"1. It does not seek to prevent the congress of the sexes, but rather gives them more freedom, by removing danger of undesired consequences. 2. It does not seek to prevent the natural effects of the propagative act, but to prevent the propagative act itself, except when it is intended to be effectual. 3. Of course, it does not seek to destroy the living results of the propagative act, but provides that impregnation and child-bearing shall be voluntary, and, of course, desired.

"And now, to speak affirmatively, the exact thing that our theory does propose is, to take that same power of moral restraint and selfcontrol which Paul, Malthus, the Shakers, and all considerate men use, in one way or another, to limit propagation, and, instead of ap plying it, as they do, to the prevention of the congress of the sexes, to introduce it at another stage of the proceedings, viz., after the sexes have come together in social effusion, and before they have reached the propagative acme; thus allowing them all, and more than all, the ordinary freedom of love (since the crisis always interrupts the romance), and at the same time avoiding undesired procreation, and all the other evils incident to male incontinence. This is our fourth way, and we

think it the better way.

"The wholesale and ever-ready objection to this method is that it is unnatural, and unauthorized by the example of other animals. I may answer, in a wholesale way, that cooking, wearing clothes, living in houses, and almost every thing else done by civilized man, is unnatural in the same sense, and that a close adherence to the example of the brutes would require us to forego speech, and go on 'all fours!' But, on the other hand, if it is natural, in the best sense-as I believe it isfor rational beings to forsake the example of the brutes, and improve nature, by invention and discovery in all directions, then, truly, the argument turns the other way, and we shall have to confess that, until men and women find a way to elevate their sexual performances above those of the brutes, by introducing into them moral culture, they are living in unnatural degradation.

"But I will come closer to this objection," says Mr. Noyes. "The real meaning of it is, that male continence, as taught by us, is a difficult and injurious interruption of a natural act. But every instance of selfdenial is an interruption of some natural act. The man who virtuously contents himself with a look at a beautiful woman, is conscious of such an interruption. The lover who stops at a kiss denies himself a natural progression. It is an easy, descending grade through all the approaches of sexual love, from the first touch of respectful friendship to the final complete amalgamation. Must there be no interruption of this natural slide? Brutes, animal or human, tolerate none. Shall their ideas of self-denial prevail? Nay, it is the glory of man to control himself, and the Kingdom of Heaven summons him to self-control in ALL THINGS. If

it is noble and beautiful for the betrothed lover to respect the law of marriage in the midst of the glories of courtship, it may be even more noble and beautiful for the wedded lover to respect the unwritten laws of health and propagation, in the midst of the ecstacies of sexual union. The same moral culture that ennobles the antecedents and approaches of marriage will, some time, surely, glorify the consummation."

Whatever success may attend the plan suggested by the Rev. Mr. Noyes in the community of which he is the recognized leader, it will not be adopted to any prevailing extent in society at large. Indeed, the very ones who ought not to propagate their kind at all-the violent and criminal classes-will never listen to any advice requiring the exercise of self-denial or restraint. With mechanical means which would not interfere with their pleasures they might be induced to avoid the reponsibilities of parentage, for they are mainly bent upon selfish indulgence. A plan, or a device, to be successful must be one which married people in general will be willing to adopt. With encouragement rather than punishment, the ingenuity of the medical profession could so improve upon mechanical devices that in time we would be able to step from the mechanical to the physiological. Earnest thought and attention, and the comparing of observations of many physicians in extensive practice are only necessary to perfect mechanical means and to in time discover the secret which Nature has so long locked up in her secret "Library of Wonders." We shall not find it out with our eyes shut or with them effectually put out by the sharp-pointed statutes of our law-makers. It is not neces sary here to enter into criticism of existing laws relating to this matter, for a little pamphlet entitled "A Step Backward," reviewing such mistaken legislation, will be sent to any interested reader on receipt of ten cents by the author or his publishers. In this little tract, which must for the time being take the place of "Words in Pearl," are presented those moral and physiological considerations which show the importance in many instances of having means at hand for making sexual indulgence fruitless. Never, until they are, can the human family make much progress in scientific propagation; and, again, never until the laws relating to the latter are understood and faithfully observed will the moral and physical delinquencies which now afflict the race be eradicated. While regeneration may be necessary for those who are already born morally and physically accursed, let us so look to the laws govern ing generation that regeneration will be rendered unnecessary. To say nothing of the "headachy," the dyspeptic, consumptive, scrofulous, idiotic, insane, blind, deaf and dumb; the inefficient, indigent, and squalid; the pauper generating swarms of paupers and the beggar at every thrifty door; the thief and highwayman reproducing new broods of their kind and feeding them from the storehouses of the honest and industrious; to say nothing, I repeat, of all these which afflict the fam

