It is thus with all our faculties, locomotive, vital, mental, at an early age. They are strengthened by all that they do not dissipate; and that which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately from their own power, and mediately from that of the other organs, but it ensures the permanent debility of the whole.
It is true that the strong passions which are modified or characterized by the sexual impulse, excite the imagination and impel the mind to sublime exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserving such impulsion is, to shun the indulgence of pleasure in early life, and its waste at later periods.
It has accordingly been observed, that the passion of love appears to be most excessive in animals which least excel in mental faculties. Thus the beasts which are the most lascivious, the ass, the boar, &c., are also the most stupid; and idiots and cretins display a sensuality which brutifies them still more. Hence, the Homeric fable that Circe transformed men into beasts.
It would also appear that the most stupid animals, swine, rabbits, &c., in general produce the greatest number of young; while men of genius have engendered the fewest. It is remarked that none of the greatest men of antiquity were much given to sexual pleasure.
It is, then, of the greatest importance to young men who are ambitious of excellence, to mark well this truth, that the most powerful and distinguished in mental faculties, other things being equal, will be he who wastes them least in early life by sexual indulgence—who most economizes the vital stimulant, in order to excite the mental powers on great occasions. By such means may a man surely surpass others, if he have received from his parents proportional mental energy.
Beside the means already indicated, there is one proposed by an able writer, as serving to divert the instinct of propagation when too early and excessive, and consequently dangerous: that is, the sentiment of love. To employ this means, he observes, “it is necessary to search early, after knowing the character of the adolescent whom it is wished to direct, for a young woman whose beauty and good qualities may inspire him with attachment. This means will serve, more than can easily be imagined, to preserve the adolescent both from the grosser attractions of libertinism and the disease it entails, and from the more dangerous snares of coquetry. It is,” he adds, “a virtuous young woman and a solid attachment that are here spoken of.”—At some future period I shall probably show how wise this recommendation is, as well as the necessity and the advantages of early marriages, under favorable circumstances.
Having now shown the evils of early sexual association, I may briefly notice those of later libertinism.
If, even in more advanced life, and when the constitution is stronger, the instinct of propagation be not restrained within just limits, it degenerates into inordinate lewdness or real mania: “Repperit obscænas veneres vitiosa libido.” By such depravation, nobleness of character is utterly destroyed.
This scarcely evitable consequence of great fortune and of the facility of indulgence, it has been justly observed, will ever be the ruin of the rich, and a mode of enervating the most vigorous branches of the most powerful house.
The libertine, then, owing to exhaustion, by sexual indulgence, is characterized by physical and moral impotence, or has a brain as incapable of thinking, as his muscles are of acting.