Influence of Food. We have previously noticed the effects which food, exercise, and other hygienic agencies, have upon digestion, circulation, and respiration; and we find that they exert a not less potent influence upon the health of the generative organs. Excessive stimulation excites the sexual passions. For this reason, children should not be immoderately indulged in highly seasoned foods. Those persons who have great muscular vigor are endowed with violent passions, and unless restrained by moral considerations, are very likely to be overcome by their animal propensities.
Alcoholic stimulants have a debasing influence upon the whole system, and especially upon the sexual organs; they excite the animal and debase the moral nature; they exhaust the vitality, and, after the excitement, which they temporarily induce, has passed away, the body is left in a prostrated condition.
Physical Labor modifies the Passions. Labor consumes the surplus vitality which a person may possess, and no better protective can be found against the gratification of the passions, unless it be high moral training, than daily toil extended to such a degree as to produce fatigue. Labor determines the blood to the surface and to other parts of the body, and prevents excitement and congestion of the sexual centers. If, by education or association, the passions of children be excited, they will be increased. If, on the contrary, they be taught to avoid these social or solitary evils, they will be abated. Let them be educated to work and the intellectual faculties will assert their sway, the moral powers will be strengthened, and the body better developed, for purity of mind is the result of the perfect development of man.
Influences Of Climate. Individuals possess distinguishing peculiarities characteristic of the nation to which they belong. Climate exerts a powerful influence upon mankind. In tropical regions the inhabitants are enervated, effeminate, and sensual. The rich live in luxury and ease, vice is unrestrained and license unbridled. When the animal propensities are allowed to predominate, the mental faculties are kept in subjection. Hence races that inhabit those latitudes rarely produce scholars or philosophers. A warm climate hastens the development of the reproductive organs. Men and women become mature at a much earlier age in those regions, than in countries where the temperature is lower. In like manner there is a tendency to premature enfeeblement, for the earlier the system matures, the sooner it deteriorates.
Man is a Social Being. History demonstrates that when man is deprived of the society of women, he becomes reckless, vicious, depraved, and even barbarous in his habits, thus illustrating the maxim: "It is not good for man to be alone." Social intercourse promotes mental and physical development. The development of the individual implies the unfolding of every power, both physical and mental. Nothing so regulates and restrains passion as a healthy condition of the organs through which it finds expression. And every organ of the body is powerful in proportion to its soundness. The propensities play a prominent part in the education of the child. When properly disciplined and held in subordination to the higher faculties, they constitute an important factor in the economy of man. Boys are more liable to be morbidly excited when secluded from the society of girls, and vice versa. Again, when the sexes are accustomed to associate, the passions are not apt to be aroused, because of the natural antagonistic constitutional elements. The influence of the one refines, and ennobles the other. Let children be taught to understand their natures, and knowing them, they will learn self-government. "As man rises in education and moral feeling he proportionately rises in the power of self-restraint; and consequently as he becomes deprived of this wholesome law of discipline he sinks into self-indulgence and the brutality of savage life.
The passions may be aroused by the language, appearance or dress of the opposite sex. A word spoken without any impure intent is often construed in a very different sense by one whose passions color the thought, and is made to convey an impression entirely unlike that which was intended by the speaker. Also, the dress may be of such a character as to excite the sexual passion. The manner in which the apparel is worn is often so conspicuous as to become bawdy, thereby appealing to the libidinous desires, rather than awakening an admiration for the mental qualities.
Obscene Literature. Literature is a powerful agent either for good or evil. If we would improve the morals, choice literature must be selected, whether it be that which realizes the ideal, or idealizes the real. Obscene literature, or books written for the express purpose of exciting or intensifying sexual desires in the young, goads to an illicit gratification of the passions, and ruins the moral and physical nature.
It not unfrequently happens that a child is born with a vigorous, mental organism which promises a brilliant future, but manhood finds him incompetent, debilitated, and totally incapacitated for mental or manual labor. This may be the result of youthful indiscretion, ignorantly committed, but not unfrequently it is the effect of a pernicious literature which inflames the imagination, tramples upon reason, and describes to the youth a realm where the passions are the ruling deities.
Many persons are born into the world with disordered organizations for which they are not themselves responsible. Such individuals are entitled to the sympathy of humanity. Dyspepsia, scrofula, consumption, and a thousand ills to which mankind is heir, are inherited from parents, the results of ill-assorted marriages. Intoxicated parents often produce offspring utterly demented. Children of healthy parents, with good constitutions, are usually healthy and intelligent. There are marked varieties of character in children of the same parents. One manifests great precocity, another is below the average in mental attainments; one is amiable, another irritable in disposition; indeed, there are often as great differences between children of the same, as of different families. This is due to the physical and mental conditions of the parents, more especially the mother, not only at the time of the impregnation but also during the period intervening between conception and the birth of the offspring. The ancients regarded courage as the principal virtue. By us, purity is so estimated. Moral purity is an essential requisite to the growth and perfection of the character.
Self-Abuse. Untold miseries arise from the pollution of the body. Self-pollution, or onanism, is one of the most prolific sources of evil, since it leads both to the degradation of body and mind. It is practiced more or less by members of both sexes, and the habit once established, is overcome with the greatest difficulty. It is the source of numerous diseases which derange the functional activity of the organs involved, and eventually impair the constitution. This vicious habit is often practiced by those who are ignorant of its dangerous results. Statistics show that insanity is frequently caused by masturbation.