ily and society, every community is infested with physical weaklings and natural-born sinners of less marked type who stand in the path of human progress. But our legislators practically say that the State has need of all this stuff, and that accidental reproduction shall go on! In the supplement to the Health Monthly for August, 1876, which can be hd by sending one dime, may be found the story of the writer's trial, which allusion has been made at the opening of this essay. A perusa! of this startling document will show how easily a person in this enlight aned age, and in this free and happy country, may go to prison for con. science sake. Only because of the author's large practice, the humane thought on the part of the Judge that patients might suffer, and the pleadings of influential friends in high places, was the writer released from the firm grip of the law and allowed to go to his home and family instead of the prison and its swarm of criminal habitants. Let it be borne in mind, too, that the offence related to the pamphlet entitled "Words in Pearl," and to matters appertaining to the prevention of conception, and to nothing whatever connected with fœticide or abortion, which practices were expressly condemned. "Words in Pearl" is out of print, but a new pamphlet has been issued, "The Radical Remedy in Social Science; or, Borning Better Babies through Regulating Reproduction by Controlling Conception," by Dr. Foote, Jr. (See page 912.) Sexual Indifference.

This, on the part of husband or wife, is a frequent cause of matri monial infelicity; so much so, as to demand the attention of the faithful physiologist. The necessity for reciprocity in the marital relation is treated at length in the chapter on adaptation in marriage, to which the reader is referred.

Sexual indifference of two kinds exists, viz.: anthropophobia and sexual apathy, as will be seen by turning to page 481. The former is characterized by the most intense aversion to sexual connection. The individual not only experiences no amative emotion, but feels the utmost disgust when required to yield to the conjugal embrace. Many who experience this feeling imagine that they are more chaste and more refined than those who are capable of amative excitement; but chastity or extraordinary refinement is never the cause. It results either from disease, or an uncongenial matrimonial alliance. Females are more subject to it than males, for the reason 'that their organs of procreation are more often diseased than those of the latter, and, further, because women are more apt to marry for wealth and homes than men. How can it be expected that a young and beautifu woman will heartily and affectionately welcome to her bed a decrepit old man, whom she has married merely because she wished to gratify her pride by the exhibition of the gewgaws of wealth? Or, if discrepancy in age does not exist, how soon the fires of amative passion die out and repugnance

takes their place, when the married couple are neither mentally nor phys. ically adapted.

But when adaptation in marriage has been duly considered and observed, disease, as before remarked, may cause anthropophobia. Excessive mental labor of either sex may so divert the electrical or nervous stimulus from the organ of amativeness, that repugnance may take place of desire. Diseases of the brain may produce the same result, and sometimes induce impotency. Ulcerous, tumorous, cancerous, and inflammatory affections of the sexual parts in either sex, are apt to cause a disrelish or incapacity for coition.

