of securing this  impor-
tant  end.    But  when  we make  gustatory
enjoyment the ulterior and paramount object 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         61

of eating  and drinking,—and one of the prin-
cipal  sources of pleasure in life,—and, accord-
ing to the proverb—"Live to eat," and eat for
the sake of sensual indulgence,—and make our
rational powers the panders of our appetites,
—we  deprave  the  propensities of  instinct,
disorder  the body,  impair  the  intellectual
faculties,  darken the moral sense, and blindly
pursue a course which inevitably leads to the
worst of evils.   And in like manner, when we
exercise our genital organs in the  function of
reproduction, for the purpose of fulfilling the
end of our peculiar organization, and consis-
tently with the general laws of organic life, we
have  great enjoyment and healthful results in
the function: but when the pleasures of that
function become a leading object of our pur-
suits, and our rational powers are brought into
vassalage to the  passion, the  instinctive pro-
pensity itself becomes exceedingly depraved;
and unnatural,  and continual,  and imperious
in its demands; and terribly pernicious in  its
effects.   The  intellectual  and moral  nature
of  man  becomes subordinate  to  his animal 
62         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

nature; and  gross sensuality becomes para-
mount to deliberate reason;  and man is thus
debased, degraded, diseased and destroyed !
  W*hen incited by passion, man cannot easily
percqive  the  lines  of truth which  should
govern his conduct; and therefore,  if he does
not deliberately  adopt some general  rules of
action, which are consistent  with the constitu-
tional  laws of his nature,  he is sure to  run
into excesses, and draw evil  upon himself  and
others.
  Men do not readily see, why illicit com-
merce  between the sexes should be more inju-
rious, in  a physical point  of view, than  the
commerce between man and wife; but from
the explanation which has now been presented
of the  subject, we readily perceive the reason.
We see that it is not the mere loss of semen,
but the peculiar  excitement, and the  violence
of the  convulsive  paroxysms, which  produce
the mischief;  and these are exceedingly in-
creased by the actions of the mind.
  Young  men, in  the  pursuit of illicit com-
merce  with the  other  sex, generally  contem- 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         63
plate the act, for a considerable time before its
performance,—their  imagination  is wrought
up, and presents  lewd and exciting images^—
the genital  organs  become stimulated,  and
throw their peculiar  influence over  the whole
system;  and  this,  to the full extent of its
power, acts on the mental and moral faculties,
and is thence again  reflected  with redoubled
energy  upon  the genital  and other organs.
The sight, or touch of the female body, and
especially the bosom, &c., greatly increases
the excitement, and  thus  the ardor and power
of the passion are augmented continually, and
more  in proportion  to  the difficulties in the
way, until indulgence takes place; when the
excitement is  intense and  overwhelming, and
the convulsive paroxysms proportionably vio-
lent and hazardous  to life.  And  where  it  is
promiscuous,  the genital  organs  are almost
continually  stimulated  by the mind.  Every
female  that is a little more comely, or a little
more meretricious than  others, in her appear-
ance, becomes an object of desire;  the contem-
plation of her charms, and all her  movements, 
64         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

increase  the lust, and thus the genital organs
are kept  under  an habitual excitement, which
is reflected or diffused over the whole nervous
system;  and disturbs, and  disorders all the
functions of the body, and impairs all the
tissues, and leads to  that frequency of  com-
merce which produces the most ruinous conse-
quences.   But, between the husband and  wife,
where there is a proper  degree of chastity, all
these causes either entirely lose, or are exceed-
ingly diminished in their effect.   They be-
come accustomed to  each other's body,  and
their parts no longer excite an  impure imagi-
nation, and their  sexual intercourse is the
result of the  more natural  and instinctive
excitements of  the organs themselves;—and
when the dietetic, and other habits are  such
as  they  should be, this intercourse is  very
seldom.
  Moreover,  a  promiscuous  commerce  be-
tween the sexes  would be terribly pernicious
to the female  and to  the  offspring, as well as
to the male.  Debility,  abortion,  barrenness,
and painful diseases of various forms, would 
           LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.        65

 be the inevitable result  in the female; and that
 peculiarly loathsome, virulent and ruinous dis-
 ease  which  is generated and  perpetuated by
 such commerce, and  which  has  already been
 so dreadful a scourge to millions of the human
 family, would prevail on every hand, and be-
 come  a common  calamity of society.   With
 equal  certainty,  the offspring would be very
 generally feeble,  puny,  and  extremely predis-
 posed  to disease.   A  large proportion of them
 would die in  early infancy, and those that sur-
 vived  would be almost  sure to possess greatly
 deteriorated and frail  constitutions.
  Whatever,  therefore,  may be  thought of
 marriage  as  a  divine  institution,  authorized
 and  enjoined by the sacred Scriptures, be as-
 sured,  my young friends,  that marriage—or a
 permanent and exclusive  connection of  one
 man with one woman—is  an institution found-
 ed in the constitutional nature of things, and
 inseparably connected with  the highest  wel-
 fare of man,  as  an individual and as a race!
And so intimately associated are the animal
and  moral  sensibilities  and  enjoyments of
          5 
66         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
man,  that, besides the  physical  and  social
evils which  result from  illicit commerce  be-
tween the sexes, the chaste  and delicate  sus-
ceptibilities of the moral affections are exceed-
ingly depraved, and  the  transgressor renders
himself incapable of those  pure  and exalted
enjoyments which  are found in connubial life,
where perfect chastity has been preserved.
  This sentiment  is beautifully and forcibly
expressed by Robert Burns,  in his  advice to a
young friend.   Speaking of the moral  evils
arising  from  illicit  commerce  between   the
sexes, he says,

           " I wave the quantum of  the sin—
             The hazard of concealing;
           But oh ! it hardens all within,
             And petrifies the feeling !"

  "However it  may be  accounted  for,"  says
Dr.  Paley,  "the  criminal commerce  of  the
sexes corrupts  and depraves  the   mind  and
the  moral character, more than   any  other
species of vice whatsoever.  That  ready per-
ception of guilt,  that prompt and decisive reso- 
           LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         67

lution against it, which constitutes a virtuous
character, is seldom found in persons addicted
to these indulgences.   They prepare an easy
admission for every sin that seeks it; are, in
low  life, usually the first stage in men's pro-
gress to the most desperate villanies;  and in
high life, to  that lamented dissoluteness of prin-
ciple  which manifests  itself in a  profligacy of
public conduct, and a contempt of the  obliga-
tions  of religion and of moral  probity.  Add
to this, that habits of  libertinism incapacitate
and  indispose the mind for all  intellectual,
moral and religious pleasures."
  A thorough investigation of this  subject in
our state prisons and other  places  containing
criminal offenders against the laws of society,
would,  in all  probability,  disclose the  impor-
tant fact, that  a large proportion of the inmates
of such places commenced their career of vice
in the  depraving  and  hardening  practice  of
illicit sexual  commerce.   "I  am," says the
chaplain of  one of our  state  prisons, "obliged
daily to look over a collection of two hundred
human beings, almost the whole of  whom are 
 68        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.

 and have  been slaves to  lascivious thought,
 feeling  and  practice.   The  accounts  which
 they  give  of themselves are  often  peculiarly
 painful and sickening."
   The  detail which this gentleman goes on to
 give of facts in regard to the prisoners, and of
 the confessions which  they have made to him,
 are indeed too shocking to be admitted into a
 work of this kind:  but the  grand fact here
presented certainly deserves  the  serious con-
 sideration of the christian, the philanthropist
 and the patriot.
  Let it ever be remembered, however, that
no conformity  to civil institutions—no  osten-
 sible observance  of  civil  law—can secure a
man from  the evils which  result  from  the
 violation of  the constitutional  laws  of his
nature.   The mere fact that a man is married
 to one  woman, and is perfectly faithful  to
her, will by no  means  prevent the evils which
flow from  venereal  excess, if his  commerce
with her transgresses the bounds of that con-
nubial chastity which  is founded on the real
wants of the system.   Beyond all question, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         69

an  immeasurable  amount of evil  results to
the human  family from sexual excess within
the  precincts of  wedlock.   Languor,  lassi-
tude,  muscular relaxation,  general debility
and heaviness,  depression of spirits, loss of
appetite,  indigestion,  faintness  and  sinking
at  the pit of the  stomach, increased suscep-
tibilities  of  the  skin and lungs  to  all the
atmospheric changes, feebleness of circulation,
chilliness,  head-ache, melancholy,  hypochon-
dria,  hysterics,  feebleness of  all the senses,
impaired vision, loss of sight,  weakness of the
lungs, nervous  cough,  pulmonary  consump-
tion,  disorders  of  the   liver and  kidneys,
urinary difficulties,  disorders  of the genital
organs, spinal diseases, weakness of the brain,
loss of memory, epilepsy, insanity, apoplexy
—abortions,  premature  births, and extreme
feebleness, morbid predispositions,  and  early
death of offspring,—are among the too  com-
mon evils which are caused by sexual excesses
between husband and wife.—(See Note C.)
  Nothing can  be more  erroneous, than the
plea which many men set up, that this propen- 
70         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

sity was implanted in them  by nature ;  and
therefore, it is  right  and  proper  that they
should indulge it, to all extent, consistent with
matrimonial  rights.    They  ought to  know,
that this propensity is more  or  less powerful
and imperious, according as their dietetic  and
other habits are more or less correct.   I have
known married gentlemen, who  were so much
troubled with habitual concupiscence, that they
were inclined to consider themselves peculiarly
constituted; and  were sometimes disposed to
reason themselves into the belief, that, being
thus tempered by nature, they would be justi-
fiable in acts of incontinence.  But these same
gentlemen, by adopting a proper  system of diet
and general regimen, have not only improved
their health exceedingly, in  every respect, but
so  subdued their sexual propensity, as to be
able to abstain from connubial commerce,  and
preserve entire chastity of body, for  several
months in succession, without  the least incon-
venience,  and without any  separation from
their companions.—(See Note D.) 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        71

  Before we set up the plea of natural author-
ity  for  our conduct, we  ought  to  be  very
certain, that the propensities and  appetites to
which we yield,  are nothing more than the
legitimate  and  healthy incitements of  unde-
praved instinct; and that our  organs are not
stimulated  and  irritated   into  preternatural
excitability and sensibility, and into demands
which exceed  the wants  of nature, by errors
in our dietetic and other ha'bits.
  No very definite and exact rule can be laid
down, which will be equally suited to all men,
in the present state of society, in regard to the
frequency with which  connubial indulgences
may  take  place, without injuring the consti-
tution and predisposing to disease, both in the
parents and offspring.   The  healthy  and the
robust,  after they are  twenty-five or  thirty
years old, whose habits of exercise are  active
and vigorous, and whose pursuits  of life par-
take  more of physical  than of  mental  effort,
can safely  indulge more  freely than  other
men; but even  they can very  easily transgress
the  constitutional  laws of health and well- 
 72        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

 being;  and though  many  may pursue their
 indulgences  for  a number of years, without
 seeming to be  injuriously  affected by them,
 yet, sooner or later,  they inevitably reap the
 reward of their transgressions,  and are often
 cut  off  suddenly, without  any sufficient  ap-
 parent  cause; but more frequently  they  are
 visited with wasting infirmity, and protracted,
 and loathsome disease, and  early and extreme
 dotage.
   Those who are troubled  with weakness of
 lungs, spitting of blood,  or  in any other way
 predisposed to pulmonary complaints,—those
 who  are  troubled with weakness of eyes,
 disorders of the stomach and bowels, or  are
 predisposed to insanity, or  afflicted with epi-
 lepsy—in short,  those who are suffering under
 diseases of any kind, should be exceedingly
 careful to avoid  excess in sexual indulgence:
 and  in  some  cases, total abstinence  is abso-
 lutely necessary.   Pulmonary consumption is
 always  more  speedily developed and termina-
 ted in death, by venereal pleasures.  Diseases
of every sort are invariably aggravated by this 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         73
cause; and  many of them cannot be  cured,
unless such  pleasures are entirely suspended.
Epilepsy, for instance, which is often induced
by venereal  excess, frequently defies all  reme-
dial  agents  and measures, until sexual plea-
sures are wholly abandoned.
  It  is,  therefore, impossible  to lay down  a
precise rule, which will be equally adapted to
all men, in regard  to the frequency of their
connubial commerce.  But  as a general rule,
it may be said, to the healthy and robust, it
were  better  for you,  not to  exceed  in  the
frequency of your indulgences,  the number of
months in the year; and you cannot habitually
exceed the  number  of  weeks  in  the year,
without in some degree  impairing your consti-
tutional  powers,  shortening your lives,  and
increasing your liability to disease and  suffer-
ing;  if, indeed,  you do  not thereby actually
induce disease of the worst and most painful
kind; and  at the same  time transmit to your
offspring an impaired constitution, with  strong
and unhappy predispositions.—(See Note E.) 
74         LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
  Let no one demur at this.   Remember, my
young  friends, the end of your  organization !
Recollect that the final cause of your organs of
reproduction—the propagation of your species
—requires  but seldom the exercise of their
function !—and  remember  that  the higher
capabilities  of man  qualify  him  for  more
exalted and exalting pleasures than lie within
the  precincts of  sensual  enjoyment !—and
remember, also, that by all we go beyond  the
real wants of nature, in the  indulgence of  our
appetites, we  debase our intellectual and moral
powers—increase the  carnal  influences over
our mental and moral faculties, and  circum-
scribe  our  field of  rational acquisition and
ennobling pleasures.
  Who, then, would yield to  sensuality, and
forego  the higher dignity of his nature, and be
contented to spend his  life and all his energies,
in the  low satisfactions of a brute, when earth
and  heaven are full of motives  for noble and
exalting enterprise ?—and when  time and eter-
nity are the fields which lie before him, for 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         75
his achievements of virtue, and happiness, and
immortality, and unperishing glory 7

   There is a common error of opinion among
young men,  which  is, perhaps,  not  wholly
confined to the  young,—that health  requires
an emission of  semen at stated periods, and
that frequent nocturnal emissions in sleep, are
not incompatible with "health.   Nay,  indeed,
" many entertain the notion that to give loose
to venereal  indulgence, increases the energy
and  activity  of the  mind,  sharpens the  wit,
gives brilliancy  and  power to the imagination,
and beautiful and  sublime  flights  to fancy ! "
—All  this is wrong,—entirely, dangerously
wrong !  Health does not absolutely  require
that there should be  an  emission of  semen
from puberty to death, though the individual
live an hundred years  :—and the frequency of
involuntary, nocturnal emissions, is  an indu-
bitable proof, that the parts at least, are suffer-
ing under a  debility, and  morbid irritability,
utterly incompatible with the general welfare
of the system:  and the mental faculties are 
76         LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
always  debilitated  and  impaired  by  such
indulgences.—(See Note F.)
  If an unmarried man finds himself troubled
with concupiscence,  let him be  more  abste-
mious, and less stimulating and heating in  his
diet, and take more active exercise in the open
air, and use  the  cold  bath under proper cir-
cumstances ;  and there will be no necessity for
an emission of his semen :—especially if, with
proper  chastity  of  mind,  he  avoids  lewd
images  and  conceptions.   And  if a married
man finds himself inclined to  an  excess of
sexual  indulgence, let  him  adopt  the  same
regimen, and he  will  soon find  that he has
no  reason to complain of what he  calls  his
natural propensity.  All men can be chaste in
body and  in mind, if they  truly  desire it, and
if they  use the right means to  be  so.*  But
it is a perfect  mockery,  to talk  about  our
inherent and ungovernable passions,  while we
  * The experience of hundreds in our country, during
the last five or six years, has proved the truth of this
statement. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         77
take every measure to deprave our instinctive
propensities,  and to excite  our passions, and
render them ungovernable and irresistible.


            SELF-POLLUTION.

  By  far  the worst  form of venereal  indul-
gence, is self-pollution;   or, what  is  called
" Onanism."   Though, by  the  by,  the term
Onanism is altogether misused, in this  appli-
cation ; and I apprehend that all writers, who
have  used it in this sense, have entirely mis-
conceived the offence of Onan, whose name is
here used to  designate the act  or practice of
self-pollution.
  The view which has been  taken  of the
conduct of Onan,  according  to the  scripture
account, Gen. xxxviii., is, that Onan's wasting
his seed upon the ground, was  " the head and
front of his offence,"  in the sight of  the Lord,
and that  for which the Lord slew him. But
this is altogether  a mistake.   The gist of his
crime, which incurred  the  displeasure and
infliction  of  the Lord,  was  his  refusing  to 
78         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

raise up seed to  his deceased  brother, accord-
ing to the requirement of the divine law.  The
act of Onan, therefore, was in no  respect  of
such a character,  as  to justify the use of his
name, to designate the far  more  obscene, and
grossly  sensual  and  unnatural  act  of self-
pollution.
  This exceedingly pernicious practice, I say,
is  incomparably the  worst form of  venereal
indulgence: and for several important reasons.
  In the first place, it is wholly unnatural;
and, in every respect,  does  violence to nature.
The mental action,  and  the power of the
imagination on  the genital organs,  forcing a
vital stimulation of the parts,  which is  re-
flected over the whole nervous system, are
exceedingly intense and injurious; and conse-
quently the reciprocal influences between the
brain and  the genital organs become extremely
powerful,   and  irresistible, and  destructive.
The general,  prolonged, and  rigid tension  of
the muscular and  nervous tissues, is exces-
sively severe and violent.  In short,  the con-
sentaneous  effort, and concentrated  energy of 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         79
all the powers of the  human system, to this
single  forced  effect, cause the most  ruinous
irritation, and violence, and exhaustion, and
debility to the system.
  In  the second place, it is generally com-
menced  very early in life.   All who  are
acquainted  with the  science of  human life,
are well  aware that all excesses,  and injuries
of every kind,  are  far more pernicious and
permanent   in their effects  on  the youthful
and growing body, than  when all  the organs
and parts are completely developed,  and the
constitution and  general  economy fully and
firmly established.  This  is  the  great reason
why many men  who fall into ruinous habits,
after  they are twenty-five or thirty years of
age, will live  on,  in spite of those habits, by
the virtues of a well-established  and  vigorous
constitution, till  they arrive  at what  we com-
monly call  old age; while the children of the
same  men,  following their fathers' evil exam-
ple, and  forming those ruinous  habits when
very  young, become early victims,  and fall
prematurely into the grave. 
80        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

