It is yet questionable whether, in the course of the later centuries, mankind has advanced in morality. It is certain, however, that the race has become more modest; and this phenomenon of civilization—this hiding of the animal propensities—is, at least, a concession that vice makes to virtue.
From a reading of Scherr’s works (“History of German Civilization”) one would certainly gain the impression that, in comparison with those of the Middle Ages, our own ideas of morals have become refined, even when it must also be allowed that in many instances finer manners, without greater morality, have taken the place of earlier obscenity and coarseness of expression.
When widely separated periods of history are compared, no doubt is left that public morality, in spite of occasional temporary retrogression, makes continuous progress, and that Christianity is one of the most powerful of the forces favoring moral progress.
To-day we are far beyond the sexual conditions which, as shown in the sodomitic worship of the gods, in the life of the people, and in the laws and religious practices, existed among the ancient Greeks,—to say nothing of the worship of Phallus and Priapus among the Athenians and Babylonians, of the bacchanals of ancient Rome, and the prominent place prostitutes took among these peoples. In the slow and often imperceptible progress which human morality makes there are variations or fluctuations, just as in the individual sexuality manifests an ebb and flow.
Periods of moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only be conceived as occurring with increased demands upon the nervous system, which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of nervousness, there is increase of sensuality, and, since this leads to excesses among the masses, it undermines the foundation of society,—the morality and purity of family life. When this is destroyed by excesses, unfaithfulness, and luxury, then the destruction of the state is inevitably compassed in material, moral, and political ruin. Warning examples of this character are presented by Rome, Greece, and France under Louis XIV and XV.[[10]] In such times of political and moral destruction monstrous perversions of the sexual life were frequent, which, however, may in part be referred to psycho-pathological or, at least, neuro-pathological conditions existing in the people.
It is shown by the history of Babylon, Nineveh, Rome, and also by the “mysteries” of life in modern Capitals, that large cities are the breeding-places of nervousness and degenerate sensuality. The fact which may be learned from reading Ploss’s work is remarkable, viz., that perversion of the sexual instinct (save among the Aleutians, and in the form of masturbation among the females of the East and the Nama Hottentots) does not occur in uncivilized or half-civilized races.[[11]]
The study of the sexual life in the individual must begin at its development at puberty, and follow it through its different phases to the extinction of sexual feelings. In his “Physiology of Love,” Mantegazza describes the longings and impulses of awakening sexual life, of which presentiments, indefinite feelings, and impulses have existed long before the epoch of puberty. This epoch is, physiologically, the most important. In the abundant increase of feelings and ideas which it engenders is manifested the significance of the sexual factor in mental life.
These impulses, at first vague and incomprehensible, arising from the sensations which are awakened by organs which were previously undeveloped, are accompanied by a powerful excitation of the emotions. The psychological reaction of the sexual impulse at puberty expresses itself in a multitude of manifestations which have in common only the mental condition of emotion and the impulse to express in some way, or render objective, the strange emotionality. Religion and poetry lie close to it, which, after the time of sexual development is past and these originally incomprehensible feelings and impulses have cleared up, receive powerful incentives from the sexual sphere. He who doubts this has only to think how often religious enthusiasm occurs at the time of puberty; how frequent sexual episodes are in the lives of the saints;[[12]] how powerfully sensuality expresses itself in the histories of religious fanatics; and in what revolting scenes, true orgies, the religious festivals of antiquity, no less than the “meetings” of certain sects in modern times, express themselves,—to say nothing of the lustful mysteries which characterized the cults of the ancients. On the other hand, we see that unsatisfied sensuality very frequently finds an equivalent in religious enthusiasm.[[13]]
This relation between religious and sexual feeling is also shown on the basis of unequivocal psycho-pathological states. It suffices to recall how intense sensuality makes itself manifest in the clinical histories of many religious maniacs; the motley mixture of religious and sexual delusions that is so frequently observed in psychoses (e.g., in maniacal women, who think they are or will be the Mother of God), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and, finally, the sensual, cruel self-punishments, injuries, self-castrations, and even self-crucifixions resulting from abnormal sexual-religious feeling.
Any attempt to explain the relations between religion and love has difficulties to encounter. Many analogies present themselves. The feeling of sexual attraction and religious feeling (considered as a psychological fact) consist of two elements.