Sexual apathy is more common than anthropophobia. The same causes which produce the latter may produce the former. The most common cause is impotency, which may exist in either sex, as already shown in the essay on "Impotency," commencing on page 544. When the erectile tissue and erectile muscles are paralyzed, inability to perform the act exists on the part of the husband; while a wife so affected, although capable of cohabiting mechanically, experiences no pleasure, and is only too glad to be released from her husband's embrace. One of the most prevailing causes of indisposition on the part of the female is leucorrhoea, the presence of which disease corrupts the alkaline secretions of the vagina, and so coats the lining as to render the parts insensible to electrical influences. It also prevents the evolution of frictional electricity by excessive lubrication of the clitoris.

It not unfrequently happens, that a want of proper development of the clitoris causes indisposition. This organ is so very small in some females, as to almost render production of amative excitement by friction impossible. For a few weeks or months after marriage, or until the individual electricities of the husband and wife become in a measure equalized, the bride enjoys her new relation, as well, or nearly as well, as any one; but after the magnetisms of the two by repeated contact become somewhat similar, the wife loses her excitability, and only after she and her husband have been absent from each other for a few weeks or months, and entirely regain the electrical conditions peculiar to them, does she enjoy the sexual embrace. Sexual indifference arising from this cause is difficult of cure, although mechanical remedies may be prescribed in some cases, and the difficulty thereby remedied to some extent.

Protracted disuse of the sexual organs often produces apathy in women, and sometimes-not often-in men. I have remarked in another place, that, as a general rule, abstinence from sexual indulgence after reaching the age of pubescence, causes sexual indifference in women, and a morbid and almost mad desire for gratification in men. This I am confident from observation is true, nor is it difficult to account for it. If the unmarried woman does not practise masturbation; if, indeed, she gives no thought to

sexual matters whatever, the ova, or germs, nevertheless pass off as fast as they ripen, and do not accumulate in the system. On the other hard, there is no normal relief for a man except by sexual connection. In a few cases it may happen that the masculine constitution is such that no more of the seminal fluids are secreted and deposited in the seminal vesicles, than are needed by the system for masculine development. But, in most men, the system becomes overloaded with what might be called masculine qualities, including of course masculine magnetism, under which feeling it is difficult to withstand temptation. Hard mental labor may work up this surplus steam, but it is rather apt to drive one to secret vice, if relief is not obtained according to the means prescribed by nature. But the organs of women, unless they have due exercise, may become as powerless and apathetic, as the arm would if carried in a sling for a period of five or ten years. Any logical mind can see at once that the complete disuse of any organ of the body must necessarily be detrimental to health; this being the case, it is not strange that many young women arriving at pubescence at the age of thirteen to fifteen, and marrying at twenty or twenty-five, are liable to be rather unsatisfactory companions, unless these organs can be aroused from their lethargy, by a husband who is powerfully magnetic. Secret habits in girlhood may produce either nymphomania or sexual apathy. The latter, in these cases, usually results from reaction from the former, for debility and impotency of the procreative organs are apt to succeed such physical violations in both men and women.

Want of physical adaptation is a frequent cause. Similar temperaments and habits produce similar electrical conditions. Between such persons there is a kind of electrical repulsion. There may be such a congeniality in tastes and sentiments as to give rise to the greatest friendship and esteem one for the other, but neither possesses the power to impart to the other a magnetic thrill by touch or contact. Allow me to introduce the horseshoe magnet to illustrate clearly this matter. In Figure 191, A may be used to represent a husband and wife, well mated physically. It will be observed that when the positive and negative (marked p and n), are brought together,. there is perfect blending of the electrical or magnetic currents. One electrifies the other so that there is between animal bodies thus congenial an interchange of animal magnetism very pleasing to the senses. B may represent inadaptation. When husband and wife are of similar temperaments, the effect is the same as if two positives (marked p p) are brought together, and two negatives (marked n n) brought in contact. In this illustration it is seen that the dots, representing the magnetic currents, instead of blending and interchanging as in A, are repelled by each other. Now, so long as the electrical or magnetic forces of husband and wife are thus similar in quantity and quality, it is impossible for agreeable sen