   We have  seen, in  the preceding parts of
this discourse,* that  the organs constituting
the  apparatus necessary for the function of
reproduction,  are not  complete until  many
years  after birth.    The period of puberty
varies with climate and diet;   and in some
instances  it is also  considerably affected  by
hereditary peculiarities.   As a  general  rule,
the human species are capable of procreating
earlier in life in warm climates than in cold:
and it is entirely certain,  that as a general fact,
puberty is hastened on by a free use of animal
food,  and  other  more stimulating and heating
articles of diet.  It is also  certain that pre-
cocious puberty  is sometimes  the result  of
inherited  peculiarities:—and who that is com-
petent to form an  opinion on this subject, will
doubt that lechery is,  at least, as hereditary as
insanity, consumption, gout,  &c.  &c.
  But, whatever may be the age of puberty—
which in  our country, rarely  takes place  in
males  earlier than  about  the  fourteenth  or
* See page 30. 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         81

fifteenth year  of life—certain it is, that all
venereal use of the genital organs, before that
time, is shockingly unnatural and pernicious.
Yet it is generally previous to this  time, and
frequently many years  before it, that  the de-
basing and ruinous practice of self-pollution is
commenced.   Indeed, the habit has in some in-
stances been begun as early as the fifth or sixth
year: and shocking  as  it may seem, nurses,
and even  parents, have been the teachers of
this abominable vice!  One of the most melan-
choly and  remediless cases I ever knew, com-
menced in  very early childhood, under  the
care, and by  the immediate  instruction of a
nurse; and before the boy was old enough to
know the  dangers of the practice, the habit
had become so powerful, that  he was wholly
unable  to  resist it; and when he had reached
the age  of twenty, with a broken-down consti-
tution, with a  body full of disease, and  with
a  mind in ruins, the  loathsome habit  still
tyrannized over  him,  with   the inexorable
imperiousness of a fiend of darkness!
           6 
82         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
  Servants, and other laboring people of loose
morals, often become the secret  preceptors of
children in this debasing sin.  It is, however,
more  frequently communicated from one boy
to another;  and sometimes a single boy will
corrupt  many others.  But the most fruitful
sources of instruction in this vice, are our pub-
lic  schools,—and  especially  boarding-schools
and colleges.  The  extent to which this evil
prevails, and of the mischief resulting from it,
in  most  of  these  institutions,  is,  perhaps,
beyond  credibility:  and none but  those who
have  thoroughly investigated this subject, can
have any just apprehensions of the  difficulties
in preventing it.  The utmost care, and vigi-
lance, and precautionary measures, have some-
times failed to keep it out of public institutions
for the instruction  of youth.
   It is enough to  make a parent's heart recoil
with horror,  when he contemplates the danger
to which his child is exposed, on becoming a
member of  a  public  school!  and  they  are
greatly deceived, who suppose that  a majority 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         83

of the boys who enter these institutions, escape
the contamination!  Nay, indeed, the parent
who  will  suffer his  son, under any circum-
stances of life, to pass his twelfth year, without
keeping  a most vigilant  eye  upon  him with
regard to this pernicious  vice, and seizing the
first indications of this depravity, to give him
proper instructions concerning it, is verily guilty
of a dangerous neglect of parental duty.
  The common notion that boys are generally
ignorant in relation to this matter, and that we
ought not to remove that  ignorance, is wholly
incorrect.  I  am confident that I speak within
bounds, when I say, that seven out of every
ten boys in our country at the age of  twelve,
have at least heard of this pernicious practice:
and I   say, again,  the extent to which it pre-
vails  in  our  public schools  and colleges,  is
shocking  beyond  measure!  I  have  known
boys to leave some of these institutions at the
age of twelve and thirteen, almost entirely
ruined in health and constitution, by  it;  and
they have  assured me,  that, to  their  certain
knowledge, almost every boy  in the school 
84         LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

practised the filthy vice;  and many of them
went to the still more loathsome and criminal
extent  of an unnatural commerce  with each
other!
  Those teachers in Europe who have turned
their attention  to  this exceedingly  important
subject, have found it one of the most serious
difficulties  which  they have to grapple with,
in the  education of boys.   And would the
officers  of  our  colleges and  seminaries for
youth,  fully explore  this matter, within their
own official precincts,  they would discover an
amount of pollution which would  fill  them
with abhorrence,  and  reveal to them  some
important secrets, in relation to the early fail-
ure of the health of so many of their  pupils
and  graduates.   I  have  been  informed of
facts, by persons of extensive  research on this
subject, and whose professional business made
it their duty to investigate it, the  mere reci-
tal  of which, is  enough to chill with horror
the  heart of every one that listens  to it;  but
they are too shockingly obscene  to be detailed
in such  a discourse as this.   Suffice   it here to 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         85
say, that the early forming of the habit of self-
pollution is one of the most  alarming evils in
our land.—(See Note G.) *
  In the third place, it is a secret and solitary
vice, which requires the consent of no second
person,—and  therefore the  practice has little
to prevent its  frequency:  and as it necessarily
and very soon produces a preternatural pruri-
ence  in the genital  organs, and a  reciprocity
of  influence  between these  and  the  brain,
which  leads  to  the permanent establishment
of  those  associations of the  mind  with the
unclean sensibility,  that,  on all occasions  of
opportunity,  suggest the  deed,  the practice
almost inevitably becomes  more  and  more
frequent,  as the mischievous effects  are experi-
enced,  until  it  sometimes  reaches  the  most
ruinous excess, and  acquires a power which
irresistibly urges  on the unhappy  sufferer,  in
the voluntary course of self-destruction.—(See
Note H.)
  • See also remarks from Annals of Education, and
Dr. Woodward's Letter, on pages 1 and 2. 
86        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
  I have had  boys come to me, with  com-
plaints of ill health, who,  on being  closely
questioned  on this  point, have confessed that
they had indulged in this  practice as often as
three times in twenty-four hours;  and some-
times thrice in a single  night;  and this, in
some  instances,  years  before the period of
puberty.   In fact, a very considerable propor-
tion  of the dyspepsia,  and  other  forms of
chronic disease, in our country, may be traced
back to  the early frequency  of  this  vice, as
one of  their roots.
  In the fourth  place,  it impairs the intel-
lectual and moral faculties,  and debases the
mind, in  the greatest degree; and causes the
most deep and lasting regret, which sometimes
rises to the most pungent remorse and despair.
  It would  seem as if God  had written  an
instinctive  law of remonstrance, in the innate
moral  sense, against this filthy vice ; for how-
ever ignorant  the boy may  be, of the moral
character  of the  act, or of the  physical  and
mental evils which result from it—though he
may never have been told that it is wrong— 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.         87
yet every  one who is  guilty of it, feels  an
instinctive  shame, and deep self-loathing, even
in his secret solitude,  after the unclean deed is
done!  and that youth has made  no small
progress  in the depravity of his moral feelings,
who has so silenced the dictates  of  natural
modesty, that he can,  without the blush  of
shame,  pollute himself in  the presence  of
another—even his  most intimate companion!
Hence, all who give themselves up to the ex-
cesses of this debasing indulgence, carry about
with  them,  continually,  a  consciousness  of
their defilement, and  cherish  a secret suspicion
that others look upon them as debased beings.
They  cannot  meet  the look  of  others,  and
especially  of the female sex, with  the modest
boldness of conscious innocence and  purity ;
but their  eyes fall, suddenly abashed, and the
 glow of  mingled shame and confusion conies
 upon  their cheeks, when they meet the glance
 of those with whom  they are conversing,  or in
 whose company they are.   They feel none of
 that  manly confidence, and  gallant spirit, and
 chaste  delight,  in  the presence  of virtuous 
88         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

females, which stimulate  young  men to pur-
sue  the course of ennobling refinement, and
mature them for the social relations and enjoy-
ments  of  life ;  and  hence,  they are  often
inclined, either to shun the society of  females,
entirely,  or to seek  such as is by no means
calculated  to  elevate their views, nor improve
their taste  nor morals.  And if,  by the kind
offices  of friends, they are put forward  into
good society,  they  are continually oppressed
with a  shrinking embarrassment, which makes
them feel  as if  they were  out of their own
element, and look forward to  the time of re-
tirement  as the  time of  their release  from an
unpleasant  situation.   A want of self-respect
disqualifies  them  for the easy  and elegant
courtesies which render young men interesting
to the  other sex;  and often  prevents  their
forming those honorable relations in life, so
desirable to  every  virtuous  heart;  and fre-
quently dooms them, either to a gloomy celi-
bacy or an  early grave.
  This shamefacedness, or unhappy  quailing
of the  countenance, on meeting the look of 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        89

others,  often follows them through  life;  in
some instances, even  after they have entirely
abandoned  the  habit,  and  become  married
men, and respectable members of society.
  It cannot  be  otherwise, than  that such a
deep and  abiding  sense  of  self-debasement,
should either drive the unhappy sufferer into
the  lowest  scenes of vice,  where  his  moral
sensibilities may become, as it were, seared
with the hot iron  of iniquity, or produce as
profound and permanent a feeling of regret and
remorse, which ever and anon sweeps over the
soul with a most sickening and withering influ-
ence, inducing despondency,  and  sometimes
utter despair and weariness of life !  And happy
were it for  such sufferers, if an entire reforma-
tion and subsequent  course  of  virtue,  could
always  cleanse the memory from the painful
recollection  of these  things :  but alas !—not
unfrequently, after many years of correct habits
have elapsed, and the early  transgressor  has
become  a virtuous and worthy and respectable
head of a  family and  member of society,—
when by some means or other, his worried and 
90         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

debilitated  nerves  have  taken  on a  highly
morbid irritability, the  remembrance  of this
early  vice  will  return  upon him, as if the
fountains of hell  had broken up, and  flooded
his soul with  all the horrors of the world of
wo!   And  in  these  times  of unutterable
anguish  and  despair, it  is  often  difficult to
restrain the miserable sufferer from immediate
self-destruction.—(See Note I.)

  Having thus taken a general view of the
anatomy and  physiology involved  in the sub-.
ject  before us, and  pretty  fully considered
the relative effects of the  different species of
venereal  indulgence  and  excess,  we  now
proceed to  a  more detailed  consideration of
the evils  resulting  from these  excesses, and
especially from self-pollution.
  One of the  first  effects of the abuse of the
genital organs, is  the  development  in them, of
an unhealthy degree of  their peculiar sensibil-
ity,—rendering them far more susceptible of
excitement, and establishing something like an
habitual  desire for indulgence.  Of  course, 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
91
this state of  things  cannot be carried very
far, without  considerably affecting  the  whole
nervous  system, and disturbing the functions
of the several organs, more or less, according
to their relative importance to the  immediate
welfare of the whole body.
   The stomach, being more immediately con-
nected with  the great centre of  the  nerves
of  organic  life,  and  more largely  supplied
with  nerves  and blood-vessels than any other
organ in the body, may  be   considered the
grand central organ, whose peculiar endow-
ments, relations and duties are such  as  to
render it of  the utmost  importance  to the
general  system, and to establish between  it
and  all the  other  organs,  the strongest and
most  immediate sympathy; so that it, in a
peculiar  manner, partakes  of  the  irritations,
disturbances  and affections, of every portion
of the whole system; and consequently, while
the nervous system, as a whole—and especially
the nerves of organic life—suffers by every im-
proper act of venereal indulgence, the stomach,
as a particular organ, more directly and power- 
92         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

fully sympathizes with the genital organs, in
all their  excitements  and affections, than any
other  organ or portion of the body.   Hence
the function of digestion  is the first  to  suffer
from this disturbing cause;  and unless some
other organ, in consequence  of predisposition,
or the action of other causes, is so affected by
the general and the reflected irritation from the
venereal excitement, as to become itself the seat
of local  disease, and  thus relieve the stomach
from a morbid concentration  of the irritations,
this latter organ  will  inevitably become seri-
ously disordered, and  soon exhibit symptoms
of painful disease : and if the abuses are per-
severed in, it will, in  time, become so exceed-
ingly weak and irritable, that it will hardly be
able to perform it's function at all,—even with
all the helps that  can be  afforded it.
  The appetite  will  become  very capricious:
and  the  utmost caution  will be necessary in
regard to  the diet; and  even then,  the food
will often cause great  distress in  the  stomach,
and  frequently  be thrown  off  with violent
eructations.   A  dull, gnawing  pain  will  be 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         93

almost constantly felt at the pit of the stomach;
and  sometimes it will  become  intensely acute
and shooting; while an indescribable sensation
of sinking, death-like  faintness, attended  fre-
quently with a  distressing fluttering, or spas-
modic affections, will  be experienced  in the
same region, almost without intermission, un-
less  it is  momentarily relieved by stimulants ;
and in that case it will  always return, with
redoubled force, when the stimulation is over.
A general sense of languor,  and debility, and
exhaustion  will be felt,  and  the  unhappy
offender will be supposed to be  suffering under
confirmed dyspepsia; and in  some cases, acute
inflammation, and morbid sensibility,  of the
most  excruciating  and dangerous character,
will  suddenly take place.
   But the stomach is not alone in these dis-
orders ; the  intestinal  canal,  throughout its
whole length, shares in the general and par-
ticular evil.  Its functions in every respect are
impaired.   The crude chyme  received from
the stomach,  affords, in  the general disturb-
ance, but ill-digested chyle.   Irritations, debil- 
94         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

ity, costiveness, diarrhoea, choliGs,  spasmodic
disorders,  &c.,  reduce  the  intestines to  a
deplorable  state;  frequently  terminating  in
hemorrhoids,  ulcerations,  and  purulent dis-
charges from the anus.
  The heart, arteries, and all the other blood-
vessels, including  the whole capillary system,
partaking directly of the  diffused excitement
of the genital organs, and sharing in the affec-
tions and conditions of the stomach, and suffer-
ing from the convulsive efforts, and distentions,
and repeated  irritations, become  exceedingly
debilitated  and  relaxed;—the circulation be-
comes very feeble and languid, and the pulse
small, slow  and  fluttering,  and  frequently
intermittent;—the  capillary  action becomes
sluggish and imperfect;—the blood is not com-
pletely renovated in  the lungs;—the calorific
function is proportionately impaired;—the vital
changes, depending  on the healthy state and
energy of the capillary vessels, suffer  in pro-
portion to  the morbid irritability and debility
of those organs  : and thus  all the processes of
digestion, absorption, and  depuration, are im- 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         95

perfectly performed—nutrition languishes—the
fluids  become  crude and irritating, and the
solids  diseased;  and emaciation—lassitude—
general chilliness—coldness of the extremities,
and great debility ensue.   In this  state, the
violent convulsive  paroxysms  attending the
acme  of  venereal  indulgence,  often cause
spasms in  the  heart,  arresting  entirely its
function,  and sometimes producing aneurisms,
or bursting of its walls, and suffering the blood
to gush out into the  pericardium ;  and causing
sudden death, in the unclean act.
   The lungs  are, to  a  considerable extent,
made  up  of nerves  and blood-vessels,  and
are  peculiarly  associated  with the  heart and
stomach.   They, therefore, in common  with
all the other organs involved in the grand net-
work of the  nervous tissue, suffer the common
excitement and  debility of the whole nervous
system, from the acts  of venereal indulgence,
and share most largely with the stomach and
heart  in  all their disturbances and disorders.
 Hence,  they  soon   become  debilitated  and
impaired in all  their  tissues,  and incompe- 
 96        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.

 tent to perform  their important duties health-
 fully.   They  also  become excessively  sus-
 ceptible of the effects of atmospheric changes,
 and of noxious  air; and become  so  morbidly
 sympathetic, that all oppressions and disturb-
 ances of the stomach, irritate them to a greater
 or less degree, causing phthisical or asthmatic
 affections,  and  difficulties  of  breathing,  dry,
 hacking cough, and  hoarseness  of the voice.
 And where there is the least  predisposition to
 pulmonary consumption, the development and
 fatal determination of that  disease are  rapidly
 hastened on; and, in  thousands  of instances,
 where  no such  predisposition exists, the con-
 sumption  is  induced  and   rendered fatal, by
 venereal  excesses, and especially in the  form
 of self-pollution.
  Sometimes the over-excited  and convulsed
heart throws the blood into the  lungs more
rapidly  than  their  debilitated,  relaxed  and
distended  vessels can dispose of it; and then
follow  great  difficulties of breathing, distress-
ing apoplectic feeling, perhaps fainting, or rup-
ture of the vessels, hemorrhage of the lungs* 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         97

and  gushing of blood  from the mouth  and
nostrils.   Sometimes  acute  inflammation,  re-
sulting in rapid change of structure, is suddenly
induced ; and, in other  cases, with the pulmo-
nary congestion, a  spasm of the heart arrests
its action, so that it cannot receive the return-
ing blood from  the lungs, and sudden death
ensues, by a species of pulmonary apoplexy.
  The liver and  kidneys share equally with
the other organs in the common  injury:  the
former,  being  peculiarly  associated  with  the
stomach  by nervous  distributions, partakes
immediately of all  its irritations.  Disordered
function, morbid condition, the formation  of
calculi in its cavities, hardening or ulceration
of its substance,  general  change of structure,
consumption, &c, are among the evils which
are caused  in  it, by  venereal abuses.   Jaun-
dice,  in  its worst and  most  unmanageable
form, often results from these derangements of
the liver.  The kidneys are affected nearly in
the same  manner.   Sometimes  they are  so
prostrated  and diseased that they become ex-
cessive  in  their crude  secretions,  and  fatal
           7 
98         LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

diabetes terminates the hapless career of trans-
gressions.   Sometimes, when this disorder does
not supervene, the crudely assimilated  urine
forms  calculi  in  the kidneys  and bladder,
which become the source of many  years' suf-
fering, and perhaps, finally, of a painful and
premature death.
  In other cases,  the irritating  urine tortures
the morbidly  sensitive neck of the bladder and
the urethra into a  permanently diseased state;
spasmodic  affections and strangury often  oc-
cur; and  ulcerations  and catarrhal affections
of the lining  membrane take place, attended
with purulent discharges from the penis.
  The external  skin, throughout  its  whole
expanse, which is  little more than  a vasculo-
nervous texture of capillary and filamentary
extremities, corresponding in  structure, and to
a considerable extent, in office, and  reciprocat-
ing in sympathy, with  the  internal niucous
membrane, suffers astonishingly from  the di-
rect excitements of venereal abuses, and fully
participates in all  the  injuries of the mucous
membrane, and of the internal  organs  gener- 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        99

ally.  Exceedingly oppressed, debilitated and
relaxed,  it  fails  to  accomplish its important
duties;  insensible perspiration  is greatly di-
minished ;  impurities are accumulated  in the
system, clogging  its whole  economy, prevent-
ing  nutrition,  and tending  to  local disease,
(biles, running sores, suppurating blisters, &c.,)
as a means of  throwing off  the peccant matter
of the body.   The skin loses its healthy, clear
and  fresh  appearance, and  assumes a  sickly,
pale, shrivelled, turbid and cadaverous aspect;
—becoming exceedingly susceptible to  the in-
jurious effects of cold, heat, moisture, and other
disturbing  causes.  In some instances, a dis-
tressing chilliness is  almost continually expe-
rienced in the region of the spine;  and in other
cases, the sufferer is tormented with a kind of
itching, or a feeling as if myriads of ants were
crawling over the surface of the body.
  Sudden changes of temperature and  condi-
tion  of atmosphere not only more powerfully
affect the skin, but through it, the whole sys-
tem,  and  especially the stomach  and  lungs.
Rheumatic and inflammatory complaints,  and. 
100        LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

indeed,  disorders of every kind, are therefore
either induced or  much aggravated  by this
cutaneous condition.
  " Pimples of a livid hue come out upon the
forehead and  about the nose, and  often  over
the whole  face;  and even ulcerous sores,  in
some cases, break out upon the head, breast,
back and thighs; and these sometimes enlarge
into  permanent fistulas,  of a  cancerous char-
acter, and  continue, perhaps for years, to dis-
charge  great  quantities  of foetid,  loathsome
pus,  and not unfrequently terminate in  death."
  In such a diseased state of  the organs, and
general  derangement of  the  functions of the
system,  all the  vital  processes  of nutrition
must necessarily  be impaired, and  often ex-
ceedingly depraved.  A general wasting of the
body, and  deterioration of all its tissues and
substances, must almost inevitably result.  The
vital contractility of the muscular tissue is im-
paired, and the muscles  generally become re-
laxed and  emaciated.   "The voluntary  mo-
tions are feeble and irresolute; and  the  gait
weak and  perhaps tottering; and  the chest 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        101
bent forward, with a drooping of the head and
shoulders;—and the knees feel unable to  sus-
tain the  weight of the body;" and a general
and sometimes extreme debility and palsy of
the  voluntary  powers is experienced.   The
cellular tissue suffers a diminution of its elas-
ticity, and becomes stiff, and often so inflexible
as to prevent the full play of the organs.   The
bones  become  dry and  brittle, and  in some
cases carious, causing and keeping up offensive
and loathsome  running sores; and  in early
life, distortions  of  the  spine and  chest,  and
general rickety  appearance  and deformity of
the frame, are sometimes caused by  the abuses
of the  genital organs.   The  teeth  decay  and
become black and loose, and in some instances
drop out of  the jaws, while the transgressor is
yet in the  beginning of  life.  The  lips  lose
their color, and the gums become pale, flaccid,
and often ulcerous.  The chyle, blood, saliva,
mucous secretions, gastric and pancreatic flu-
ids, bile, urine, tears, and all the other fluids
and humors of  the body, become crude, acrid
and irritating, and serve to  increase the dis- 
102        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

ease of the solids, and the general and special
derangement of function.
  But in this  extensive mischief, the nervous
system, all along,  leads the way in suffering,
and is the grand  medium of injury to all the
other tissues and substances of the body.  Not
only are  the nerves generally debilitated, and
the nerves of  organic  life  tortured  into a dis-
eased  irritability  and sensibility, but there is
also a great deterioration and wasting of the
nervous substance.  The common  vital  prop-
erties  of the  nerves,  by which the  general
functions of the system are carried  on—as we
have  already  seen—are  always impaired  in
proportion  to the excess  of the  evil of which
we are treating.   The special nervous proper-
ties suffer in due proportion—varying in differ-
ent persons, with different peculiarities.   The
sense  of touch becomes obtuse and  less dis-
criminating, and  in some instances, a numb-
ness of the extremities and limbs, and even of
the whole body, is experienced,—approaching
to,  and  in fact, sometimes actually  reaching
that state  which is commonly called numb 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.       103
palsy.   The sense of taste is equally blunted,
and loses  that delicate perception of agreeable
qualities on which the delightful relish of pro-
per and healthful  food depends; and hence
the unnatural  demand for  vicious  culinary
preparations, and stimulating condiments, and
the utter  distaste for simple diet.  The sense
of smell becomes impaired, and loses its nice
discriminating power, and but faintly perceives
the rich fragrance which the vegetable  king-
dom breathes forth for man's enjoyment.   The
ear grows dull and hard of hearing, and often-
times, a continual and distressing ringing, like
the knell of ruined health, and the prognostic
of evils yet  more  fearful, is the only music
which occupies it.
  But, of  all the special senses, the eyes, more
generally, are the greatest sufferers fron vene-
real abuses.  They become languid and dull,
and lose their brightness and liveliness of ex-
pression, and assume a  glassy and vacant ap-
pearance; and fall back into their sockets, and
perhaps become red and  inflamed, and  weak
and excessively sensible, so that wind,  light, 
104        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

