§ 1.
Directly it becomes a question of studying the diseases of a particular part or organ, diseases occasioned by the nature of the use made of that particular part or organ, it is primarily requisite to investigate more precisely the different forms of this use. Then and then only shall we be in a position to define the share which secondary influences are competent to have in producing the said diseases. The natural use of the genital organs is simply the performance of the acts necessary to beget children. On this depends the preservation of the whole species. It is therefore improbable that Nature should have made such use liable to produce disease. As a matter of fact the experience of all ages shows that in a judicious marriage, the natural aim and object of which is the procreation of children, diseases of the genitals seldom, if ever, arise.
There must then be a secondary use of the genital organs, which is carried out without any view of begetting offspring, or in which this plays only a subordinate part, and consequently some other than the natural object is that pursued. This object is Sensual gratification, which is associated with the use of the genital organs, and the use of the genital organs for the attainment of this object is Sensuality. Every misuse of any given organ cannot but be associated with detriment both to the organ itself and to the whole organism as well. This must of course also be the case with the genitals,[10] and it is in the misuse of them, in Sensual practices, that the most prominent efficient cause of maladies of these organs must be sought. Now it is our business to give a history of the maladies of the genital organs; and this is only possible on the condition that we have first of all gained a clear insight into the history of Sensuality.
Doubtless it is a melancholy task for the Historian to follow up and reveal the moral degradation of Peoples and Nations even to its most revolting details, and the Ethical philosopher might find not a few objections to raise against an undertaking of the kind. None the less is the Physician compelled to search out under all forms the traces of Vice in its most secret hiding-places, and so fathom the nature of the Disease in each individual case; and still more with Nations as a whole is he permitted,—nay! it is his bounden duty, to fix his eyes on their doings and those of each of their component parts. Thus only can he detect the nature of a Disease, which destroys the marrow of Peoples more surely and more terribly for this very reason that its genesis proceeds in secret.
The reproach that the Moral repute of Nations is hereby ruined, and the general mass saddled with the guilt of vices which of course only individuals ever committed, has no place here, for it is solely through the precise knowledge of the doings of these individuals that a due appreciation is possible of the danger that threatens the whole body politic from this source. Had not a false ideal of Morality hitherto restrained the individual, as it did the mass, from speaking out the truth, we should be much farther advanced than we are in the knowledge of a Disease, whose characteristic symptom it is that those who suffer from it endeavour, as far as they possibly can, to conceal its cause!
The Cult of Venus[11].
§ 2.
The imaginative son of the South, already of his very nature prone to attribute all that his unpractised intellect failed to comprehend to the influence of a special Deity, was bound to do this pre-eminently in the case of an act that is even yet to us moderns wrapped in impenetrable obscurity,—the act of generation and conception. How could he think of this Deity[12], that used his own body as its instrument and in so doing bestowed on him the highest pleasure of the senses, otherwise than under the shape of a Being equally alluring and loving, convinced that this Being must be infinitely more alluring[13] than even the beloved form that he held in his arms? “The young man’s fancy” craves a lovely maiden; the maiden needed a loving sister, into whose arms she could trustingly throw herself, who intuitively divined all her soft, sweet emotions, to express which she sought in vain for words, which she scarce dared to own to herself that she was conscious of, and understood them!
To the Goddess’ Temple she wandered, before her poured out the longings that filled her heart to overflowing[14], and at the last offered up herself a gift at the holy place, that so Aphrodité Ἀφροδίτη εὔκαρπος, κουροτρόφος, γενετύλλις,—Aphrodité rich in fruit, giving offspring, of the birth-hour) might be glorified in her, and herself be a participant in the highest happiness of Woman,—the joys of Motherhood. First she prepared herself by bodily purification[15] before she trod the Temple threshold, then at the Temple altar she received spiritual purity; and thus thrilled through and through with the influence of the holiest, the Priest’s hand[16] led her to the arms of her Lover, who as unspoiled yet and unsophisticated as she, had not sought to unveil the most august secrets of Nature with audacious hand. Intoxicated with rapture he drew his darling on to the Torus (sacred couch) bedecked with fragrant blossoms, and almost unconsciously to himself, became the creator of a being wherein both saw themselves made young again.
If Man is really the noblest of created Beings, made by the Creator in his own image, in very truth then the power that unconsciously raises Man to the level of his Maker must be a divine power too, and that act in the exercise of which it comes itself into play an act of most sublime worship. Are we to suppose there never was a time when Man, pure as he came from the hand of his Creator, followed in the singleness of his heart no other law but that written in his heart? Surely not merely in the dreams of the Poet was found the legend of an Eden, from which Man was driven out by his own guilt; more true to say that to this day we are all of us born therein. But alas! others’ guilt or our own tears us away from out the garden of Paradise, ere we have yet been able often to raise our eyes to take delight in its glory. Thus it is that many a man now and again has the memory of a Dream, that accompanies him on his pilgrimage through life, and he hopes to find in the future what long ago, before he grew conscious of its existence, became a thing of the past. Perchance it may be the fatal tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was nothing else than the misuse of the genital organs, to content bestial longings, to arouse the titillation of an enervating pruriency[17]. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked!” The bestial had won the victory over the divine, which fled away from the desecrated altar; and the Genius of Mankind wept over their Fall!