And now, let my readers pause. Let them review the various arguments I have placed before them. Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that, when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics; that, by it, early marriage is deprived of its heaviest consequences, and seduction of its sharpest sting: that, by it, man may be saved from moral ruin, and woman from desolating dishonour; that by it the first pure affections may be soothed and satisfied, instead of being thwarted or destroyed—let them call to mind all this, and then let them say, whether the possession of such control be not a blessing to man.
It shocks the mind of a woman at the first thought; but once practiced, all prejudice flies, and gratification must be the consequence. To weak and sickly females, to those to whom parturition is dangerous, and who never produce living or healthy children, the discovery is a great blessing. And it is also a real blessing in all other cases, where children are not desired. It will become the very bulwark of love and wisdom, of beauty, health, and happiness.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SUBJECT CONSIDERED IN ITS IMMEDIATE CONNEXION WITH PHYSIOLOGY.
It now remains, after having spoken of the desirability of obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak of its practicability.
As, in this world, the value of labour is too often estimated almost in proportion to its inutility, so in physical science, contested questions seem to have attracted attention and engaged research, almost in the inverse ratio of their practical importance. We have a hundred learned hypotheses for one decisive practical experiment. We have many thousands of volumes written to explain fanciful theories, and scarcely as many dozens to record ascertained facts.
It is not my intention, in discussing this branch of the subject, to examine the hundred ingenious theories of generation which ancient and modern physiologists have put forth. I shall not enquire whether the future human being owes its first existence, as Hippocrates and Galen asserted, and Buffon very ingeniously supports, to the union of two life-giving fluids, each a sort of extract of the body of the parent, and composed of organic particles similar to the future offspring; or whether, as Harvey and Haller teach, the embryo reposes in the ovum until vivified by the seminal fluid, or perhaps only by the aura seminalis; or whether, according to the theories of Leuvenhoeck and Boerhaave, the future man first exists as a spermatic animalcula, for which the ovum becomes merely the nourishing receptacle; or whether, as the ingenious Andry imagines, a vivifying worm be the more correct hypothesis; or whether, finally, as Perault will have it,[[25]] the embryo beings (too wonderfully organized to be supposed the production of any mere physical phenomenon) must be imagined to come directly from the hands of the Creator, who has filled the universe with these little germs, too minute, indeed, to exercise all the animal functions, but still self-existent, and awaiting only the insinuation of some subtle essence into their microscopic pores, to come forth as human beings. Still less am I inclined to follow Hippocrates and Tertullian in their enquiries, whether the soul is merely introduced into the fœtus, or preexists in the semen, and becomes, as it were, the architect of its future residence, the body;[[26]] or to attempt a refutation of the hypothesis of the metaphysical naturalist,[[27]] who asserts, (and adduces the infinite indivisibility of matter in support of the assertion,) that the actual germs of the whole human race, and of all that are yet to be born, existed in the ovaria of our first mother, Eve. I leave these and fifty other hypotheses as ingenious and as useless, to be discussed by those who seem to make it a point of honour to leave no fact unexplained by some imagined theory; and I descend at once to the terra firma of positive experience and actual observation.
All things having life, increase and multiply upon an analogous principle, but the method of effecting that increase differs very considerably. In the human race, nature has furnished the sexes parts, which it is necessary for the purpose of reproduction, should approximate and commingle their elements or rudiments of future existence, and that, that intermixture should take place in the womb of the female. In some of the lower order of animals and in the vegetable world the sexes are combined in one object which object possesses the power of increase. To enter into the physiological minutæ of impregnation would be embarking more scientifically in these matters than this little book professes to do, it being our intention more to hold up a popular view than to discuss the various opinions upon any given point.
It is exceedingly to be regretted that mankind did not spend some small portion, at least, of the time and industry which has been wasted on theoretical researches, in collecting and collating the actual experience of human beings. But this task, too difficult for the ignorant, has generally been thought too simple and common-place for the learned. To this circumstance, joined to the fact, that it is not thought fitting or decent for human beings freely to communicate their personal experience on the important subject now under consideration—to these causes are attributable the great and otherwise unaccountable ignorance which so strangely prevails, even sometimes among medical men, as to the power which man may possess over the reproductive instinct. Many physicians will positively deny that man possesses any such power. And yet, if the thousandth part of the talent and research had been employed to investigate this momentous fact, which has been turned to the building up of idle theories, no commonly intelligent individual could well be ignorant of the truth.
I have taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of the most enlightened physicians of Great Britain and France on this subject; (opinions which popular prejudice will not permit them to offer publicly in their works;) and they all concur in admitting, what the experience of the French nation positively proves, that man may have a perfect control over this instinct: and that men and women may, without any injury to health, or the slightest violence done to the moral feelings, and with but small diminution of the pleasure which accompanies the gratification of the instinct, refrain at will from becoming parents. It has chanced to me, also, to win the confidence of several individuals, who have communicated to me, without reserve, their own experience: and all this has been corroborative of the same opinion.
Thus, though I pretend not to speak positively of the details of a subject, which will then only be fully understood when men acquire sense enough simply and unreservedly to discuss it, I may venture to assure my readers, that the main fact is incontrovertible. I shall adduce such facts in proof of this as may occur to me in the course of this investigation.