&c, irritate  and distress  them.   The  sight
becomes feeble, obscure, cloudy, confused, and
often is entirely lost; and  utter blindness fills
the rest of  life  with darkness and  unavailing
regret.
  The organs of smelling,  seeing, hearing and
tasting, and  especially the  eyes,  which  are
generally much the greatest  sufferers, are pro-
bably most directly affected  through the fifth
pair of nerves, and the filaments of the nerves
of organic  life which belong to, and preside
over the  vital  functions of  the blood-vessels
distributed  to these organs.  These, taking on
a high degree of morbid  irritability and  sensi-
bility—engorgement,  debility and  inflamma-
tion succeed;  and finally,  the olfactory,  optic,
acoustic and  gustatory nerves  themselves be-
come impaired, diseased, and in some  cases,
destroyed.
  The spinal  marrow sometimes becomes the
focal point of mischief, from these filthy out-
rages on nature; and by its consumption, ac-
celerates the general work of ruin, to a most
loathsome termination in death. 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        105

  The bhain is neither last nor least in these
terrible sufferings.  Associated  as it  is  with
the genital organs, it participates largely in all
their  direct excitements:  the  cerebral blood-
vessels become distended  and relaxed;  and
thus the brain, necessarily, becomes debilitated
by  the frequent venereal  irritations; and as
necessarily partakes of the evils resulting from
general derangement of functions, and deterio-
ration of properties.   Its  extreme irritability,
and its morbid  sympathy with the alimentary
canal, heart and lungs, as a mere animal or-
gan, cause  it  not  only to suffer  excessively
from  all their irritations,  but  to reflect those
irritations back upon the  same  organs,  and
throughout  the whole system; and  thus ex-
ceedingly increase  the general disorder,  and
hasten on the work of ruin.  In this manner,
epilepsy is often induced,  and rendered a per-
manent disease of the system;  and this, again,
peculiarly increases the sufferings and injuries
of the brain,  throughout  all its important or-
gans and faculties and powers;—debilitating—
wasting—destroying.    Paralysis—partial  and 
106        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

general—often  occurs.   Apoplexy is  also a
legitimate,  and not unfrequent effect of  these
causes, which increases, with terrible efficacy,
the fearfulness of the general anarchy of  the
system, and sometimes,  forecloses the whole,
by  sudden  death,  even in the  very act  of
venereal indulgence; and thrusts the filthy
transgressor, with all his abominable pollutions
upon him, uncovered, into the presence  of God,
where  perhaps the only utterance which will
greet his ear will be—"He that is filthy, let
him be filthy still!"
  The mental and  moral  faculties  of the
brain,  are fully involved in the  general  and
special injuries; and the- mental powers and
manifestations, are  proportionably impaired.
The mind becomes exceedingly  carnal, and
inclined  to  dwell on  sensual   subjects,  and
cherish sensual images; and by degrees,  be-
comes  more and  more averse to special appli-
cation  and  continued effort.   All systematic
discipline and education become  extremely
irksome to it.  Its energies and elasticity  grad-
ually  decline; and by  imperceptible  degrees. 
           lecture to young  men.        107

it becomes weak and fickle.   Its  powers of
application and perception and reflection con-
tinually diminish, and memory slowly decays,
—until the unhappy transgressor feels that the
buoyancy of his childhood is gone, and  that
his mind has lost its sprightliness and vigor;—
and when  he  would give  his attention to
subjects  requiring  continued  and  connected
thought, he experiences a feeling of reluctance
and irresoluteness,  a shrinking from mental
effort, which he does not feel able to overcome:
—or,  if he  occasionally succeeds in making
the attempt, he soon learns that his intellectual
powers are  too  feeble to endure   protracted
application  and effort; and  too obtuse  to be
capable of  clear and distinct perception and
reflection.    His mind seems confused,  and
clouded, and crippled.
   Sometimes, this  general mental  decay con-
tinues  with  the   continued  abuses, till  the
wretched transgressor sinks  into  a miserable
fatuity, and  finally becomes  a confirmed and
degraded idiot, whose deeply  sunken and va-
cant, glossy eye, and  livid, shrivelled counte- 
108        LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

nance, and ulcerous, toothless  gums, and foetid
breath, and feeble, broken voice, and emaciated
and  dwarfish and  crooked body, and  almost
hairless  head—covered, perhaps,  with  sup-
purating blisters and running sores—denote a
premature  old  age—a blighted  body—and  a
ruined soul!—and he drags  out  the remnant
of his loathsome  existence, in exclusive devo-
tion  to  his horridly abominable  sensuality.—
(See Note J.)  More frequently,  however, the
mental  powers maintain  their  existence,  to
inflict, if possible, a deeper and a darker  ven-
geance  on the  miserable offender.  Beginning
with occasional dejection of spirits, he goes on
in his transgression, till an habitual depression,
and  then a deeper gloom, and then a cheerless
melancholy,  gathers in permanent  darkness
over his soul.
   The  continual prurience of his  genital or-
gans appeals almost incessantly to his brain,
and  drags his mental energies and operations
into  the polluted current of his tyrant passion;
and  his imagination is  constantly filled  with
lewd and obscene images,  so  that  he scarcely 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        109
has  the  power  to fix his  thoughts,  for any
length of time, on other subjects.   If he at-
tempts to read  or study, ever and anon his
book will fade away, and a  lascivious  image
will occupy his mental vision, and  stir up the
unclean fires of morbid  lust.  If he endeavors
to give his thoughts  to  the  most solemn  and
sacred subjects, still he is haunted with images
of lewdness;  and even when he  attempts to
pray to  the  omniscient and  holy God, these
filthy  harpies  of his imagination  will often
flit between his  soul  and Heaven,  and shake
pollution  on  him from their horrid  wings!
Almost every object  that he sees, will, by a
diseased association, suggest the debasing vice;
and his  eye  can scarcely fall, by accident, on
the sexual parts of any female animal, without
awakening  a train of obscene thoughts,  and
exciting a  foul  concupiscence.    The  moral
sensibilities  of  his   soul may sometimes be
aroused, and remonstrate  with horror against
this terrible  defilement  and degradation of the
mind; but the despotic  lust  subjugates every-
thing, and forces the mental and the voluntary 
110       LECTURE  TO  YOUNG MEN.

powers into  subserviency to its imperious de-
sires !
  Thus  the mind,  amidst its  sufferings,  is
made to re-act  upon the very source of all the
mischief;  and  thereby augment,  to a  more
irresistible  degree of madness, the  power  of
ruin !
  With mind  and body thus pouring  their
morbid  energies  in one resistless  tide,  along
the channel of sexual lust, the miserable trans-
gressor cannot help  but choose to yield ; and he
is borne onward, in voluntary necessity,  down
the rapids of destruction towards the awful cat-
aract of final and utter ruin !  By every stimu-
lation of his body, and every excitement  of his
mind, the blood is  accumulated in his genital
organs,  forcing them to increased action and
secretion, and thus  augmenting their prurience
and influence over the mental and  voluntary
powers !  The devoted sensualist yields  to the
morbid propensity, and again, and again, and
again, and perhaps with increasing frequency,
repeats the obscene and debasing and destruc-
tive indulgence.  Nor  are the deep  depression 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        Ill

of his spirits—the general languor, and debility,
and disquietude, and anguish of his body—the
dizziness and pain of his  head—the unspeak-
able  distress at the  pit of his stomach—the
asthmatic difficulty of breathing—the dry and
hacking cough—the  burning pains in his loins
and  genital organs,  and thighs and ancles—
and   the  failing  senses—and  the  perishing
mind, sufficient  to arrest his course !  Indeed,
he often repeats the odious indulgence, as the
drunkard  flies  to his bottle, to find in the
destructive excitement, while it lasts, a mo-
mentary alleviation  from  that insupportable
misery which  the  practice has  brought  upon
him!  Thus, everything seems  to combine  to
make sure his ruin.
  The genital  organs, themselves, often suffer
in the most  extreme degree.   Their peculiar
susceptibilities  and sensibilities become  mor-
bidly excessive,—an  undue quantity of blood
is received and retained in them,—the secre-
tions of  the  parts  become  unhealthy  and
excessive, and extremely irritating  and debil-
itating—tending  always  to  produce  turges- 
112        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

cence, inflammation, and change of structure.
Heat and burning of the parts—shocking en-
largement of the spermatic cords—swelling—
inflammation—intense  sensibility—excruciat-
ing pain—induration—schirrus and ulceration
of the testicles,  are among  the  terrible evils
which result from venereal excess.   In other
cases, a general withering,  and impotence, and
decay of the parts, commences and continues
on, with the continuing vice, till  almost every
vestige  of the insignia, and all  the power of
virility, are gone.  But before this shocking
result of continued outrage has  taken  place,
the extremely debilitated and excessively irri-
table parts, sympathizing with all the disturb-
ances of the brain and alimentary canal—and,
in fact, with those of every part of the system
—become excited on every  slight occasion, and
an involuntary emission of crude and watery,
and  sometimes bloody semen occurs; and  in
many instances,  "a continual gonorrhoea,  or
constant dribbling of thin purulent matter from
the penis, is experienced." 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        113

  Sleep, from the first abuses of the body, is
less sound, and sweet, and refreshing; and at
length, it becomes restless, and disturbed, and
broken,  and full  of obscene  dreams,  which
are connected with nocturnal  and involuntary
emissions of semen—sometimes as often  as
thrice in the same night.  Still the infatuated
sufferer will pursue his voluntary uncleanness,
as if the hand of necessity were on him, com-
pelling him to offer himself a voluntary sacri-
fice on  the  ignominious  altar  of lewd sensu-
ality !  and  not  unfrequently is the practice
continued when  the emissions are  blood.—
(See Note J.)
  The most excessive debility, and distressing
languor and anguish, and unutterable melan-
choly,  are necessary  consequences  of these
excesses.  The self-afflicted sufferer feels  that
his life is a painful  burden  to him.   Filled
with self-contempt, and disgust, and reproach,
he is sick of himself and everything  around
him.  He has no relish for the ordinary amuse-
ments  and pleasures  of  life—no enjoyment of
society.   He  is  continually  tormented with
           8 
114        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
vague anxiety and fear ;  and is constantly full
of disquietude, and anguish, and dread; and
frequently  falls into  tears;  and  sighs  and
weeps  without the apprehension of any defi-
nite cause.   Self-destruction becomes the com-
mon theme of  his  thoughts.   Remorse  and
despair at  times overwhelm his soul,  and his
misery is unspeakable.  He would give worlds
to be annihilated.  His life is intolerable, and
he often determines,  and still fears to throw
it  off.   Amidst  this dreadful conflict, reason
is  frequently dethroned,  and terrible insanity
usurps its place; and fearful indeed—beyond
description fearful—are  the ruins  thus  pro-
duced !   But still, amidst  this general wreck
and desolation of all that  was a rational and
moral being, the foul and fiendish lust remains
—the tyrant of the ruined  soul—driving, with
maniac instinct, the miserable  and  loathsome
body to the continual perpetration of  the  de-
structive and horridly abominable vice!  And
nothing but constant watching,  and pinions,
and manacles, can prevent the continuance of
this shocking practice, even in utter insanity. 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        115

  Among the hapless  inmates of the lunatic
asylnm, none is more  incorrigible or more in-
curable than  the wretched victim of this odious
vice.   What of the fragments of his shattered
reason he is still capable of gathering up from
the general wreck, he craftily exercises in  de-
vising means  and securing  opportunities  to
elude the vigilance of his keepers, and to in-
dulge his imperious lust.—(See Note K.)
  If,  however,  this loathsome  practice  does
not, in every instance,  result in  all these fear-
ful consequences, be assured, my young friends,
that it always and inevitably impairs the con-
stitution, abbreviates the period of life,  and
produces  an  immense  amount of  suffering.
For, although the  practice may be abandoned,
or give place to connubial commerce, and by
proper measures, the pernicious effects may, in
some  degree, be overcome,  yet  through  life,
the early offender will, to a greater  or less ex-
tent, experience the penalties of his transgres-
sion.   He will find himself, at all times, more
easily and powerfully affected, by those causes
which disturb the vital economy.   He will be 
116        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

less  able  to endure  fatigue, and heat,  and
cold, and  sudden changes of temperature and
condition  and  circumstances.   His  digestive
powers will be more  easily disordered and de-
ranged; and dyspepsia, and pulmonary con-
sumption, and all the chronic diseases incident
to human life, will be more readily induced in
him.   And  on all occasions of indisposition,
he will be more  liable  to those depressions of
spirits, and turns of  melancholy, and perhaps
remorse and despair, which are connected with
the morbid irritability of the nervous  system.
   But above all—especially to him who,  from
the love of virtue and religion,  would be pure
in heart, and  lead a righteous and holy life—
the  power  of depraved  sensuality,  resulting
from this early  vice, will constitute a  most
soul-sickening affliction.  A preternatural sus-
ceptibility to the  excitements of concupiscence,
and a diseased association of the  cerebral and
genital organs, will  render it  impossible for
him, at all times, to avoid that adultery of the
heart which consists  in the look of  lust.  He
will often feel himself in the predicament of 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        117

those of whom the apostle Peter says, " Hav-
ing eyes  full  of adultery, they cannot cease
from sin."  Unclean thoughts and lascivious
images will frequently  be suggested to his
mind, and break in upon his meditations;  and
sometimes force themselves like the  ghost of
the murdered, even into  his most  consecrated
moments and exercises of devotion—filling his
soul with shuddering horror, and constraining
him to cry out, in the deep anguish and agony
of his persecuted  spirit—" Oh, wretched man
that I  am! who  shall deliver me from the
body of this death?"
  This unhappy condition of his  system will
render  him peculiarly liable  to temptations;
and frequently, perhaps, in the course  of his
earthly career,  will his morbid susceptibilities
bring  him, at an unguarded moment, so com-
pletely under the influence of circumstances,
that he will be hurried into the performance of
those acts which  his better feelings abhor, and
which will fill him with bitter repentance and
remorse—not  only for the time, but  as often
as  he remembers  them, through life.   And in 
118        LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.

some instances, it may be, his morbid suscep-
tibility to  temptation will draw him into  cir-
cumstances which he would  not have delibe-
rately  chosen,  and lead him,  by a  kind of
moral  necessity, to the perpetration of those
criminal deeds which he would have contem-
plated  with horror, and which seem  so com-
pletely to cut off his retreat, without exposure,
that he feels  himself compelled  to advance
in crime, till  he terminates his career  in ruin
and infamy;  and is regarded  by mankind as a
wretch too utterly depraved  and destitute of
virtue,  to deserve the common sympathies of
humanity !
  Alas! how little  are  mankind  aware that
the crimes which exclude their  perpetrators
from the pale  of human charity, and consign
them to a  life  of obloquy or an ignominious
death,  are frequently but the  legitimate fruits
of seeds sown in early childhood, even by a
mother's  and a father's hand ; and quickened
into development,  and nurtured to maturity,
by the  hot-bed influences of  civic  life; while
at every step in the descending course,  the 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        119

voluntary agent  feels  himself the  subject  of
circumstances and influences which he cannot
control.
  But, my young friends, do not for a moment
think that I intend  to  apologize for crime, nor
that I wish to  extenuate, in the least degree,
the sinfulness  of man's  moral depravity.   I
only would present these things in such a light,
as shall make human beings feel more  sensibly
their  parental  and social obligations  and re-
sponsibilities; and perceive more clearly that
truly enlightened and refined humanity and
religion teach us  not only to set our faces as a
flint against all  crime,  but also, with equal
integrity and zeal, by every means  within our
power, to endeavor to save the criminal by pre-
venting crime.
  Dark and terrible as the  picture  is,  which I
have now presented to  your view,—believe
me, my young friends, it is not an exaggerated
one:—it is  a faithful portraiture  of  reality !
Yet, stern  as are the lineaments of Truth, let
not her aspect drive the  penitent transgressor
to  despair, nor even for  a moment discourage 
120        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

him  from those wise and  energetic measures
and  efforts  by  which  he may  alleviate  his
sufferings, and at least in some degree, redeem
himself from his  misfortunes.  To him  who
perseveres  in this iniquity, there is no door of
mercy open for his escape !—inevitable  and
utter  ruin  lies  before him !—But, though far
gone  in  his transgressions,  and involved al-
ready  in  distressing consequences,—to  him
who will  stop  short, and  now—at once  and
forever—abandon this unseemly vice, and with
a pure and penitent spirit, henceforth  follow
holiness, there is hope !  Still, however, truth
compels  me to  declare,  that a  constitution
much impaired by venereal  excesses,  is in a
condition which cannot justify high hopes of
immediate and complete renovation !
  Disorders of the system, thus  induced,  are
difficult to be overcome.  General  and special
injuries, morbid susceptibilities  and irritabil-
ities,  and  derangement  of  function,  can be
removed only by extremely slow and imper-
ceptible degrees.  All  attempts  to force  the
system into a  more healthy action and con- 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        121
dition, though they at first may be  attended
with a specious  appearance of success, yet  in
the end, most certainly defeat  the very object
for which they were applied, and almost inva-
riably increase the difficulties, and accelerate
the ruin.  Such has been the error of opinion
entertained concerning the nature of these dis-
orders,  by most of those  who  have  hitherto
undertaken  to  remedy the evils resulting from
venereal excesses, that  unhappily, their treat-
ment has too generally been more destructive
to the constitution and the vital powers, than
even the complaints for which they prescribed:
and  thereby, the disorders growing out of the
abuses of the genital organs, have come to  be
considered more  obstinate and irremediable
than many of them really  are.
   It  cannot  be of any  particular benefit  to
you, that I should, on this occasion, enter into
a minute description of the different modes of
treatment which have been pursued  by differ-
ent practitioners and empirics ;  (for,  unluckily
for the sufferers, this is  a field in which igno-
rant  and  mercenary  quacks  have  figured 
122       LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
largely, and, too frequently, with great pecu-
niary advantage to themselves.)  Suffice it to
say,  that the  whole farrago'  of  stimulants,
tonics, &c., &c., and the various mineral reme-
dies and patent specifics, always and invaria-
bly increase the real  mischief; and while, in
some instances, the  particular symptoms are
removed or changed, the radical principles of
the disease are  made to penetrate more deeply
into the system, and  the fundamental powers
of the  constitution are more  exhausted and
impaired.
  In some  cases, it is true, the unhappy suf-
ferer is raised out of his immediate difficulties,
and  seems to be elevated  near to the level of
good  health; but it  is  only to be precipitated
again, sooner or later, into  deeper difficulties,
of a more incorrigible  character  than  those
from which he was at first relieved.  True,
his relapse may be, and perhaps generally is,
of such a type, and sometimes so remote from
the original cause, that the sufferer may never
suspect the real source of his recurrent afflic-
tions.  Nor is  this  all,  nor even the worst of 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.        123
the case:  too frequently, the  deeply penetrat-
ing roots of the  original disease shoot up their
branches,  and bear  periodical fruits of suffer-
ing, through life—gradually increasing in the
frequency  of their  times, the  exuberance of
their fruits, and the duration of their seasons,
till these  run into  each other, and cover the
whole of the  remaining life with disease and
suffering;  and finally transmigrate and spring
up, and bud  and blossom, and  bear fruits of
suffering  and early death, in the offspring of
the transgressor!
   The  instances are not unfrequent, in which
the  offender receives, as he supposes,  entire
relief from the  hands of the calomel, or can-
tharides,  or balm  of Gilead,  doctor,  and, in
the feeling of his strength  and  health,  enters
into wedlock, and by the help of high-seasoned
food,  and  wine, and  brandy,  and perhaps,
occasionally, iron,  and quinine, and cantha-
rides, &c, sustains himself in the function of
virility, for several months, and, it may be, for
some years,—begetting puny offspring,  which
either  fall  abortive to the grave, or come forth 
124        LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.

