Says Dr. Briggs, of New York, “The sexual system is notoriously the seat of excitement and depression from psychical and mental influences. It is under the control of the sympathetic nerves, and influenced by the solar flexus. Much of the peculiar sensibility experienced in this part of the body is directly referable to the mind and imagination: the manifestations are controlled by the sympathetic nerves, from the impulse given in this manner. But the mind and will, however intense, have little power over the sexual functions, except through this medium. The emotions are superior.”
[Predisposition.]—The innate or uncaused condition, which is so commonly found among the young, is quite likely congenital and constitutional. There is evidently structural malformation in the neuroglia, or nerve cells proper, which predisposes the child to sexual excitement. This may not be derived from the immediate parent, but far back. In the third or fourth generation, debauchés may be found. Licentious parents commonly predispose their children to morbid sexual desires; and what evidence have we that structural changes do not exist in or about the nerve centres that preside over the sexual functions, and that such changes are not constitutional? Then, with this structural change as a predisposition, the least cause will set the sexual centers into a blaze of excitement. They who are predisposed by many generations, show upon their faces the lines of coarse breeding; that they are the offspring of debauchés; congenital degradation; not but these conditions, under favorable circumstances, may be overcome, by rigidly cultivating opposite nerve centers; but such opportunities are seldom presented, and when presented seldom embraced.
Circumstances are also to be considered as having a bearing upon the sexual “ups and downs” of our human career. With a predisposing sexual cause, a downfall may occur under circumstances less seductive in character than when no such congenital condition is present.
Listen to the heart-rending stories of girls in the houses of prostitution. Each has her story of circumstantial events to relate. Circumstances of varied gravity have caused the multitudes of “fallen women” to occupy their degraded sphere of shame and debauch. Many of these have never been predisposed to a sexual livelihood by an erotic disposition, and they only stay by compulsion and fear of reproach that must follow if they return to society. The line of social demarkation is drawn, and there is no palliation or chance of redemption by reform—only secret forgiveness, secret repentance, or a nunnery. There are some who follow this life by choice, from the pleasure therein. Such are predisposed: they naturally follow this course: they learn it on the streets, in mere childhood: their ancestors, or some one of them at least, were of this type—mal-constructed—and circumstances are meagre that, as is said, lead them astray. They are not led astray: it is more natural to them than to pursue the path of rectitude and virtue.
These people are predisposed to evil, and it is only, even if guarded from childhood up by constant watching and being kept from every possible circumstance, and taught only the good and pure, to adult life, that any reasonable assurance may be had of their safety from vice. This inheritance is almost indestructible and may crop out after the best of culture, with very slight cause, any time in adult life or in future generations.
Not only the predisposition to sexual desire is congenital, but the enfeebled nervous system that can endure only a limited amount of sexual indulgence. They learn to indulge the sexual appetite at a very early period, and the males grow up effeminate, or half-sexed. The tendency of civilization is toward brain and mental culture. In this we have a cause of nervousness which is wonderful. Our ancestors, who knew very little of brain-work compared to the cramming of the present day—compared to the curriculums of our present school system—were not nervous; they were not excitable, but physically strong. They labored at a variety of toils without machinery, and they obtained physical endurance. Now, the boy is crammed at school and hurried through to professional studies, when he has but just begun life; or he is placed at business, to find that excitement of competition which is the greatest brain-stimulus and the greatest cause of nervousness of the present age. The multitude of collateral sciences that a young man is compelled to read; the books, scientific and novel, that must be perused by every popular student; and the short period of time in which he is expected to pass over this entire field: all tend to change the young man into a habit of nervousness which would surprise our ancestors of one hundred years ago.
The labor that was performed by hand by our ancestors, which was the cause of their physical endurance, is now entirely accomplished by machinery; and the modern man, instead of patiently doing the labor by hand, expends months and years at brain-work, attempting to construct a machine that will run by steam, water, or horse-power, that he may save physical force, time, and perhaps, in the end, money.
The haste in which Americans live and move, must also become an exciting cause of nervousness. The ancients were patient in obtaining information; in performing works of art, literature, or agriculture. The Greeks did not expect to become proficient in the varied vocations until middle life; but an average American is expected to finish college at twenty-two; to have invented some kind of a machine for the saving of labor, to have made a fortune, married and raised a family of children, wasted his father’s fortune, and be prepared to begin life anew by the time he is thirty years of age.