Beauty

ubject, is often the means of producing injurious effects; because, a system of concealment on this subject, as observed in the preceding chapter, is quite impracticable. Discoveries made by young

sm of reproduction in various vegetable and animal beings, and the fatal consequences to which this propensity may lead. Such procedure, if well conducted, ca

ent his choosing, among corrupt servants or ignorant youths of his own age, the confidants of his passion. The parent or instructer, moreover, is then justly entitled to, and has grate

ion of this kind, on the stature, the various development of the figure, the muscular power, the quality of the voic

hat is called moralizing, which is often only the contemptible cant of a being who cannot reason, especially when it takes the place of a simpl

ng to the circumstances of the case, those

her. In plants, the powder termed pollen, in animals a peculiar liquid which, deriving its name by analogy from the seeds of plants, is termed seminal, is secreted by the male plant or animal, and, by organs differently formed in each ki

s most valuable, all that can decide his fortunes and his happiness in the world, his st

the tall men and women of the country as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the Scottish borders, where they have not been overworked, with the stunted and dwarfed creatures of the metropolis, where a stranger, when he first enters it, is apt to think he sees

refully maintain them by continence as well as by crossing. The too early employment, the depraved abuses, the injury, or the removal, of the sexual organs, are all of them caus

upeds previous to the time of the union of their sexes. But, this being past, precisely in the same proportion does the act of reproduction

xpresses the abasement of power amid the indulgences of love. Euripides also depicts the terrible Achilles as timid before women, and respectful with Clytemnestra and Iphigenia. Hence, when a foolish lord reproached the poet Dryden with having g

upon it is prodigious. How entirely it is altered by the removal of the testes in eunuchs is known to every one: in corresponding proportion, is it altered by every act of the generative organs, but especially by sexual indulgence during puberty. The ho

fter procreation; that birds fall into moulting and sadness; and that male insects even perish after this effort, as if they yielded their individual life to

this takes place in early life. It is then that man becomes bald and bent; and that the charms of woman fade. Even in advanced age,

hat power at an early age must take away these characteristics. Genius as surely languishes and is extinguished ami

they do not dissipate; and that which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately from t

e imagination and impel the mind to sublime exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserv

l faculties. Thus the beasts which are the most lascivious, the ass, the boar, &c., are also the most stupid; and idiots and

uce the greatest number of young; while men of genius have engendered the fewest. It is

tal faculties, other things being equal, will be he who wastes them least in early life by sexual indulgence-who most economizes the vital stimulant, in order

haracter of the adolescent whom it is wished to direct, for a young woman whose beauty and good qualities may inspire him with attachment. This means will serve, more than can easily be imagined, to preserve the adolescent both from the grosser attractions of libertinism and the disease it entails, and

y sexual association, I may briefl

e not restrained within just limits, it degenerates into inordinate lewdness or real mania: "Repperi

ndulgence, it has been justly observed, will ever be the ruin of the rich, a

e, is characterized by physical and moral impotence, or has a

they are proportionally distinguished by fear and cowardice

ts of cowardice are uniformly found in eunuchs, slaves, courtiers, and sycophants; whi

in self-love, as they are conscious of being more contemptible; and they avenge themselves with more malignit

edici solicited the massacre of the Protestants; Paul, Constantine, and Nicholas, of Russia, were happy only when they wallowed in blood; Charles X., equally effeminate and bigoted, per

n the contrary, scarcely fe

ach these effeminate individuals: it is every

o the health and welfare of these individual

races, and the decay of empires. The delights of Capua caused the ruin of Hannibal; and the Roman, once so proud be

e most frightful punishments of libertinism are the diseases which it

ee women, and those the least common of the promiscuous, two at least are certainly in a state of disease capable of the most destructive infection.

om which it destroys. This frightful disease has no natural termination but in a disgusting disgraceful death, after disfiguring the countenance, by causing blindness, loss of the nose, the palate and teeth, and by the spoliation of the sinning organs. The miserables, who thus perish in public hospitals, are so off

re he will find collected the poor victims of debauchery-the unhappy women whom, even the day before, he may have seen in the streets, with faces dressed in smiles, amid the torments, the corrosion, and the contagion of disease. This may leave an impres