to individual  existence, weak  and  delicate,
and full of predisposition to disease,  and drag
out a miserable period of suffering, covered
with  sores  and  ulcers, and  deformed  with
rickets and distortions,  and finally perish, in-
fant Lazaruses, on whom are  fearfully visited
the iniquities of the father !  But they receive
not all the penalty; for the time soon comes,
when  the  unhappy  trangressor   himself is
plunged into the depths of  calamity !  And by
so much  the more as he has used violent and
unnatural means  to elevate and sustain him-
self, by so much the deeper and more remedi-
lessly will he sink! and his unfortunate career
too often closes in  sottish drunkenness, or  pul-
monary or spinal  consumption, or insanity, or
utter despair! or, what is even worse, he lives
on, through many years,  a life of protracted
and unspeakable wretchedness.—(See Note L.)
   My young friends, if any of you have been
so unfortunate  as  to  afflict yourselves by the
unseemly practice of  which  I speak, I  en-
treat you, as you value life and all that makes
life dear, do not be decoyed into that vortex of 
          LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.       125

ruin, which,  under the name of remedy, the
multitudinous empirics  and  impostors of the
times have extended  wide for your destruc-
tion !   Remember always, that the only power
on earth by which  the  disordered or diseased
body can possibly recover health, is in nature's
own renovating, vital economy: and crippled
nature often works extremely slow, and some-
times seems, for a long period, to make no pro-
gress  towards  our restoration.   But neither
in good  nor  evil, does nature always mani-
fest immediately the  effects produced in her.
Through  many years, the causes of disease
act on us, working out our death, without our
knowledge or suspicion, till some circumstance
or influence, not  very powerful in itself,  con-
summates the destruction, and we die, and
charge our  death  upon  that  single  circum-
stance or cause : so,  on the  other  hand, our
renovating powers may operate for a consider-
able time in removing, as it were, the  rubbish,
and laying the foundations of the superstruc-
ture of our health, before we  can perceive that
superstructure  to begin to rise.  Slow, there- 
 126       LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.

 fore,  as nature's  operations are, in any case,
 yet be assured, none other can be safe.
   But  are there no means by which we  can
 aid nature in her operations, consistently with
 the peculiar character of her powers and reno-
 vating economy.   Undoubtedly there are :  but
 it is  an exceedingly nice point  to  distinguish
 between those means which benefit, and those
 which injure us.   Some things, applied to  the
 living tissues  of  our  organs, greatly  excite
 them, and increase their action, and make us
feel as  if we were immediately benefited,  and
 rapidly improving in our strength and health;
 while, at the same time, the  very qualities by
 which they excite  the organs, and increase the
 general action  of the  system, and diffuse  a
 sense of strength and vigor through the  body,
 invariably impair  the  vital  properties of  the
 tissues  on which  they act,  deteriorating  the
 functional results, and leaving the system more
 exhausted and debilitated from their action.
  Nevertheless,  these may  be so  connected
 with other things, that  the system, in spite of
 their injurious effects, may, in some instances, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        127

recover health.  But it is always  a hazardous
experiment, and very seldom even  apparently
successful.   Still,  I  say,—there are means
which may be  so  applied as very greatly to
assist  the  vital  economy, in  its  renovating
operations;  and it is my purpose now, to point
out some of them, which will be found exceed-
ingly salutary to those who are suffering under
the difficulties on which I have been treating.
  But let me here again, my  young friends,
most solemnly adjure you, as you hope  for
health and happiness, to abstain from all those
stimulants, and  tonics,  and specifics, of every
kind, which are so abundantly prescribed in
cases such as  yours.  It is hardly possible for
you to imagine the extent of the calamities
and sufferings which almost universally result
from such a course of treatment;—nothing can
be more flatteringly deceptive,—and few things
can be more surely fatal in the end, than  the
popular remedies of the day.
  If you  are  extremely debilitated, remember
that  simple debility,  alone, is  far less to be
dreaded than diseased action;  and if you  are 
128       LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.
 suffering under diseased action, it is better that
 that action  should be feeble than violent: and
 remember, therefore, that by all you excite  or
 stimulate the body, in this  condition,  by  so
 much  you  increase  the  action  of disease.
 Thus,  a woman with a cancer in her breast,
 and with a body otherwise in  health and vigor,
 may keep up the general vigor of her body, by
 means which, at the same time, will increase
 the action of the disease,  that, in the form of
 a cancer, will  soon  destroy her life: and, on
 the other hand, she may reduce the general
 vigor and apparent health of her body, by
 means  which,  while they  exceedingly debili-
 tate the  muscular powers, will, at the same
 time, enable  the system to throw off the dis-
 eased action and affection  of the breast,  and
 rise  again to universal  health.   But I  say
 again,  these natural operations of the  vital
 economy  are  extremely  slow,—especially in
 cases where the system  has been  excessively
injured  by  venereal  abuses.  Nevertheless
they are  incomparably  the safest  and most
sure! 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        129

  If, therefore, you  are  very much reduced,
and afflicted with involuntary nocturnal emis-
sions ; and distressed with pains, and impaired
senses, and enfeebled mind, and cheerless mel-
ancholy,  tending  to  despair and madness—
remember  the general and special sympathies
and reciprocities which I have  pointed  out,
and particularly those which exist between the
genital  organs and the alimentary canal and
the brain; and remember, too,  that  in this
morbid  and exceedingly excitable and irritable
condition  of your  system,  things which may
seem  too  trifling to deserve your notice  may,
nevertheless,*be sufficient to  keep up the dis-
order of your body :  and therefore it is hardly
possible for you to be too cautious, while in
this condition, in regard to everything which
concerns your regimen and conduct.  Every
irritation and  undue  excitement  of the brain
and stomach and intestines, are calculated to
continue the involuntary emissions; while the
latter, in turn, keep up and increase the morbid
irritability of those organs.  Improper kinds of
food in the stomach and intestines will, in this
           9 
130        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

excessively irritable state of the system, cause
nocturnal emissions.   Improper quantities  of
the best aliment in nature will produce the
same  effect;  and so, also, will  the presence of
food in the stomach,  duodenum,  &c.,  at im-
proper times.  An over-fulness, or late supper,
will almost invariably cause this evil, in those
who are liable to such an affliction;  and while
these  emissions  continue, it is impossible for
the system te recover strength and health.
Costiveness of the bowels is  also sure to keep
up the nightly discharges; and if recourse be
had to  medicine, for the purpose of keeping
the bowels open, it  is sure to  perpetuate the
mischief,  by  irritating and  debilitating  still
more the tissues of the alimentary canal, and,
through them, the whole system.
  The food, therefore,  must be of such a char-
acter  as will  pass through the stomach and
intestines with the least irritation  and oppres-
sion ;  while, at  the  same time, it  affords  a
sufficient  supply of nourishment, and keeps
up, in the most natural and healthful manner,
a regular  and free  peristaltic action  of the 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        131

bowels.  A person laboring under the difficul-
ties which we are contemplating, must like-
wise  avoid with great care every  article  of
food of a crude and cold nature.  Farinaceous
food,  properly prepared, is incomparably the
best aliment for such a sufferer; and good bread,
made  of coarsely ground,  unbolted  wheat,  or
rye meal; and hominy, made of cracked wheat,
or rye, or Indian corn, are among the. very
best articles of diet that such a person can use.
These, taken with  or  without a little good
unfermented molasses, at  proper times, and
freely masticated, will digest easily and pleas-
antly, and will  be sure to keep up a regular
and healthy motion of the bowels.
  When the night emissions are frequent, and
the system is extremely irritable, the patient
should confine  himself to a very few articles
of diet, and eat but little,  and be  very uniform
in all his habits; always very carefully avoid-
ing full and late suppers.   Milk  will be found
too exciting and too oppressive for  such per-
sons.  No animal food, therefore,  should  be
used, in any quantity, by the patient; and no 
132       LECTURE  TO YOUNG MEN.

other liquid than pure soft water should ever
be drank by him.
  I have had many young men  come to me
for advice, who were exceedingly reduced and
afflicted by venereal errors ; and I have inva-
riably found that, after they had been relieved
from  nocturnal  emissions  for  a considerable
time, by strictly observing a  correct regimen,
and  begun  to feel  themselves  improving in
spirits and  health,  a single  glass of brandy
and  water, or a glass of wine or porter, or a
segar, or a cup of coffee, or a full meal of flesh,
would cause emissions in the succeeding night.
I say again,  therefore, the patient  cannot be
too careful to observe a strictly correct and un-
deviating regimen ;  nor too scrupulously avoid
spirits, and wine, and malt liquors,  and every
other kind  of  alcoholic drinks—even in the
smallest quantity;  and opium, and tobacco,
and  coffee,  and tea, and all other narcotics;
and  pepper, and  ginger,  and mustard,  and
horse-radish, and peppermint;—and, in short,
every kind of stimulating and heating  sub-
stances. 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        133

  But it is said that the patient requires some-
thing more warning and stimulating than fari-
naceous food and water, to increase the tone and
action of the organs, and enable them to perform
their  functions satisfactorily.   Granting this,
in some sense, to be  true—shall we therefore
use stimulants, which, while they increase the
action,  necessarily deteriorate the functional
results,  and impair the vital  properties  of  the
tissues on which they act, especially  when there
are natural and healthy and invigorating means
of increasing the tone and action of  the organs,
to the full  extent that the nature of the case
requires, or can  well  sustain?  No! let  the
patient,  like a  rational and intelligent  being,
promote the tone  and  action  of his organs,
and general vigor of his system, by active  ex-
ercise ;  and let him exhilarate himself by free
and copious draughts of the pure air of heaven.
Let him go to the  gymnasium, and with mod-
erate beginning, and gradual increase of effort,
let him swing upon and climb the poles, and
ropes, and ladders, and vault upon  the wooden
horse, and practice all the other feats of that 
134        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.
admirable institution; or let him ride on horse-
back,* and walk, and run, and jump, or labor
on the farm; and avoid sedentary habits, and
all anxieties and excitements of the mind; and
most strictly shun all dalliance  with females,
and all lewd books, and obscene conversation,
and lascivious images and thoughts.  Let him
sleep  on  a  hard bed, and rise early  in  the
morning, and take a shower-bath of cold wa-
ter, or plunge  into cold water, or  sponge his
body all over with it; and in either case,  rub
himself off briskly and freely  with  a coarse
towel,  and follow that freely with a good, stiff
flesh-brush;  and then  exercise vigorously in
the open air or  in the gymnasium, for an hour
before  breakfast.  Let  him exercise  as  much
as he can through  the  day; let him take  an
early, light  supper, and take a good deal of
active  exercise  before  going to bed: and, if
his nocturnal emissions still  continue, let him,
just before getting into bed, repeat his shower
  * But if riding on horseback causes involuntary emis-
sions, this mode of exercise must be avoided. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        135
or sponge bath,  and follow it freely with the
coarse towel and flesh-brush.   Let him per-
severingiy observe this regimen, without the
slightest deviation in  a single  instance;  and
let him increase his exercise with his increas-
ing  strength—avoiding  constantly an  excess
of aliment; and after a while,  his nocturnal
emissions and other disorders will disappear,
and  his  strength and general  vigor  will  in-
crease, and he  will  become  cheerful  and
sprightly, and feel  as if  new  life and new
hopes  were dawning  on him :  and when he
is fully established in these improvements, he
may gradually relax the rigor of his diet, and
take a greater variety of simple  vegetables and
fruits; but still, he had better never go beyond
the vegetable kingdom and pure water, for his
aliment.  Yet if he will indulge  in animal food,
he ought by all  means to  limit himself  to  a
small portion of  good lean flesh, simply pre-
pared, once a day.
   By these means, I  say—if by  any short of
miraculous power—and by these alone, can
the  unhappy sufferer hope  to  be restored to 
136       LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.
comfortable and permanent health and enjoy-
ment. The progress—I repeat it—will be slow,
but incomparably the safest and surest: and
health, restored in this way, will put his body
in a  condition which will, in the greatest de-
gree, secure it from future prostration and suf-
ferings, and from  transmitting the evils  of his
former errors to an innocent and unoffending
progeny.—(See Note M.)

   Before I close this  lecture,  I must  again
allude  to  the danger  of boys in our public
schools and colleges, and briefly suggest some
means by which  that  danger can be greatly
diminished.   Among the causes of extensive
and  excessive  self-pollution,  at such  places
and  elsewhere, as I have already stated, the
most important ones are :
   1. Improper diet—the free use of flesh, with
more or less of stimulating seasonings and con-
diments, together with  coffee, tea, rich pastry,
and compounded  and concentrated forms  of
food; and  too  often, chewing and smoking to-
bacco, and drinking wine and other intoxicating 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        137
liquors ;—all of which unduly stimulate and
irritate the nervous system, heat the blood, and
early develope  a preternatural sensibility and
prurience of the genital organs.
  2. Excesses in quantity of aliment.   Were
our children kept in the plainest and simplest
manner,   unless  they were  restrained  as  to
quantity, by their parents or guardians, they
would be exceedingly  apt  to  eat  more  than
they  really  need,  and  more  than  the  vital
economy of their bodies can dispose of without
oppression and irritation.  But,  subsisting  as
most children  do, on a  variety of dishes, va-
riously and often viciously prepared—too gen-
erally warm, and requiring little mastication,
they are sure to eat too rapidly, and  swallow,
in a very imperfectly masticated  condition, far
too great a quantity of food.  This  not only
produces permanent  injury  in  the  digestive
organs,  but  the  whole  constitution  is  much
impaired by it, and the sexual  appetite rapidly
developed and strengthened.   Over-feeding is
a  powerful cause of early concupiscence and
licentiousness,  as well as of innumerable other 
138        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

evils: and it is an almost universal fact in our
country, that children are  greatly  over-fed.
Hundreds  are  annually  destroyed  by this
means.
  3.  A want of  proper exercise to promote the
equal distribution of the blood, and  develope
and  invigorate the several organs and parts
of the system, and firmly establish the healthy
condition  and  conduct  of  the  constitution.
Their sedentary and  inactive, and too  gener-
ally  indolent  habits,  lead  to sluggishness of
capillary circulation, and an undue detention
of blood in the vessels of the abdomen and
lower parts of the body, including the genital
organs;  by which means  the parts become
heated and  debilitated, and thus  again, a pre-
ternatural sensibility  and excitability are aug-
mented in the organs of generation—increasing
their influence on  the condition and functions
of the brain and  alimentary canal,—and in-
deed, of all the organs of the system.
  4.  The disproportionate exercise of the brain
in the cultivation of the  mind.  Not  that the
brain, as a general fact, is absolutely exercised 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.       139

too much,—but proportionably too much.  Or,
in other words, the body is not exercised  in
due  proportion to  the exercise of the brain.
Hence there is too much blood detained in the
vessels  of  the brain, and they  become over-
distended,  and relaxed, and  debilitated; and
the brain is oppressed, over-heated, weakened,
and  rendered too  excitable;—and, the whole
nervous system partaking of its irritations, the
genital  organs are involved; and by this means
also,  a preternatural  sensibility,  excitability,
and  prurience, are increased in  these  organs;
and  they are brought into more  powerful sym-
pathies and reciprocities with  the  brain and
alimentary canal.
   5. Obscene conversation  or talk, and lewd
books,  and  lascivious  images, and  corrupt
companions,  complete  the  catalogue  of  the
principal agents in this work of mischief.
   To  prevent the immense evils of self-pollu-
tion, therefore, in  our  boys and students,  all
these causes must be carefully avoided.  They
should  always subsist on a plain, simple, un-
stimulating,  vegetable and water  diet; and 
140       LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.
care should be taken that they do not  eat too
fast, and are not excessive in quantity.   They
should never  be kept too long a  time in a
sitting, confined, or inactive posture.   They
should never sleep  on feathers.  They should
rise early—bathe the head  and  neck freely,
and the  whole  body once a day—use much
friction over  the whole surface—and exercise
actively  and  vigorously, from  two  to  four
hours daily.   Let them  take considerable ex-
ercise  between  their third or last  meal, and
bed time.  Great care should be taken to pre-
vent their acquaintance with lewd books and
pictures, and their familiarity with  obscene
talk and impure companions.
   But as the utmost vigilance  may, and will
often be eluded, it is of the highest importance,
 that proper information concerning the odious-
 ness of the vice of self-pollution, and the ter-
 rible  consequences of it, should be  given  to
 them, as early  as they can be made to under-
 stand and  feel the nature and  criminality of
 the offence;—or at least, as soon as there is
 the slightest reason to  suspect that they have, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        141

in any degree, become acquainted with the
abominable practice.   And, on this point, pa-
rents and  others should not have too much
confidence in  the  purity of their sons,  and
boys under their care.
   A fond father once consulted me concerning
the health of his son.   I hinted my suspicions
of this  practice.   The father started  with
astonishment, and  exclaimed—" No,  sir ! my
son is as pure as an infant! "   But  when  I
saw the  boy alone,  and questioned him, he
confessed  that he  frequently indulged in the
unclean and ruinous vice.
   This is by no means a solitary case.  I have
met with many instances of the kind; and
have had boys brought to me, under  fourteen
years of age, shockingly affected by this habit;
 and who confessed that  they commenced the
 practice several years before.
   I must therefore repeat, that parents  have
 no  conception of the  extent of this vice, nor
 of  the  perniciousness of  its  effects.   It  is
 scarcely  possible  for  our  children  to  go  to
 school a  single day, or spend an hour or two 
 142       LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

 at play with their  little companions, without
 returning to us  more  or less contaminated,
 from their intercourse with others.  I have no
 desire  to exaggerate  this evil, nor  to  excite
 unnecessary fears :  but it is time for' some one
 to speak out, and to speak loudly on this  sub-
ject.  Gladly would I have  been silent,  had
 there been some other person to discharge this
 duty:—but  who  else living has  been placed
 in a situation to see what I have seen,  and
hear what I have heard; and been led to trace
back so much of  human sufferings to  this
early vice, as the first and principal  source of
all ? To whom else, have such heart-stirring
appeals been made on this subject?  "Oh, as
you  hope for mercy, shoio me, show others,  a
way of escape from  this evil, and you will be
happy in the consciousness that you have saved
at least  one of your fellow  creatures from de-
struction!  This is  my only chance for escape;
do, do for humanity''s sake, teach me the icay."
  Language such as this has  come to me from
many an unfortunate sufferer;  and shall  I
turn a deaf ear to it ?—shall I close my heart 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        143

against every touch of sympathy, in  the  cold
and  selfish policy of avoiding the misrepre-
sentations  and obloquies of the ignorant, the
prejudiced, the bigoted,  the  corrupt and the
malicious ?—No :  painful—deeply  painful as
the censures and  revilings of my fellow crea-
tures are to me, still my sympathies for suffer-
ing humanity  are  paramount, and  I  will dis-
charge my duty:  and if I can be  the means
of arresting the progress of one of  the most
extensive and  calamitous evils that afflict the
human family, I can well afford  to bear even
the persecutions of a single generation ; know-
ing that the time  will come, when truth shall
be triumphant, and when not only my actions,
but my motives, will be correctly estimated.
  By all that is dear to a father's heart, then—
by all  that is sacred in  the relations between
the parent and the child—by all that is con-
nected  with  the  present  and future health,
happiness  and prosperity  of his  children;  I'
solemnly conjure every father to look seriously
to this matter—to  watch over  his  offspring
with jealous  solicitude, and  seize the earliest 
144        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

opportunity to secure the young mind in vir-
tue; and  be  yet earlier  in  preventing  every
means by which the  tender and susceptible
body is contaminated,  and  the  appetites de-
praved.
  This world has  its  fashions  in all things;
and  popular feelings  are  ever ready  to be
enlisted in some new enterprise, which wears
the aspect of ostensible righteousness, without
the  cross of  individual  self-denial.   These
moral paroxysms rise and subside, like a fever
in a diseased body; and generally result in
equal exhaustion and prostration, without ac-
complishing any permanent good in their pro-
gress.
  The popular  excitement  that now exten-
sively exists,  and is becoming more extensive,
on the subject of Moral Reform, will prove an
entire waste of moral energy, if not something
worse, unless the excited attention is directed,
and  the  diligent hand  is applied  to  the  true
means of preventing the morbid concupiscence
of youth.   The hopes of heaven—the  fears
of hell—and  all the  terrible   calamities of 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.       145

earth, are insufficient  to  deter  from the  ex-
cesses  of sensuality,  those  who,  from their
birth, have  been regularly  educated  in  the
depravity of their appetites and susceptibilities,
till there has been accumulated  upon them an
excitability and an  influence of desire, which
constitute a  moral  necessity, impelling them
along  the  course of  voluntary  destruction.
The only hope of the world,  under God, is in
the correct training of children and youth.
   The plan  of early education, in the form of
infant  and Sunday  schools,  has  also been  a
fashion of the  times; and popular excitement
has run  before discretion, in  the management
of  this  enterprise—till a re-action is already
beginning to  take place, under the imposing
type of  Phrenology; and we are threatened
with all the horrors of an over-exercised brain,
and cerebral irritation, and nervous  derange-
ment,  &c. &c,  if  we  do not abandon  our
attempts at early education, and turn our chil-
dren loose, to develope their bodies like calves
and colts.—(See Note N.)
           10 
146        LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.

   In all these projects, there is generally suffi-
cient truth to give them,  at  least, a temporary
plausibility;   and sufficient error to  render
them  seriously  objectionable.   Certain it  is,
that  irritations of the brain, resulting in the
most  serious  consequences,  may  easily  be
caused in childhood;  but they may also,  as a
general rule, be easily avoided, without aban-
doning any proper measures for early educa-
tion.   If we early commence a systematic
training of children's minds, we must, at the
same time, commence a  systematic training of
their bodies;  or we shall  be very  likely to
injure  both, and effect more evil than good, to
our offspring and our race.
   By  properly  observing the  precautionary
measures,  however, in .regard to diet and gen-
eral regimen, which I have now recommended,
comparatively little need be feared, either from
self-pollution, dyspepsia, or from  over-exercis-
ing the brain.  Our youth will then go through
their studies or apprenticeships, with success,
and  come out  into active  and virtuous  life, 
           LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.       147

with healthful  and vigorous bodies, and ener-
getic minds—qualified for usefulness and en-
joyment in the several stations and vocations
of society; and our race will be saved  from
innumerable  sufferings  and  calamities,  and
greatly improved in all their physical, intellec-
tual and moral faculties. 
 
NOTES TO  THE  LECTURE.
                  NOTE  A.

  " If we will train our offspring into the early and free use of
flesh-meat, &c."—Page 55.

  The importance of a correct physical  education,
in order to  secure sexual chastity in youth, is in-
comparably greater than parents generally are aware
of.  The following statement is but an exemplifica-
tion of what is  too generally true, even in christian
families:
  About eighteen years ago, I visited a  family of
considerable distinction  for their wealth, refinement
and piety.   The lady seemed  to me to  be a  very
paragon of  christian propriety in almost  every re-
spect, and  especially as a mother.   She  had three
small children, the eldest being about five years old,
and the youngest three months.  She was unremit-,
ting in her  maternal care and efforts, to  imbue the
young minds  of her children  with sentiments  of
virtue and  piety.  She daily prayed with her  chil-
dren, and taught them to pray as soon as their lisp- 
150
NOTES  TO THE
ing lips could utter  articulate sounds.  Her eldest
was  a daughter.   Long before this child could
speak with sufficient distinctness to be understood
by any but the  mother, 'she  was taught to repeat,
morning  and evening, and on  various  other  occa-
sions, little prayers and hymns, adapted to her age.
As she grew older, she was successively introduced
into religious Infant  and  Sunday schools and Bible
classes.    In  short, all  that  a pious and  devoted
mother and  pious  teachers  could  do,  by  way  of
religious  instruction, was done, to  train her up  in
the nurture and admonition of the  Lord.  I was
charmed  with  the  character and  conduct of the
mother, and named her with admiration, whenever
I had occasion  to speak of maternal duties.   She
pursued the same course with all her children ; and
to protect  them from  the  contaminating  influence of
other children,  she employed private teachers, who
cooperated with  her in  all  her pious  plans and
measures; and great  confidence  was  entertained
that the happiest results  would be experienced from
such a system of education.
   Two years since, I visited the same family again,
and remained with them  several weeks.  But most
sadly was I  disappointed  in the character of  the
children.   I  found them irritable,  passionate, con-
tentious, and quarrelsome with  each  other, and ex-
ceedingly undutiful and  disrespectful towards their
parents.   They manifested little regard for religion
and  religious institutions, and seemed to feel  ex- 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         151
ceedingly impatient under parental  and  religious
restraint.   The  eldest daughter was  peculiarly un-
happy in  her temper  and disposition.  Scarcely a
day passed when she did not get into a violent pas-
sion  with her mother, or some other member of the
family ; and her extreme peevishness and jealousy
made her almost continually wretched, in her own
breast.   But what  surprised me most was her ex-
cessive  lasciviousness.   Wantonness  manifested it-
self  in  all  her  conduct, when in  the company of
males ;  and I ascertained that when she  was alone
with  a  gentleman,  she  would  not only freely allow
him  to take any liberties with her, without the least
restraint, but would even court  his dalliance by her
lascivious conduct.   Being consulted  in regard to
her  healthr I found that she  was addicted to the
practice  of self-pollution,  and had greatly injured
herself by it.   And I  was utterly asto'nished that,
when I came to remonstrate  with her  concerning
her  lascivious   conduct, I  found it   impossible to
awaken  any moral  sensibility.  In vain I appealed
to her religious  feelings—she declared that she had
no remorse, no compunction on the subject.
   On further inquiry, I found that  this  lascivious-
ness  was not confined  to  the oldest child: all the
children were more or less spiced with it, according
to their age.
   Here, then, would seem to be a  case  in  which
the very best efforts of a pious mother had entirely
failed of their  object; but a  further examination 
152
NOTES TO THE
will show a radical defect in the education of these
children, which had completely nullified every good
measure.   This mother,  with  all her maternal  af-
fection,  and  piety, and  faithfulness, wholly disre-
garded  the relations  between  the bodies and  the
souls  of her  children—between their dietetic habits
and  their  moral  character.  She truly "made the
table  a  snare to  them; " and  they literally " fared
sumptuously  every day."  Indeed, she  prided her-
self on  setting the best table in town.   Highly sea-
soned flesliTmeat,  rich pastry, and every other kind
of rich  and savory food,  and condiments  in abun-
dance, together with strong coffee and tea, and per-
haps occasionally a glass of wine, were set  before
these children for  their  ordinary  fare.   The result
was just what was reasonably to be expected; and
sorrow and tears were the reward  of  the afflicted
mother.   Alas ! how many parents thus  unwittingly
afflict themselves, and become active  agents in the
destruction of their children.

   The  following deeply interesting portion  of his-
tory,  abridged from the  Harpers'  Family Library,
strikingly contrasts with the foregoing account, and
beautifully illustrates the effect of a simple and cor-
rect regimen on the physical and moral  character of
youth:
   Nearly  fifty years ago, a mutiny took  place  on
board the  British  ship Bounty.   The captain, with
a number of  his men,  was set adrift in a small boat, 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG  MEN.         153
and the mutineers proceeded with the ship to Ota-
heite, where  they remained a short time,  and then
a part of them, having selected them wives from the
native females, and taken  several native males with
their wives, with them on board the Bounty, they
put off to  sea in search of a more  secure  retreat,
and finally settled upon Pitcairn's Island, in the Pa-
cific.   Here jealousies arose  between the white and
native males, which resulted in the  death  of all the
males  of both colors, except one of the  mutineers,
who afterwards  took  the name of  John  Adams.
The mutineers were not  cut off, however, till they
had become the fathers of  nineteen children.  These
children were carefully trained up by John  Adams,
in habits of industry, virtue and piety. From those
who visited  the  island  after  these  offspring  had
become of marriageable age, and  several of them
had  become  parents, we  learn that  the  women all
understood the art of midwifery.  Their births gen-
erally  took place during   the night  time, and the
duration of labor was seldom longer than  five hours,
and  had not yet in any case proved fatal.  There
was no instance  of twins, nor of a single miscarriage,
except by accident.  Infants  were generally bathed
three times a day in cold water, and were sometimes
not weaned for three  or four years ; and when that
did take place,  they were fed  upon  food  made of
ripe plaintains and boiled taro root,  rubbed into a
paste.   The surgeon of one of the ships that visited
that island, remarked  that nothing  was more  ex- 
154
NOTES  TO THE
traordinary in the history of the island, than the
uniform good health of the children.   The teething,
says he, is easily got  over ; they have no bowel
complaints, and  are  exempt  from those  contagious
diseases which affect children in large communities.
Before marriage, the young  females  assisted pld
Adams  and their brothers in the cultivation of the
land, by which means  they had much invigorating
exercise in the open air.   Their dress was simple—
of their own manufacture from the paper mulberry
tree—and so fitted as to admit of a free circulation
of air over the  whole  surface  of the body.   The
men and boys, except on Sunday, when they appear
in English dresses,  generally wear only the mara,
or waist-cloth, which, passing, over the hips and be-
tween the legs, is knotted behind.  The climate is,
in fact, too hot for cumbersome clothing.   The wo-
men,  when working, use only a petticoat with a
jacket.  Their  beds  were mattresses composed  of
palm leaves, and  covered with native cloth, made of
the paper  mulberry tree.  Yams  constitute  their
principal food, either boiled, baked, or  mixed with
cocoa-nut, made into  cakes, and eaten  with  molasses
extracted from  the  tee root.   Taro root is no bad
substitute  for bread; and bananas, plantains  and
appoi  are  wholesome and nutritious  fruits.  They
but seldom kill a pig, living  mostly on fruit and
vegetables.  With this simple diet, early rising, and
taking a great deal of exercise, they are subject  to
few diseases;  and Capt.  Beechy says they are cer- 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        155
tainly a finer and more athletic race than is usually
found among the families of mankind.
  The young men born on the island were  finely
formed, tall, robust, athletic, healthy, and handsome—
their  countenances open  and  pleasing,  indicating
much benevolence and goodness of heart; but the
young women particularly were objects of attraction,
being  tall,  robust, and  beautifully  formed—their
faces beaming with smiles, and indicating unruffled
good humor.  Their  simple food, and early  habits
of exercise, gave them a muscular power and activity
not often surpassed.   Their  agility  and strength
were  so  great, that  the  stoutest and  most  expert
English sailors were no match for them in wrestling
and  boxing.   It is  recorded  on the island that
George  Young and  Edward  Quintal have, each,
carried at  one time  a  kedge  anchor, two   sledge
hammers, and an armorer's anvil, weighing together
upwards  of 600 lbs.;  and that Quintal once carried
a boat 2S feet in length.
  The females  were almost  as muscular as  the
males, and taller than the  generality of the sex.   A
young girl, says Capt. Pipon, accompanied  us  to
the boat, carrying  on  her shoulders, as a present, a
large basket  of yams,  over such roads, and  down
such precipices,  as were  scarcely passable by any
creatures  except  goats,  and  over which we  could
scarcely scramble with the help of our hands;  yet
with this load on  her shoulders, she skipped from
rock to rock like a young roe. 
156              NOTES TO  THE
  The manners and  demeanor of these young peo-
ple  exhibited a degree of modesty and bashfulness
that would have done  honor to  the most virtuous
and enlightened people on earth.   Adams assured
his  visitors that not  one  instance of debauchery or
immoral conduct had occurred among these young
people, since their settlement on the island; nor did
he ever hear or believe  that any one instance had
occurred, of a young woman's having suffered inde-
cent liberties to be taken with her.  Their  simple
habits  of living, and their native modesty, assisted
by the precepts of religion and  morality, instilled
into their young minds by John Adams, had hitherto
preserved these interesting people  from  every kind
of debauchery.
  The innocence and simplicity of these interesting
young creatures are  strongly exemplified in the fol-
lowing description :—" By our bed-side had already
been  placed some ripe fruits, and our hats  were
crowned with chaplets of the fresh blossoms of the
nono, or flower tree, which the women had gathered
in the  freshness of the morning  dew.   On looking
round  the  apartment,  though  it contained several
beds,  we  found no  partition,  curtain  or screens:
they had not yet been considered necessary.  So far
indeed from concealment being thought  of,  when
we  were  about to get up,  the women, anxious to
show their  attention, assembled  to  wish us  good
morning,  and  to inquire in what  way they could
best contribute to our comfort,  and to present us 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         157
with some little gift which the produce of the island
afforded."
  As a proof how very much simple diet and con-
stant exercise tend to the healthful state of the body,
the skin of these  people,  though  in  such robust
health, compared  with that of the Europeans, al-
ways felt cold, and their pulse always  considerably
lower.  The doctor examined several of them.  In
the forenoon, he  found George Young's only sixty:
three  others in the  afternoon, after  dinner,  were
sixty-eight,  seventy-two,  seventy-six;  while  those
of the officers, who stood the heat of the climate
best, were above eighty.
   Their teeth are  described  as  beautifully  white,
like the finest ivory, and perfectly regular, without
a single exception ;  and of such great strength, that
they would tear  off the  husks of  cocoa-nuts with
them, with the utmost ease and safety.
   Capt.  Pipon thinks that from such a race of peo-
ple, consisting of  fine  young men, and  handsome,
well-formed women, there may be expected to arise
hereafter, in this little  colony, a race of people pos-
sessing, in a high degree, the physical  qualifications
of great strength united with symmetry of form and
regularity of features.

   In illustration of  the same important truth, I will
add a single statement more, which must be highly
interesting  to  every considerate  and  conscientious
parent and philanthropist. 
158
NOTES  TO THE
   G. P., Esq., a highly respectable member of the
 bar, having  attended  a course  of my lectures,  to-
 gether with  the preceding lecture to young men,
 about six or  eight months afterwards, gave  me the
 following very interesting statement:
   "I have two  little sons, the one about four years
 old, the  other about two.  We  very early began to
 accustom them to the use of animal  food, and they
 soon became  exceedingly fond of it,  and seemed to
 care little about anything else, if they could get as
 much  flesh  as  they desired.   Not  considering it
 objectionable aliment for  children, their mother and
 myself were  disposed to indulge them pretty freely.
 The health of the elder boy began to be quite delicate,
 and I  was continually filled with anxiety for  his
 life : and indeed, both  of them were subject to very
 frequent  turns of indisposition.  It has always been
 our custom to put  our children to  bed two or three
 hours before  we retired,  and when  we retired, to
 take them up and let them urinate, to prevent their
 wetting their  bed.   And it was a matter of remark
 and surprise  with us, that when  we  took  them up
 for this  purpose, we invariably found  indications
 of lasciviousness.   Another  fact was equally  sur-
prising to us :—our younger child was  very fond
 of being  held in lap, and fondled, and played with
by his  parents and others with whom he was well
acquainted.   When  in  his mother's  lap, the little
fellow manifested an ardor in hugging and kissing
her, which had all the  appearance of real wanton- 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         159
ness.   Indeed, this was often carried so far as actu-
ally to embarrass  her, when others were present.
The same  was almost  invariably  true  when  he
was caressing other females; but when he was in
my lap, and hugging or caressing me, or  any other
gentleman, there were  no such indications.
   " Now,  sir,  the  most interesting part  of my
story  is  this :—Soon  after I  heard your lectures,
I put my  boys  on  a  simple vegetable  diet,  and
have  kept  them strictly upon it  ever since.  The
result is  that the health of my elder son  has much
improved, and they  both  of them now uninterrupt-
edly enjoy  the most  uniform, excellent health; and
when wc take them up nights to urinate, we never
find any of the appearances just described.  Our
younger son is still  fond  of being in his mother's
lap and caressing  her,  but  his  lascivious manner,
on  such occasions, has  entirely  disappeared ; and
we are now perfectly convinced, not only that their
former wantonness was caused by their  free use of
flesh-meat, but that  their general health  was very
injuriously affected by the same cause."

   Many cases of this kind have  since  come to my
knowledge. 
160
NOTES  TO THE
                   NOTE  B.

      " Many of the most terrible plagues," &c.—Page 58.

   During  the   awful  ravages  of  the   celebrated
Plague of Athens, while thousands  were perishing
daily,  and the   very streets were choked with the
bodies of the dead, as if the irresistible energy of
destruction  were let  loose to desolate the city, the
citizens became so shockingly hardened and so bru-
tally sensual, that they  were wholly engrossed in
the idea of present  indulgence, and amidst  the
dying and the dead, yielded  themselves to the most
unbounded licentiousness, and were  hourly precipi-
tated from these filthy embraces  to the grave.
   " When the plague  was doing its terrible work of
death in Messina, in 1743, even those who recov-
ered, gave themselves up to such atrocious lewdness
that—horrid to  be told!—they violated the bodies of
young females who had died  of the plague.
   " While  the  plague was raging  at Genoa, five
marriages took  place in one day, in a  Lazaretto;
four  of  the  bridegrooms  and  their brides,  being
dressed in  clothes stripped from the  bodies of those
who had died of the plague."
   Such is the horrid depth to which human  nature
can be sunk, by excessive sensuality, resulting from
the extreme  depravity of those  instincts  which,  in
the original constitution of man,  were implanted by
a wise and benevolent Creator, for the well being of
the indiyidual and the race. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        161
                   NOTE  C.

  " The too common evils which are caused by sexual excesses
between husband and wife."—Page 69.

   The evils arising from excesses between man and
wife, are very far greater  than is apprehended by
even  those  who suffer them.   It is no uncommon
thing for a young couple to enter into wedlock in
good  health, and in due time to be blessed with one
and  perhaps two  or  three  healthy and  vigorous
children; and afterwards they will have, in succes-
sion,  two,  three, four or five  feeble and  puny off-
spring, which will either be still-born or survive their
birth but a  few months,  or at longest, but two or
three  years; and  very probably  during this   time
there  will  be several early abortions ; and all the
while  the  unfortunate wife will  be afflicted   with
great  debility  and  extensive  functional  derange-
ment, and  almost constantly suffer those numerous
and  distressing pains and ailments  which result
from  sexual  excesses.  Very frequently,  also,  the
husband  becomes severely afflicted with distressing
consequences.   Besides those  named  in  the   text,
(p. 69) debility, inflammation,  swelling and excru-
ciating pain of  the  spermatic  cords, and also of the
testicles,  resulting,  perhaps,  in  the  necessity for
castration,  and  sometimes in death, are  often  the
fruits  of  connubial  intemperance.—(See Note D.)
             11 
102
NOTES TO  THE
                   NOTE  D.

  '•' This propensity is  more or less powerful and imperious, ac-
cording as their dietetic and other habits are more or less correct."
—Page 70.

   There  are two  errors of opinion on this particu-
lar point,  entertained  even Tjy  professional  men,
which  are founded in  very superficial and limited
investigation.
   The first is, that Phrenology being true, no  gen-
eral rule can be laid down in regard to frequence of
commerce, because the cerebellum, or the organ of
amativeness, is so much more largely developed in
some  men  than   in  others, and consequently the
propensity and the power are much  greater in some
than in others.   But allowing all this to be true, it
does not militate in the  least against the physiologi-
cal doctrine I have advanced in the text.   Because
no degree of venereal propensity and power, arising
from the size and  activity of the,  organ of amative-
ness, can counteract the physiological and  pathologi-
cal eifects of too frequent venereal excitement.   An
enlightened phrenologist would  hardly assert  that,
because a man is largely developed  in those organs
which  strongly incline him to the passion of anger,
therefore  he can  indulge in violent  paroxysms of
anger, with less physiological disturbance than other
men, of different phrenological development. 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         163
  Physiological science  teaches  us, that if Phre-
nology be true  in regard to this matter, then instead
of encouraging those  who have large  organs  of
amativeness, to indulge more  frequently  in venereal
passion,  we  ought rather, if possible, to  ascertain
and rigorously  pursue those plans of physical, men-
tal and moral education, by which the organization,
the propensities and the  habits of man, shall  be
brought into  strict accordance with the  constitutional
purposes of  his sexual  faculties.  For it is entirely
certain that  no degree of development and  energy
of the organ of amativeness will prevent the perni-
cious effects  of too frequent sexual indulgence.
  The following case is by no means a solitary one.
Six  or  eight months  since, Mr. S.,  a  respectable
mechanic,  came to  me  for  advice  concerning his
health.   He  was  a  large well-formed man, with a
very large cerebellum.  " I married,"  said he, " seven
years ago,  at the age of  twenty-six.  At the  time of
my marriage,  as  before, I was  very  vigorous and
athletic.   My habits were  active, and my employ-
ment in the open air.  My sexual propensity and
power were  exceedingly great, and  my  indulgence,
as I now learn, was  excessively intemperate.   Dur-
ing  the  first four years of my connubial life, my
health remained tolerably good,  but was gradually
impaired.  At  the age of thirty-one, I began to be
affected with pain in the spermatic cords, extending
to the thighs  and also over the loins; pains in the neck 
164              NOTES TO  THE
of the bladder and in the kidneys, attended with exces-
sive discharges of urine; and severe contractions alter-
nating with great relaxation of the  spermatic cords.
I soon became excessively nervous, and suffered in-
describably.  I put myself under medical prescrip-
tion, but without benefit.  My symptoms continually
became worse and worse; and I was in a short time
so emaciated and  so  feeble, that I  was obliged to
keep my bed.  I then put myself upon a diet of coarse
wheaten crackers  and water, and  in the  course of
six weeks was able to leave home and to journey.
I found  that animal food  aggravated all my symp-
toms, and therefore I continued, during my absence
from home,  to live strictly on vegetable food, and  in
six months I gained sixty-four pounds in weight.*
  " My first two children are living and healthy, and
appear to possess a good constitution.  Since these,
we  have had five puny children, all of which are
dead.  Of  these  five, four were twins.  One pair
of the twins were  still-born, and the other  pair died
soon  after birth.   My wife for the  last four  or five
years has been continually feeble  and sickly, and
suffered a great deal."
  The second  error of  opinion to  which  I  have
alluded, in the  commencement of this note, is, that
  * Abstinence from sexual indulgence was a very important, if
not the principal cause of this great increase of weight and general
improvement of health. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         165
ftn exclusively vegetable and  water diet, serves in
effect to emasculate  man, or to take away his pro-
creating  power.  This  whimsical notion was  very
confidently advanced by Buffon, and has since  been
frequently repeated by professional men.  But  it is
truly surprising  that any man of ordinary intelli-
gence  and observation, should fall into so great  an
error in  the very face  of  the most notorious  and
unquestionable facts.  Every person who is at all
acquainted with the  history of mankind, well knows
that in all  ages and sections of the world, those
portions  of the  human race which have  subsisted
most exclusively on a pure vegetable diet, have  been
the most prolific,  while  the contrary is true  of those
tribes  which  have  subsisted  most exclusively  on
flesh-meat.  The  Patagonians, with a climate  and
almost every other condition  and circumstance ex-
ceedingly favorable  to human life, and health, and
prolificness, are  very few in number,  and have
evidently been  suffering a  gradual deterioration of
body and diminution of numbers ever since this conti-
nent was first discovered, and there is no assignable
cause for this but their exclusively flesh diet.
  The truth of the  matter is  simply this—a  pure
and  well regulated  vegetable  diet, serves  to  take
away or prevent all morbid  or  preternatural sexual
lust, and  to  bring and keep the instinct more in a
truly natural state, and in strict accordance with the
final cause of man's  sexual organization, and  thus 
166
NOTES TO THE
enable him to be chaste in body and in spirit; but
at the same time, such a diet sustains the propagat-
ing power to a much  greater age than  a  flesh diet
or even a mixed one can.
                   NOTE  E.

  " It were better for you-not to exceed, in the frequency of your
indulgences," &c.—Page 73.

  This paragraph concerning the frequency of con-
nubial commerce  has,  I find, given more offence
than all  the  rest of the lecture.   But it is marvel-
lous that rational creatures  will act so irrationally.
Every one ought  to  know, that  I do not set myself
up as an  arbitrary dictator or lawgiver in this matter.
I do not speak as I do, because I wish to have it so;
but because, as a  physiologist and as a philanthro-
pist, I cannot honestly speak otherwise.  From the
most careful and thorough investigation of  the mat-
ter, I am fully convinced  that it  is  the truth;  and
the only  question  remaining to be settled, is this—
shall I speak the truth for the good of mankind, and
thereby most certainly incur their  displeasure ; or
shall I withhold it from purely selfish considerations,
and thereby consent to the injuries  and sufferings 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        167
which my fellow  creatures are ignorantly bringing
upon  themselves  and their  progeny, through de-
praved sensuality.
   When  about to publish the first edition of the
foregoing lecture,  I  fully anticipated the effect that
the paragraph in question would have on the public,
and  correctly  appreciated the hostility it would
excite.  Yet, in the face of all  this, and against
the most powerful reluctances of my nature, a purely
conscientious principle of duty  constrained me  to
speak the  truth, and  leave  the  consequences  in
regard  to myself, with  God and  with the  truly
chaste  and  virtuous of  mankind.   And  now,  in
presenting the  second edition to the public, the same
principle  and the same  considerations induce me to
continue the same line of conduct.
   The  following  extract  from  Jeremy  Taylor's
" Holy Living,"  will  show that this  subject has
occupied  the attention of that eminently pious and
holy  man, and that  he  maintained the same views
that I have advanced in regard to connubial chastity.
    " Chastity is that duty  which was mystically
intended  by God in  the law  of circumcision.  It is
the circumcision of the heart, the cutting off all su-
perfluity  of naughtiness, and a  suppression  of  all
irregular desires in the matter of a sensual  or carnal
pleasure.   I call all  desires irregular and sinful that
are not sanctified—1. By the holy  institution, or by
being within the protection  of marriage ; 2. By be- 
168
NOTES TO  THE
ing within the order of nature; 3. By being within
the moderation of christian modesty.  Against  the
first are  fornication, adultery, and all voluntary pol-
lutions of  either sex.   Against  the  second are all
unnatural lusts  and incestuous mixtures.  Against
the third is all immoderate use of permitted beds.
  "Chastity is that grace which forbids and restrains
all  these,  keeping the body and soul pure in that
state in which it is  placed  by God, whether of  the
single  or of the  married life.    Chastity  is either
abstinence or continence ;—abstinence  in  the  un-
married, and continence of the married permissions.
  " Concerning  married  persons,  these  particulars
are useful to  be  observed :
  " In their  permissions  and license, they must be
sure to observe the order  of nature  and the ends of
God.   He is  an ill  husband,  that uses his wife as  a
man treats a harlot, having no  other end but plea-
sure.   Concerning which our  best rule is, that, al-
though in this, as in eating and  drinking, there is an
appetite to be satisfied, which cannot be  done with-
out pleasing that  desire, yet, since that desire  and
satisfaction were intended by nature  for other ends,
they should never be separated  from those ends,  but
always be joined with  one or all of these ends—with
a desire of children, or to avoid fornication and  las-
civious feelings, and thoughts, and  temptations,  but
never with a  purpose, either in act or desire, to sepa~
rate the sensuality from those ends which hallow it. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         169
It is a duty of matrimonial chastity, to be restrained
and temperate in the use of lawful pleasures, con-
cerning which, although no universal rule can ante-
cedently be  given  to all persons,  any more  than
to  all bodies  one portion of meat  and drink;  yet
married persons are to estimate  the degree  of their
license  according to  the following proportions:—
1.  That it be moderate, so as to consist with health;
2.  That it be so ordered as  not to be too expensive
of time ;  3. That when duty is demanded, it be al-
ways paid, (so far  as is in our power  and election,)
according to the  foregoing measures; 4. That it be
with  a  temperate affection,  without violent, trans-
porting desires, or too  sensual  applications ;  always
remembering  that  marriage is  a  provision for the
supply of the natural necessities of the body, not for
the artificial and procured appetites of the mind.   It
is a sad truth that  many married persons, thinking
that the  flood-gates  of liberty are set wide open,
without measure or  restraint, (so  they all  sail in
that channel,) have felt  the  final  rewards of intem-
perance and lust, by their unlawful usings of lawful
permissions.   Only let each of them be  temperate,
and both of them be modest." 
170
NOTES TO  THE
                    NOTE F.

 " The frequency of involuntary nocturnal emissions," &c.—Page 76.

   Many writers on this subject, and  some of them
 very eminent as  professional  and  scientific men,
 have advanced the idea, that involuntary emissions
 in  sleep  are nature's means  of relieving  herself
 from an exciting  and perhaps  irritating secretion ;
 and therefore,  that  such   emissions  are not  only
 compatible  with, but decidedly favorable to health.
 But this  opinion  is  entirely erroneous" in principle
 and in fact, and  pernicious in effect.  Strictly speak-
 ing, the secreted semen is never the absolute excit-
 ing cause of involuntary emissions ; and such emis-
 sions are  never nature's normal  or  healthy means
 of relieving herself from  this  secretion.  All  who
 presume to  teach on this subject, ought to know that
 females as frequently experience involuntary venereal
 paroxysms in sleep as males'do ; and  they certainly
 have no such secretion to excite them.  It has been
 truly observed, that man is the only animal  that is
 ever subject to involuntary emissions  of this kind.
 But this fact, instead of being correctly used, has
been egregiously  perverted.  Instead of reasoning
from it accurately, that man, in a truly natural and
healthy state, would never  experience  such emis-
sions, some have preposterously inferred  from it, that 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        171
man is peculiarly privileged in regard  to venereal
pleasures;  and that therefore he is peculiarly consti-
tuted in regard to this means  of relief, when nature
is oppressed by too protracted an abstinence.  Thus,
beings endowed with  rational  faculties, through the
depravity of  their animal instincts, and the excesses
of their  sensuality,  so distort the evidences of na-
ture, and blind  their understandings, that they ren-
der  themselves  the  most irrational creatures on
earth,  and bring upon themselves  calamities and
sufferings which no other animals experience.
  The  plain  truth of the matter is this:—An indi-
vidual  in  what  is  ordinarily called good  general
health may, sometimes, on  account of some disturb-
ing cause  in  the alimentary  canal, some  particular
position in which he  lies, or  some other  cause, ex-
perience an  involuntary venereal paroxysm in his
sleep,  without  any very  serious injury  to health,
and without  justifying the conclusion that any of
his organs are in an actual  state of disease.  Yet
even in these cases,  the individual ought always to
consider the  fact of so abnormal or irregular a char-
acter,  and so pernicious a tendency, as to require
that he should, if  possible,  ascertain and  avoid  a
recurrence  of the  cause, and a repetition  of the
effect.   But  as a general fact, when  the involuntary
venereal paroxysms are frequent, it is  entirely cer-
tain that the sexual organs are in a state of debility
and preternatural  irritability, inseparable  from that
o-eneral condition of the nervous system which is 
172
NOTES TO THE
 wholly inconsistent with the physiological  welfare
 of the body.  It alivays clearly evinces that  there is
 more or less of an unhealthy debility and irritability
 in the sexual organs, and a preternatural sympathy
 between them and the  alimentary  canal  and  the
 brain.  So that  irritations in  either of these parts
 serve to induce that train of  physiological and men-
 tal exercises which result in the involuntary vene-
 real paroxysm.   More generally, however,  disturb-
 ing causes in the alimentary organs  are the sources
 of these paroxysms.   At any  rate, they are always
 an abnormal  or  irregular and injurious  result, and
 afford no evidence that nature  required an emission
 of semen ;  nor  the least evidence that  any  semen
 was secreted when the individual  retired  to rest.
 In all cases, then, such involuntary emissions should
 be considered as an evil; and  due care should be
 taken to avoid them, by correct habits in every re-
 spect.
   I  have,   much against my  inclination,   entered
 thus  fully  into this discussion, because I find the
 contrary opinion, though  obviously erroneous, is as-
 serted in numerous professional  and other works,
which are beginning to find  their way into  society,
 and to attract the attention of the young. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         173
                   NOTE  G.

  '•' The early forming of the habit of self-pollution is one of the
most alarming evils in our land."—Page 85.

  As many good people have thought that my state-
ment in the text, in  regard to the extent of this  evil
practice  among  the  youth of our country,  is  an
unwarrantable and  slanderous exaggeration, I am
glad to be  able to present them, in this  edition, the
following  testimony  of  Rev.  Mr.  Wells,  and  also
that of Mr. Woodbridge and Dr. Woodward, on the
first and second pages of this volume.   From these
testimonies, it  will  be seen that those who are best
informed on  the subject, do not think 1 have exag-
gerated,  if indeed I have  gone as far as the truth
would justify.

                     School for Moral Discipline,
                          Bostoh, Jan. 16, 1837.
   Dear Sir :—As I have never read the Lecture to
 Young Men, I  cannot express an  opinion concern-
ing it.   But on the subject on which you ask my
opinion, I have not, as your  note supposes, "any
feelings  of reluctance to overcome," in order to ex-
press my opinion or offer instruction.
   First—You ask my " opinion as to the prevalence
of the practice," &c.   From an intimate  acquaint-
ance with about seven  hundred boys  for the  past 
174
NOTES TO  THE
 nine years—from the recollections of a pretty exten-
 sive acquaintance in boyhood, and from information
 derived from  gentlemen of the highest  distinction
 and most eminent  success  in the great subject, not
 of learning  only,  but of education,  in  my  own
 country, and  from several  nations of Europe, I am
 fully convinced that  the practice  of  the  self-gratifi-
 cation of the sexual desires is more common  than
 any other  indulgence which  we  consider at all
 wrong.  There are  fewer  exceptions to the univer-
 sality of the practice than  there are  to most general
 rules.   I think, also, the practice  is full as common,
 more excessive and more injurious, in those who do
 not labor, and  who live easily and luxuriantly,  than
 in those of opposite habits of life.  This,  I suppose,
 is caused  by  their food  being too stimulating for
 their exercise.  Besides,  the hardy mode of living
 and labor of the opposite  classes of society, keeps
 their desires  in a more natural  and healthful condi-
 tion.   Thus  the  easy and  luxuriant  are excited to
 an  excess  to  which  their  less  hardy  constitutions
 makes  them  the  more easy prey.   Many of our
 delicate  constitutions, consumptions, and our  low
 and  melancholy spirits, are to be  attributed to  this
 excess.   The laborious and* the poor have less of
 the desire, and are  better able to'bear the effects of
 its gratification.
  Second—"Preventing and restraining."  I can-
not enter upon this  topic, as it  would carry me be-
yond what  I could give time for, or you wish to be 
            LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         175

troubled with.  I will only say, that so far as I have
known the modes of treatment, in Europe  and in
America, both by instructors and physicians, I should
think it in some respects injurious, and in others, ill
calculated for success.   The cure of  the  habit must
be by moral means, and not by physical force.  The
passion,  though  a strong,  is  a very delicate one;
and severity, punishment, and  exciting shame and
guilt, makes the case worse in some instances, and
it injures in  all.   The treatment should be kind,
earnest,  sympathizing, ingenuous,  serious,  gentle
and familiar; not severe, cold or gloomy.
   Third—" Who are  calculated  to  instruct  to ad-
vantage?"   There must be feeling  and sympathy
in  the instructor;  and  if these  are not well  bal-
anced by a sense of the  great  evil to be cured, by
great  (not  false) delicacy,  benevolence, judgment,
and an earnest spirit, he will be in danger of erring.
Parents are the proper, the best (if they would be)
teachers.  Alas! that  they should, through false
delicacy, commit their sons  to  strangers  to  cure
what they could have prevented.   Why should they
be ashamed  to teach their dear children, morally and
philosophically,  that  beautiful  organization which
their Heavenly Father  has  established  as the man-
 ner by which they are to  receive those interesting
 objects of affection—children, by which to kindle in
 their  hearts the purest of the  human affections?
 But the false, the foolish, the sinful delicacy of our
 really indelicate  age,  keeps back the  parent  from 
176
NOTES TO THE
instructing the child in these important mysteries,
till, as his nature developes, he finds a powerful pas-
sion working within him, of which  he is ignorant;
and  if perchance, from a natural emotion, he mani-
fests, in any casual  way, the  existence of this pas-
sion, he is met with a frown, a coldness and severity
which ever after make him keep his  emotions  to
himself; and thus they become most powerful when
least  seen, like  hidden fires, till at last he  is  in-
structed in these passions  by those who teach but
to destroy.
           I am, very respectfully, your friend,
                                E. M. P. WELLS.
                   NOTE  H.

      " It is a secret and a solitary vice," &c.—Page 85.

   There is reason to believe that the ruinous prac-
tice  of  self-pollution prevails in our  state prisons,
penitentiaries, houses of correction, houses of refor-
mation, &c, to a very serious extent, causing a con-
siderable amount  of  disease and suffering, and de-
manding the earnest  attention of all who have the
care of these institutions.
   A gentleman who formerly had  the  care  of the
House of Reformation for boys  in one of our large 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG  MEN.        177
cities, and who became  highly distinguished for his
successful management of the institution, informs
me that he found  almost every boy committed to
his care, to be in the practice of this vice.
   The chaplain of one  of our state  prisons writes
thus, in a letter to a brother  clergyman, on the sub-
ject before us:—" Self-pollution,  I have  reason to
believe, is universal among prisoners.  One of them,
who has the means of forming a pretty correct judg-
ment in the matter, told me  he  had  no doubt  that
the prisoners  were as  regular in that practice as
they were in taking their suppers.  Some of them
greatly injure their health by the indulgence.   Not
long since, as I was passing the  cell  of one of the
prisoners, just  at twilight, he spoke  to me with a
low and tremulous voice  and downcast  look:  ' I
shan't live long,' said he ; ' don't you see how poor
I  am growing? my flesh has almost all gone  off
my bones.'  I observed that what he  said was true.
When I first  knew  him,  he  had a full and ruddy
cheek ;—now it was pale  and sunken.  I suspected
the cause,  and made  inquiries  accordingly.   He
confessed that he had  become a slave to that vice,
and feared  it  was doing him harm; but did not
dare to speak  to  the doctor  about it, and did not
know  that  he could avoid  it;—'for,'  said he 'I
seem to have no power  over myself.   I  awake from
my sleep, and find myself in the act.   Three times
a  night, for weeks in succession,  I have yielded to
            12 
178
NOTES  TO THE
it;  and frequently  without  being voluntary  in the
thing.'  He evinced clearly the  reciprocal influence
between the brain and genital organs.
  " There are several others in prison whom I know
to be  given  up  to a similar excess ; and without
exception, they all have that cadaverous look, blood-
less  lips,  impaired  memory, bodily weakness  and
pain, and those internal complaints,  of which  Mr.
G. speaks in his lecture.
  " I consider the polluted imagination, and sensual
feelings of the convicts, to be  among the greatest
obstacles to the prevalence of religious truth among
them.   Revenge  may die in the bosom—anger may
pass away—cupidity may take   its  flight—and the
thirst for intoxicating liquors no longer be felt by
men in prison; but the reciprocal  influence which
sensual feelings and lascivious  thoughts have upon
each other, and the  influence  which both have upon
the  man, often  grow stronger and stronger, even in
the  silence and solitude  of the cell." 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         179
                   NOTE I.

  " The remembrance of this early vice will return upon him, as if
the fountains of hell had broken up," &c.—Page 90.

  C.  N. commenced the  practice of self-pollution
very young; and before he was aware of its ruinous
effects,  he had nearly destroyed  his  constitution.
As soon as  his eyes were opened, however, to see
his error, and the danger of his situation, he aban-
doned the mischievous  practice with horror  and re-
morse.   By long perseverance  in  strictly virtuous
habits,  he regained  a  very good degree of  health
and enjoyment; but he  was  never  able so  com-
pletely  to overcome the effects of his former error,
as to give to his system that constitutional vigor and
power of endurance and resistance, which belong to
those who have never greatly violated the  laws of
their nature.  Soon  after he  came of age,  he  was
established in a prosperous and lucrative business ;
and at a suitable time, he became the husband  of a
very amiable and excellent wife, who, in about two
years after  their marriage, presented him with  a
lovely son.  He was truly an amiable,  intelligent,
prosperous and happy man—dearly beloved in his
family, and  highly esteemed by all who knew  him.
 In the flood-tide of his prosperity, he forgot the du-
 ties which he owed to  his own body.   A prodigious 
180
NOTES TO THE
pressure  of successful  business  so engrossed and
excited his mind, that his regular  meals were not
properly  attended  to ; and he encroached so much
upon his hours of rest,  that he was very frequently
up, and  his  mind intensely employed, till eleven,
twelve and one o'clock at night; and then he retired
to bed with his mind in such a state of excitement,
that  he  found it impossible  to sleep for one or two
hours after he retired.  In this manner he held on,
and held out, till the  extreme pressure of his  busi-
ness was over, and the season terminated in  the
highest prosperity.   Everything  had gone exactly
as he wished, and he had been the gainer of several
thousand  dollars.   But  amidst all this  prosperity,
he had excessively over-worked his nervous system,
and  now, when  he was  no longer excited by  the
extraordinary stimulus of his business, he suddenly
sunk down into a state of extreme nervous  exhaus-
tion, and consequent mental depression.   A high
degree of morbid irritability and sympathy super-
vened, and a dark  and  cheerless gloom  came oveT
his mind.  Medical assistance was called, and  the
attempt was made  to raise him by the free use of
high-seasoned flesh-meat,  porter, wine,  &c, all  of
which  served  only to aggravate his sufferings, and
plunge him deeper into darkness and despair.   In
this state of things I saw him.  His misery exceeded
all description.   It was impossible to divert his mind
from his affliction for a single moment.  He continu- 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         181
ally exclaimed, in the most heart-rending tones—" I
am lost!  I am  lost!  I have destroyed myself!—I
have committed the unpardonable  sin ; and nothing
but perdition  awaits  me."  When I  tried  to  break
the spell  of  his mind, and to arouse him to other
thoughts,  he  replied,  in the deepest dejection and
despair—" It is of no  use ! it is too late—too late!—I
am a ruined man !—my soul is sealed to eternal per-
dition !—I have destroyed myself; and why should
I live any longer, to  heap up  my already  overflow-
ing measure of wrath, and anguish, and horror ?   I
cannot—I will not live !"   With  much  difficulty, I
succeeded in drawing  out from him a disclosure of
what he  considered  the cause of all his misery.
He said that  in his youth he  had indulged  in the
awful sin of self-pollution, till  it had ruined his con-
 stitution ; and that he was perfectly certain  that, in
 so doing, he  had committed  the  unpardonable sin.
 I strove in vain to convince  him  that his  mind was
 extremely affected by the  condition  of his nervous
 system.  "It  is  of  no use,"  he replied,  "I know
 that my damnation is sure !   God will never forgive
 such abominable  sins.  There is  no redemption-
 no hope for  me ; and I will live  no longer  in this
 state of  despair  and anguish."  We were  obliged
 to watch him every moment,  to keep him from de-
 stroying his own life.   And by abstracting from his
 diet his  wine, porter, flesh, and every other heating
 and stimulating substance, and putting  him  strictly 
182
NOTES  TO THE
upon  a very plain, unstimulating, farinaceous diet,
together with the tepid bath in the evening, just be-
fore going to bed, and the cold  shower bath  in the
morning, and free exercise in the open air, he was
gradually restored to health of body and mind, and
to the full enjoyment of himself, his family and his
friends ; and remained, as he  had been before, a
useful and much esteemed member of society, and a
worthy  member of a religious community.
                   NOTE  J.

   " As if the hand of necessity were on him," &c.—Page 113.

   The following case, which it is to be hoped is a
very rare  one, affords  a melancholy illustration of
the text, and presents  an  occasion  for remarks on
the measures adopted to break up the evil habit.
   S.  W.  became initiated into the practice of self-
pollution when very young ;  and before his friends
suspected  it, or himself was aware of the pernicious
consequences, his  health  was  destroyed and  his
constitution  greatly  impaired.  When his  symptoms
became so  plain and  unequivocal, however,  that
they could no longer be mistaken, the cause of his 
            LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         183

sufferings was detected, and the ruinous character
of his indulgence was faithfully and solemnly de-
scribed to him.   He  was  filled  with  horror and
anguish at the disclosure, and  promised never more
to repeat the destructive practice.   But this promise
was as " a  rope of sand " before  the power of his
habit.  He continued  his  unclean  indulgence  in
spite of  all the  convictions of his own  mind, and
remonstrances of his  conscience, and sufferings of
his body.  His friends  expostulated, and entreated,
and threatened—but all was in vain.  He still went
on in his transgression, and with tears and bitter an-
guish, declared that he had not the power to refrain
from the loathsome act, though he knew that every
repetition  of  it,  was increasing his sufferings and
hastening him to the grave.   It was then proposed
that he should consent to be manacled.  He received
the proposal with joy, and submitted to  the confine-
ment of his hands  for  several  months.  By this
means, and by a salutary regimen of diet, exercise
and moral treatment, he was restored  to  tolerable
health.   His friends now thinking his evil habit so
 completely broken up, and his health  so far estab-
 lished, that it would be  safe  to set him at liberty,
 removed the manacles from his hands, and left him
 to control himself.  But no sooner was he left alone,
 with  the  consciousness of his ability to renew  his
 lewd indulgence, than he felt, as it were, compelled
 to  yield  to  the temptation.   He  returned  to  the 
184
NOTES TO THE
destructive  practice—again  destroyed his  health,
and  filled his  body with the most distressing and
loathsome disease, and  his  soul with anguish, and
remorse, and despair;—and  finally fell a victim to
his transgression.1*
   In  cases of actual insanity, and perhaps  in  some
other instances, it may  be advisable, because indis-
pensably necessary, to have  recourse  to  manacles
and other means of taking away, for  a season, the
moral freedom of  the  unhappy  transgressor, in
regard to  this  practice.  But  as  a  general  rule,
every  measure  should  be  avoided by which his
confidence in his power to govern himself may, in
any degree,  be diminished : and on the other hand,
in all cases,  everything  should  be  done  to  inspire
and increase that  confidence  as much as possible.
This  vice  is of  such  a nature  that where  self-
control is wanting, there is little ground to hope for
permanent reformation.  With proper management,
however,  self-control can  in most  cases  be estab-
lished, and the offender reclaimed.
* See also the case of the prisoner in Note H. 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.        185
                   NOTE  K.

  "Among the hapless inmates of the Lunatic Asylum," &c—
Page 115.

  The following interesting article, taken from  the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal of March  25,
1835, is from  the pen of Dr. Woodward, the  distin-
guished superintendent of the Massachusetts Lunatic
Hospital at Worcester.
  " No cause is  more influential in producing in-
sanity, and, in a  special  manner, perpetuating  the
disease,  than  self-pollution.   The  records  of the
institutions give an  appalling catalogue of  cases
attributed  to  this cause; and yet such  records do
not  show  nearly all  the cases  which  are  justly
ascribable  to  it.  For it is so  obscure, and so secret
in its operations, that the  friends in almost all cases
are wholly ignorant of it.  It is in a  few cases only,
where the  practice of the vice becomes shamefully
notorious,  that the  friends are willing to allow its
agency in the production  of any disease, particularly
insanity;  and yet no cause  operates more directly
upon the mind and the feeling.   The mental ener-
gies  are  prostrated  by the  habit in innumerable
cases, long before the delusions of insanity appear.
Indeed, there  are many cases  in which insanity does
not intervene  between the incipient stages of that 
186
NOTES TO  THE
mental and physical imbecility which comes early
upon  the  victim  of self-pollution,  and the  most
deplorable  and  hopeless  idiocy,  in which it fre-
quently results.
  " This is perhaps peculiar to this  cause of idiocy.
I know of no other which does not  produce the
ravings and  illusions of insanity,  or  the gloomy
musings, agitations, and  alarms of  melancholy, be-
fore the mind is lost in idiotism.   But the victim  of
self-pollution  passes from one degree of imbecility
to another, till all the powers of the system, mental,
physical and moral, are blotted out forever.
  " This is not, however,  always the case.  In some
individuals, there is all the raving of the most furi-
ous mania, or the  deep and cruel torture of hapless
melancholy, before the mind is obliterated, and the
energies of the system forever prostrated.
  " There  are other circumstances attending the in-
sanity from  self-pollution,  which render  this the
most  distressing  form of mental  disease.  I allude
to the difficulty of breaking up the habit  while labor-
ing under this malady.  When insanity is once pro-
duced by it, it is nearly hopeless, because the  cause
of disease  is redoubled, and generally perpetuated.
The  libidinous  desires are greatly  increased, and
the  influence of  self-restraint  cannot  be brought
sufficiently into action to prevent the constant,  daily,
and  I might say  almost hourly recurrence of the
practice.   Thus the cause is perpetuated, and  in 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.        187
spite  of every  effort,  the  disease  increases, the
powers of body and  mind fail together,  and are lost
in the most deplorable, hopeless, disgusting fatuity.
And yet the  practice is  not abandoned.  All the
remaining  energies  of animal life seem to be con-
centrated  in these organs,  and all  the remaining
power of gratification  is in the exercise of this, no
longer secret, but open and loathsome habit.
   " Those   cases  of insanity arising  from  other
known causes, in which self-pollution is a symptom,
are rendered more hopeless by this circumstance.  It
is a counteracting influence to all the means of cure
employed, either moral or medicinal, and coinciding,
as it  does,  with whatever other causes may have
had  an agency in producing disease,  renders the
case almost hopeless.  Of the number of the insane
that have come under the observation of the  writer,
(and that number is not small,) few, very few have
recovered, who have been in the habit of this evil
practice ; and  still fewer, I might say almost none,
have recovered, in which insanity or idiocy has been
produced by self-pollution.   Most of the cases from
this cause commence early in  life ;—even confirmed
and hopeless idiocy  has been the melancholy conse-
quence, before the victim  had reached his twentieth
year.
   " Of eighty males, insane, that have  come under
the observation of the  writer, and who have been
particularly  examined, and watched with reference 
188              NOTES  TO THE

to  ascertaining the proportion that  practised self-
pollution,  something  more than  a quarter were
found  to practice it;  and,  in  about ten per cent, a
large proportion of which are idiotic, the disease  is
supposed to have arisen from this cause.
   " The absolute  abandonment of the  practice  of
self-pollution, after the habit has become  established,
is not always easily effected, even in those whose
minds  are unaffected by insanity.   The  unfortunate
subject of this detestable vice, whose mental energy
is unimpaired, and whose moral feelings  are suscep-
tible of impression, can, however,  be  persuaded  to
abandon it,  if the  danger  is  set  before him in its
true light;  but with  the insane we can  have  no
such hopes, and no such prospects of cure.  They
will rarely form resolutions on the  subject, and still
more  rarely adhere to them.  Reason, the balance-
wheel  of the mind, being  denied them,  they  are
obnoxious to the influence of all the propensities in
a high degree."

   From  the Report of the Massachusetts  Lunatic
Hospital,  dated February,  1836,   it  appears that,
among  the  supposed  causes of insanity in the in-
mates  of that institution,  intemperance  has pro-
duced  the  largest number of cases, and masturba-
tion or self-pollution the next largest—one third of
the whole number in  the  hospital being put down
to this  last named cause. 
LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         189
                   NOTE  L.

  " He lives on through many years, a life of protracted and un-
speakable wretchedness."—Page 124.

  G. L. commenced the practice of self-pollution in
early boyhood, and  soon became confirmed in the
destructive habit;  indulging in  the unseemly vice
with  great  frequency, and without the least  sus-
picion  that  he was injuring himself by  it.    His
health, however, soon began to be impaired, and his
friends saw it  slowly decaying without knowing or
suspecting the cause.   His appetite became exceed-
ingly capricious—being  at  times extremely vora-
cious, and  at  other times, extremely small and fas-
tidious.   His  strength  gradually failed,  and his
spirits became painfully depressed and gloomy.   At
the age of seventeen his constitution was a complete
wreck, and  he was reduced to the most miserable
condition.   Still  he continued the unclean practice
which was the cause of all his  sufferings, and which
was rapidly hastening him to his grave.  About
this time he was seen  by a gentleman who at  once
perceived,  from his appearance, that he was destroy-
in°- himself by his filthy and unnatural indulgence.
The  gentleman  embraced the first  opportunity to
point out to him the cause of all  his wretchedness.
It was the first time the unfortunate youth had ever 
190
NOTES  TO THE
heard  a word  on the subject, and the information
filled him with  alarm  and horror.   He at once
abandoned the voluntary practice; but the debility
and morbid  irritability of his  whole  system—and
especially of his genital organs—were such, that he
continued for a long  time to be subject to frequent
involuntary emissions.   Many different physicians
were consulted, and their advice was followed by
him in the hope of recovering his health.  But not
one of them  ever  asked him a question  concerning
his habits, nor intimated a suspicion that his difficul-
ties were  caused by self-pollution.   By  the con-
tinued use of tonics and stimulants, and a generous
diet, and travelling, his health was apparently much
improved;  though it was far from being  good, even
when at the best.   Soon  after he came of age, it
was thought advisable for him to marry.   For two
or three years after his marriage, he was sustained
by what is called  a rich and generous diet, and by
the constant  use  of tonics and  stimulants, so that,
although  he considered  himself in  very delicate
health, yet on the whole, he thought he  was doing
as well as could be expected. He became the father
of  two  puny children, on  whom was visited the
iniquities of the parent, and who soon  descended to
the grave, the  victims  of his early transgressions.
And now  the  vital  powers of  his  system being
extremely exhausted  by the  " generous"  course
which he had been pursuing for a number of years, 
            LECTURE TO  YOUNG MEN.         191

he  began to sink with  rapidity; and the more he
endeavored to sustain himself by his generous diet
and tonic medicines, the more rapidly he sunk ; and
he soon found  himself reduced to the most deplora-
ble and miserable condition.  He was compelled to
abandon all  business  and to travel for  his health.
This afforded him considerable relief—but no sooner
did he return  to his  business and his usual habits
of living, than he began to relapse, and  was in  a
short time as  low and miserable as before.  In his
distress  he  flew from one  physician to  another;
but with all his change  of physicians he  found
little  change of prescription;—all  treated him as
laboring under a debility which  required a generous
diet,   and  tonic  and  stimulating medicine.   And
thus this unfortunate individual  dragged out nearly
thirty years  of the  most  extreme suffering  and
wretchedness,—finding no relief except  the slight
and temporary alleviation which he  received from
travelling;   and which  only lasted  while he con-
tinued to journey.   Being present when the fore-
going lecture was delivered to the young men  of
one of our  cities, he called  on me the next day and
narrated to  me  his melancholy story.   " Oh, sir ! "
said  he with  deep and touching pathos, "I  have
suffered,—but words  cannot tell it!  There is no
 language for the miseries which I  have endured—
 and they only who have experienced them can have
 any just conception  of them.   My bodily anguish 
192
NOTES  TO THE
and torment have been great  beyond measure—yet
they have been as nothing to the deeper and darker
miseries of my mind !  Oh, could I have  been in-
structed in my youth, as every boy ought to be, I
should have  been saved  from all  this  suffering!
There is  no conceivable sum of money which, if I
possessed  it, I would not freely—gladly give, to go
back to my boyhood with the  information I have
received from your  lecture, and be permitted to live
my life over  again;  but it is too late:  I  have de-
stroyed myself in my ignorance, and  there  is no
redemption for me this side the  grave."
  I endeavored to persuade him to change his regi-
men, and try  the effect of a simple diet, with proper
exercise, &c.   But it was  in  vain : he had become
so accustomed to his stimulating diet and medicine,
that a single day's abstinence  caused such a depres-
sion of his physiological  and mental powers,  that
his misery was insupportable, and he had  not reso-
lution to bear it.  He continued on in his old course,
and in a  few months from that time, he descended
to the grave.

  A number of cases  closely resembling  the fore-
going have  come  to my knowledge since I have
been a public lecturer.  One  gentleman, residing in
a far distant city, consulted me  by letter concerning
his health.  " I am," said he,  " the husband of a
beautiful  and  fondly devoted  young wife, and the 
            LECTURE TO  YOUNG  MEN.        193

father of two sweet babes, and possess an abundance
of this world's goods; but in the  midst  of all these
means of enjoyment and happiness, I am the  most
wretched of men.  I am no longer able  to be a hus-
band nor a father; the powers of manhood have left
me ; my whole system is completely prostrated, and
my mind is sunk into the most cheerless  melancholy.
For five years  I have  endured this  unspeakable
misery,  and  sought  in  vain for  relief  from physi-
cians far and near.  I beseech you, do  not  deceive
me, but in the honesty of your soul, tell me frankly,
is there  any door of hope  for me ?  Must I, ere I
have  reached the meridian of life, wither into the
grave;  or  is it possible,  by any  earthly means, for
me to recover even a tolerable degree of health?"
   In my reply to him, I candidly told him what his
symptoms  indicated, and inquired  if  he  had not
been early and excessively  addicted  to  the  practice
of self-pollution.  In his second letter he  said—" You
have  opened  my eyes, and poured  an  astounding
flood of  light into my soul! You have disclosed to
me the cause of all my suffering!  All  that you in-
fer from my former letter  is true.   But why was
there none to tell me this before ? and why was I  so
blind as  not  myself to  perceive it ?   Now I plainly
discern the relation of all my sufferings to my own
errors ; and I see, when perhaps it is too late to be
wise, that I have brought all my miseries upon  my-
self."
             13 
194
NOTES  TO THE
   Another gentleman,  the  details  of whose  early
history were  much the  same as those already given
of G. L., was  advised  by his physician to marry.
He became the husband  of a beautiful and lovely
woman ; and they loved  each other with  devoted
fondness.   For a very short time, his  powers were
sustained by generous food,  wine, iron, cantharides,
&c, but this course soon exhausted his system, and
he was  precipitated into a state of the most deplo-
rable prostration, so that  the powers  of  manhood
wholly forsook  him, and he was no longer able to
be a husband  to  his charming  young wife ;  and
whenever he yielded to the ardent affection of his
heart, which was kindled  by her  bewitching smiles
and  caresses, and  indulged  for  a moment  in fond
dalliance with  her, so  great  was the debility and
morbid irritability of his genital organs, that he was
sure  to  experience an  involuntary emission of  se-
men.  Being unable to procure any relief from  this
miserable  condition, he was filled with the  most
gloomy  despondency, and finally sunk  into  utter
despair.  In this state of mind he returned one day
from his business to his  home.  His beautiful young
wife  received him as usual with smiles and caresses.
He sat  down beside  her, and yielded to  her  dal-
liance ;  but no sooner  did  he feel the influence of
her  loveliness  exciting his  nervous  system,  and
hastening his languid pulse, than  he experienced
again his calamity and his shame.  Filled  with the 
LECTURE TO YOUNG  MEN.        195
phrenzy of despair,  he suddenly started from  her
side, rushed into another room, caught his pistol,  and
blew out his brains.

  I might make  out a volume  of similar cases:—
they are already numerous in our country, and are
daily becoming more so :—but I will only add a  sin-
gle instance more.
  R. T.,  of  the  same city with  G. L., and whose
history closely resembled his, came to me  about the
same time  for advice.  He appeared more like  a
walking  corpse  than  a living  body.  I  seriously
doubted whether  any earthly means could help him;
but I gave him the best  advice I could, little think-
ing that he would follow it.   It was such a regimen
as I have laid down in the preceding lecture.  Some
fifteen  months afterward, I was in the same city,
walking  in the  street, and R. T. came up to me
in  good  health.   He  warmly expressed his thanks
for  the benefit he had  received, and said he  had
recovered his health  by closely adhering to the
advice  I  had  given him.  "For several months,"
said  he,  " after I adopted your  regimen, I was not
sensible of  becoming any better, but was apparently
more  unwell; and all  my friends and a multitude
 of  others continually asserted  that  I  was killing
 myself, and said  everything to dissuade me from my
 course; but I persevered against every discourage-
 ment and every  opposition, and before the year had 
196
NOTES  TO THE
come round, my improvement was so manifest that
all my opposers were silenced; and now, after many
years of extreme suffering, I  am a well man again."

  The  question is  often  asked—Is it best for  a
young man,  of suitable age  and circumstances, to
marry, when he is in  a state of great debility and
morbid nervous irritability, resulting from self-pollu-
tion ?  To this I reply, as a general rule, that, if  a
young man has so injured his body by self-pollution,
or any other  mode of venereal excess, as to be sub-
ject to involuntary emissions  of semen on occasions
of considerable excitement, or irritation of the parts
from  riding on  horse-back or  from other  means,
and also, to  be subject  to  frequent nocturnal emis-
sions, it is far safer and better to defer  matrimony,
and  to  avoid all dalliance  and  familiarity with
females, till  he has,  by a rigorous adherence  to
the regimen  laid  down on the pages from 128  to
135, improved  his health to  such a degree, that
he  is  wholly relieved from his involuntary dis-
charges by day and by night.   Let him constantly
push his exercise in the open air, as far as he can
comfortably bear it.   If he  finds riding  on  horse-
back  irritates the parts  too much, let him avoid that
kind of exercise.   Where it can be done,  regular
labor on a farm is the best mode of exercise for such
a person.   To use the language of young people, if
he is in love and courting,  or engaged  to be mar-
/ 
            LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         197

fled, let him find some good excuse to go away from
home, or, by some other means which are honora-
ble and kind  towards  his  "■sweet-heart,"  absent
himself entirely from her, till he recovers from his
difficulties, and is in  a proper condition  to marry.
   By providing himself with a quantity of unbolted
wheat  meal sea-bread, made very thin, he  may
with  great  advantage go  a  voyage  to  sea as a
sailor.
   This  may seem hard advice to many, but it is
incomparably harder to endure a life of  misery, in
consequence of rushing into  matrimony in an  im-
proper state of  body.  I have seen the distressing
consequences  of  such  precipitancy in  too  many
instances, not  to  be  aware of the danger  of  the
experiment.  And even when health  is  so  far re-
stored as to warrant  marriage, the young husband
must be exceedingly temperate  in his  connubial
indulgence, or  he will soon find himself prostrated
again;—and wo to him, if, when he finds himself
sinking, he  endeavors to sustain himself by tonics
and stimulants.   He may, it is true, by such  means,
keep up longer; but he will inevitably, in the end,
sink the deeper for it. 
198
NOTES TO THE
                   NOTE  M.

  " By these means, if by any short of miraculous power," &c.—
Page 136.

   A truly virtuous and  excellent lady of the city
of New York, actuated by feelings of kindness and
philanthropy,  took the infant child of a deceased
friend and  nourished it  at her  own breast.  The
child was  puny  and  diseased.  It soon  appeared
that the child  was afflicted with the consequences of
the  father's licentiousness.   Its  little body seemed
completely charged  with  venereal virus, and in a
short time, the lady who took the child to nurse
began to be affected with its  disease.  Her friends
earnestly endeavored to  persuade her to desist from
nursing it; but having the highest confidence in the
purity of her own system, she could not believe that
she could be  affected by the  child's disease, to any
serious extent; she therefore persisted in nursing it,
till her whole system became powerfully affected,
and the venereal virus began to manifest  itself in
offensive sores, which broke  out upon her breasts
and every part of her body.  The  lady was now
convinced that no degree  of purity or health on her
part could  enable her to  resist the power of such a
virulent  poison,  so  long  as she continued to nurse
the child.   She therefore felt herself compelled to
banish the little sufferer from her breast, and to give 
            LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         199

immediate attention to the expulsion of the unclean
disease from her body.   This, she was informed by
the medical gentleman  whom she consulted, could
only be done  by the  free  use  of mercury.  Being
very unwilling to  submit to  such a  course, she
requested a friend to consult  me by letter, concern-
ing her case.   I received the letter while engaged
in delivering a course of lectures at Hanover, N. H.,
and  handed it to  Dr.  Mussey, and requested him
to answer it.  He advised the lady to take no medi-
cine,  but  to adopt and strictly adhere to such  a
regimen as I have laid down in the preceding lec-
ture  for those who are suffering under the extreme
effects of self-pollution.   The lady faithfully  obeyed
the prescription, and in  a few weeks was restored to
the most perfect  health.   I confess I was equally
surprised and delighted to hear of this result.
                   NOTE N.

  "We are threatened  with all  the horrors of an over-exercised
brain," &x.—Page 145.

  Since Phrenology has become  a popular hobby
to a  far greater extent than a profound  science,
and smatterers in it  are multiplied throughout our
country more rapidly than  the vermin of Egypt, we 
200
NOTES TO  THE
are not only taught to believe that every intellectual
and  moral faculty, and animal  propensity and in-
stinct,  have their seat  in the  brain, but  also that
many if not  most  of the  diseases,  which flesh is
heir to, originate  in  cerebral  irritation.   Thus we
are not only assured that insanity  always springs
from this source, and  is owing to the morbid condi-
tion of some or all of the cerebral organs, but that
dyspepsia also springs  from  the  same  source, and
has  its primary  seat,  or punctum  saliens, in  the
brain.   Shoemakers,  and tailors, and  others, it is
said, whose sedentary  employment  would strongly
predispose them to dyspepsia, if that complaint were
induced  by causes acting primarily on the alimen-
tary organs,  are  rarely if ever  affected with that
disease,  except  in cases of great  and  protracted
mental  excitement, and consequent cerebral  irrita-
tion : and therefore  it matters  not what a  man's
dietetic habits are :—let  him eat, drink and  be
merry,—he has  nothing to fear  from  dyspepsia, if
he  can only contrive to  keep his brain free  from
undue  mental exercise  and   irritation.   But this,
like most  other  reasoning from fanciful data  and
partial observation, is wholly at  variance with truth
and fact.   No one who is properly informed on the
subject, can  doubt that cerebral irritation from un-
due mental action, can be, and often is the primary
cause of insanity, dyspepsia, and many other forms
of  disease;  but  to say that  either  dyspepsia or
insanity always, or even  most  frequently, originates 
LECTURE TO YOUNG MEN.         201
in cerebral irritation from mental action, is to state
what is  evidently not true.   I have found, from a
very  extensive  examination of  the  subject, that
shoemakers  and tailors are  very generally affected,
to a  greater  or  less extent, with  dyspeptic  symp-
toms ; and I have  very rarely been  able to  trace
those  symptoms back to cerebral irritation  from
mental action, as their primary cause : but in almost
all  cases,  they have been evidently attributable  to
dietetic errors,  (including the  use of tobacco and
intoxicating  liquors,)  to sedentary habits, and  to
venereal abuses, either of the social or solitary kind.
And the  following  synopsis of the last Report  of
the Massachusetts  Lunatic  Hospital, at Worcester,
affords the strongest  evidence  to the same point  in
regard to insanity.
   Of 250 patients  received into the institution, 57
were  common  laborers :—52  farmers :—18  man-
ufacturers :—IS  shoemakers :—16 seamen  :—13
teachers :—10 carpenters :—8  merchants :—6 ma-
chinists :—5  blacksmiths :—4 tailors :—3 printers :
—3  paper makers :—3  clothiers :—2  millers :—2
calico printers :—2  bakers :—2 cabinet makers :—1
clergyman :—1 lawyer:—1  doctor, and 23 others of
no particular calling.
   If cerebral irritation from mental action were the
principal cause  of  insanity,  then  we might  justly
expect to find a far  greater proportion of clergymen,
lawyers,  doctors and merchants in the asylum ; and
a much smaller proportion of common  laborers and 
202        NOTES TO THE  LECTURE.
farmers, who, according to the  above  statement,
comprise nearly half of the whole number.
   The truth is, moreover, that a large proportion of
those cases which are attributed to domestic afflic-
tion, fear of poverty, &c, &c,  are  actually induced
by  those  dietetic  and other causes, which, acting
primarily on the alimentary canal and other organs
concerned in the general functions of  nutrition  and
reproduction,  develope  a morbid irritability in the
nerves  of organic  life, which finally  involves  the
condition and functions of the brain.
   But this  whole subject is very little understood ;
and superficial reasoners jump to conclusions with
great precipitancy—seemingly without any  sense
of  responsibility for the  opinions  which  they  ad-
vance, and with little regard for the  effects which
those opinions shall have on the permanent interests
of mankind, so that  they can, by any means, com-
mand for a season a portion of public attention,  and
secure their measure of notoriety. 
TECHNICAL  TERMS  EXPLAINED.
Abdomen, the belly, or part of the body containing the stomach and
  intestines.
Absorb, to suck up: and in some instances, the substances absorbed
  undergo important vital changes in the process of absorption, as
  the chyle.
Acme, the highest pitch or degree; as the acme of a fever.
Acoustic nerve, the nerve of hearing.
Acute inflammation, comes on suddenly, and is attended with vio-
  lent symptoms.
Alimentary canal, includes the stomach and intestines.
Anarchical, with great disorder and violence—disregarding all law.
Anatomy, comprehends the bones, muscles, and all the parts of the
  human body, and contemplates them in their proper situations.
Anus, the posterior orifice  by which the faeces pass from the body.
Apparatus, a number of organs  associated together for a general
  effect.  Thus the  stomach, intestines, pancreas, &c, constitute
  the digestive apparatus.
Arterial, belonging to the arteries,  which convey the blood from
  the heart to all parts of the body.
 Calculi, hard, stone-like substances formed in the liver, kidneys,
  bladder, &c.
 Calorific, having power to produce heat—the warmth of the body.
 Capillary, very small, hair-sized.
 Capillary congestion, over-fulness of the minute blood-vessels.
 Carious, gangrene of the teeth or bones; decay, rotting.
 Catarrhal  affection,  a disease in which a thick foetid mucus or pus
   is secreted and discharged by the mucous membrane.
 Cellular tissue, one of the  fundamental tissues of the  body, and
   essentially gelatinous, or jelly. It pervades  all parts, and con-
   stitutes  the  general frame-work  of  the  body, entering into  the
   bones, membranes, &c.  Its most important property, in the liv-
   ing body, is elasticity. 
204
TECHNICAL  TERMS
Cephalo-spinal, belonging to the brain and spinal marrow.
Cerebral, belonging to the brain.
Change of structure, a diseased change of  the nervous, muscular,
  and other substances of the body, in which they become softened
  or hardened, and lose their natural  and  proper character, and
  peculiar properties.
Chronic, long-standing, slowly advancing, and often by impercep-
  tible degrees.
Chyle, the white milky fluid formed  from the chyme,  and which
  forms the blood.
Chyme, the digested food in the stomach and intestines.
Coition, the act of sexual commerce.
Concupiscence, lascivious desire.
Congestion, over-fulness of the vessels.
Deglutition, swallowing.
Depuration, the act of cleansing, or throwing off impurities.
Determination, flowing or tending  to  the centre, or surface, or any
  point of irritation.
Deteriorate, to make worse, to impair.
Diabetes, a diseased and excessive  secretion  of  the  kidneys,  in
  which, sometimes, all the  nourishment of  the body passes off in
  the form of crude urine, and death  ensues.
Domain, the extent  or  territory over which any power exerts  its
  controlling influence.
Duodenum, twelve inches of the intestinal tube, leading immediately
  from the stomach.
Engorgement, extreme over-fulngss,  producing oppression, irrita-
  tion, debility, &c.             i>
Epigastric, round about the stomach.
Fatuity, foolishness, loss of mind.
Filamentary,  very minute, thread-like.
Final cause, the cause or purpose for which a thing is made or done.
Flaccid, lax, loose, flabby, soft.
Function, the office or duty which an  organ  performs.
Functional power, the power by which the function is performed.
Functional result, that which is  effected, or produced by the per-
  formance of the function.
Ganglion, a bulbous enlargement, or  knot of nervous substance.
Gastric, belonging to the stomach. 
EXPLAINED.
205
Genital organs, the sexual or organs of generation, the private parts.
Gustatory, the power of taste, one of the five  senses—situated in
  the mouth.
Hypochondriacal, gloomy, melancholy, partially deranged.
Hemorrhage, flowing of blood, as from the nose, lungs, &c.
Hemorrhoids, piles.
Induration, hardening.
Insignia of virility, the testicles and penis.
Instinct, the innate appetite, propensity or desire, which is a physi-
  ological power of the living body, and  excites to the performance
  of the functions.
Instinctive propensities, the natural, original propensities, which are
  constitutionally founded in the real wants  of  the  vital  economy,
  or the general economy of the  species.
Lacteals, small vessels that elaborate  the chyle  and convey it to the
  blood  vessels.
Leclierous, lascivious, concupiscent, habitual sexual desire.
Loins, the small of the back over the hips.
Malaria, pestilential or poisonous gases, or air.
Morbid, diseased, unhealthy.
Morbid  irritability,  sensibility, pi-urience, &c., these affections in a
   diseased state.
Mucous membrane, the membrane lining the nose, mouth, throat,
   windpipe, meatpipe, stomach, intestines, urethra, &c.
 Normal, right, proper, according to the healthy constitutional laws
   and operations of the  system.
 Olfactory nerve, nerve of smell, belonging to the nose.
 Optic nerve, nerve of sight, belonging to the eye.
 Organ is formed by the peculiar arrangement  of the tissues of the
   body,  so  that it  is constructed and endowed  for a particular
   function.  The stomach, lungs, liver, &c. are organs.
 Organic life is that  order of vitality which  comes under general
   laws common to all organized bodies, vegetable and animal, and
   in the animal kingdom, it is connected with the ganglionic system
   of nerves.  See Lecture, page 34.
 Pancreatic, from the pancreas, a small gland back of the stomach.
 Pathology, the science or doctrine of disease.
 Pathological, relating to disease.
 Pericardium, a membranous sack which surrounds the heart. 
206               TECHNICAL TERMS.
Peristaltic, the worm-like  action of the stomach and intestines, by
  which their contents are  carried along the canal.
Physiology comprehends all the living organs  of the body, in the
  possession of their vital properties, and in  the performance of
  their vital functions.
Physiological, belonging to the vital powers and functions of the
  organs, &c.
Plexus, a number of nervous cords woven together.
Preternatural, above what  is natural, or ordinary and Healthy.
Prurience, a sexual itching, or lascivious  sensibility of the  organs
  of generation.
Puberty, the time at which  the individual becomes capable of gen-
  erating.
Purulent, pus-like or corrupt matter.
Saliva, the fluid of the mouth, secreted by  the salivary glands.
Scirrhus,  a severe hardening of the glands, approaching to cancer.
Secretion, the separation or elaboration of the urine, bile, tears and
  other fluids from the blood.
Self-pollution, the private vice of defiling  one's self with the hand
  or by  other means.
Spermatic cord, the  cord upon which the testicle is suspended.
Strangury,  the inability to  void the urine.
Tissue, a particular arrangement of solid fibre in the organs.
Turgescence, swollen, full.
Urethra, the channel through which the urine  passes out from the
  neck of the bladder.
Vasculo-nervous, composed of nerves and blood-vessels.
Venereal,  sexual, relating to sexual enjoyment.
Venereal paroxysms, the intense  excitement, emotions and convul-
  sions of sexual indulgence.
Virility, manhood, having the organs and powers of a man.
Viscera, the internal organs, such  as the stomach, lungs, liver, ccc.
Visceral congestion, an over-fulness of the blood-vessels  of  the
  internal organs.
Vital properties, such as the elasticity of the cellular tissue, the con-
  tractility of the muscular tissue, and the nervous  and sensorial
  power of  the nervous tissue.    These  properties constitute  the
  functional powers of the  organs. 
          LIGHT   &  STEARNS,

PRINTERS, PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS,

     1 CORN HILL, (Facing Washington Street,) BOSTON,

Are constantly receiving fresh supplies of School, Theological and
Miscellaneous Books, which they offer for sale on the most reason-
able terms, at wholesale and retail—together with a good assortment
of Stationary.  Among their own publications they would ask
particular attention to the following:

                 Dr. Alcott's  Works.
THE YOUNG  MOTHER, or  Management of  Children  in
  regard to Health.   By Dr.  Alcott, author of the  "Young
  Man's Guide."  IIiglily recommended by the  Boston Medical and
  Surgical Journal, and the press generally.  Wfth a Plate.
THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, or the Human  Body—Second Edi-  ^
  tion, entirely re-written, enlarged and improved.  By Dr.  Alcott.  ^
  Adapted to Families and Schools.  With numerous  Cuts.         »
THE MORAL  REFORMER,  and Teacher  on the Human  *
  Constitution.  By Dr. Alcott.  Thi3 work contains a large  )
  quantity of matter on Health and Morals, as connected  with the
  education of the Body.  With Cuts.
WAYS OF LIVING ON SMALL  MEANS.  Fifth  edition, en-
  larged and improved.  A cheap manual of Economy and Health.
  By Dr. Alcott.  3000 copies sold in a fortnight.
                   Will soon be Published,
THE YOUNG WIFE.  Intended as one  of the same  series with the
  Young Mother.  By Dr. Alcott.
THE WATER  CURER.   A small pocket manual  for debilitated
  and diseased Young Men.
A SHORT TREATISE ON BREAD. By Dr. Sylvester Graham.
SCIENTIFIC TRACTS, for the  Diffusion of Useful  Knowledge.
  Completo in One Volume.  By B. B. Thatcher, Dr. Alcott, Dr.
  C. T. Jackson, Wm. Ladd, Dr. Sylvester Graham, and others. 
t                                                         t
t
       LIBRARY   OF   HEALTH,
                         AND
TEACHER ON THE  HUMAN CONSTITUTION.
          Monthly—Price $1 a Year, in advance.
t                 DR. ALCOTT, Editor.
) Author of the " Young Mother,"  " House I Live In," " Voung
'.                     Man'i Guide," &c.
f This Periodical is a continuation of the "Moral Reformer," with
\ important improvements.  No effort or expense is spared to render it
) extensively beneficial in promoting health of body and peace of mind.
f It  has  been highly  approved  by George Combe, of Edinburgh,
J as  well as  by a large number of distinguished men of this country,
f among whom are the following:
r*  Dr. John C. Warren, Dr. S. B  Woodward,  Rev.  Dr. Humphrey,
\ Rev. S. R. Hall, Rev. Hubbard  Winslow, Rev. R.  Anderson, Rev.
/ Baron  Stow, Rev. B. B. Wisner, R. H. Gillet, Esq., Rev. Wm.
rj Hague, Roberts Vaux, Esq., Dr. John M. Keagy, Dr. R. D. Mussey,
J Prof. E. A. Andrews, Rev. L. F. Clark, Rev. M. M. Carll, Rev. Dr.
! Warren Fay.
   Many of the most respectable Journals have also given their testi-
\ mony in its favor.  The following are a very few of them:
i  Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Annals of  Education, Ah-
i bott's Religious Magazine, Boston Recorder, Christian Watchman,
? Christian Register, Zion's Herald, New York Farmer.
( SCIENTIFIC &  LITERARY JOURNAL j
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Semi-Monthly—$2 a Year, in advance.
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f            WCII«-JUV/tUlltf—^- t* .* CUf ■ HI UULUiaCi            \

\ This work is so well known (it being a continuation of the  Scien- i
} tific  Tracts,) that recommendation is  unnecessary.  The first f
f volume commenced January 1, this year.  We  believe all who want f
\ a scientific work which can be depended upon for its accuracy as well J
i ai general value, would be highly gratified with this periodical.      )