Читать книгу Owen's Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question - Robert Dale Owen - Страница 5

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The reader, after having been taxed with the perusal of two prefaces before reaching the subject matter, may consider it a hardship to be further called upon to read a somewhat lengthy introduction, when the title of a book should be its best preface; but the Editor would ask your indulgence while he briefly states the object and design of the following pages.

It has often been held of questionable propriety, whether the public should be furnished with medical readings, it being presumed that such literature tended to thwart the very purposes it professed to encourage: that, instead of affording an exposition of the ills of our nature, whereby we might avoid or remove them, its effect necessarily, from the probable absence of all preliminary medical knowledge on the part of the reader, was but to create confusion and alarm, and, even where understood, only to magnify the fear; and this latter notion is grounded on the popular error, that even professional men, from the same cause, are least efficient when in attendance upon themselves. The doubt, however, may now be considered as removed if we but observe how of late years the desire to possess general information on all matters relative to the functions of life, has manifested itself, by the public attendance at the various learned institutions, and how also it has been encouraged by men eminent for their talents and worth, devoting themselves to the unfolding and simplification of the professional lore they had been years in acquiring. Lectures have been given, and large crowds of silent and anxious auditors have attended them—edition after edition of popular works on similar subjects, by the same men, have been called for, and eagerly caught up—the mysteries of physiology have been laid open from the lowest to the highest scale of creation: the history of man has been displayed, and his several elements have been demonstrated—the phenomena of respiration, digestion, and the circulation of the blood, have all had their share of attention, and many of the most prevalent diseases of humanity have been discussed and examined, their causes exposed, and the means of their avoidance detailed. So far from the public suffering from this diffusion of medical knowledge, immense advantages have accrued to all classes of mankind.

Among all the departments of anatomical research thus introduced, public decorum has judiciously excluded popular enquiries into the physiological laws of generation. I say judiciously, for the discussion of such topics, constituted as society is, could not be tolerated in large assemblies, and probably of both sexes, without the risk of engendering associations inimical to morality and virtue;^[1] but no one can be blind to the creeping progress there is daily being made, of touching upon these subjects in popular journals and publications, and no one can deny at least the importance of obedience to the laws that abide over the procreation of a healthy or diseased population. In the absence of information afforded through legitimate channels to the public, and feeling sensible that many errors are committed through ignorance, and endured through shame, this little work is tendered, accompanied with the hope that its usefulness may not be deteriorated by any misinterpretation of the writer’s motives.

The philosopher, in asking himself the question, what is love, solves it by asking another question, what is an animal, or what is man?

Looking at mankind, he finds them of two classes, male and female, varying but little as to external form or internal character. He finds that they possess the same passions, the same desires, that they live by the same means, and with the difference of the female being the body qualified to breed the species, he sees them in every respect to be exactly alike.

Reproduction or accumulation of identities similar to self is a common law of animal and vegetable matter; and the disposition to reproduce in all well-formed and healthy subjects is as powerful as hunger, or thirst, or the desire of self-preservation. It is a passion not criminal in the indulgence, but criminality attaches where the indulgence is withheld; because health, and even life, is endangered. It is not an artificial passion, such as a craving to exhibit the distinctions of society; but a natural passion, which we hold in common with every other animal. It grows with our growth, and is strengthened with our strength.

To prove that genuine love is nothing but this passion, it is sufficient to refer to the period at which it comes on, and at which it leaves us. We hear not of love in decaying age or in infancy; and the attachments of habit, of kindness, of gratitude, or of human, social, individual, parental, filial, or domestic affection, have no connexion with the passion of love. We talk of a love, of virtue, of friendship, of heroism, of character, of generosity; but this kind of love is a matter wholly distinct from the passion of love between the male and female. All men are apt to feel the tender passion of love for a beautiful woman: all women for a handsome and agreeable man: but this is nothing more than a desire to associate ourselves with the most agreeable objects for sexual commerce. The every day occurrences of mankind explain this matter, and hence the many violences and intrigues connected with the passion of love; hence seductions, adulteries, rapes and intercourses pronounced unlawful in different countries.

The present purpose of this work is, to explain the physiology of the reproductive organs, and the social bearing that a proper control of the reproductive instinct will have upon society, and its consequences when uncontrolled, and the benefits that must necessarily accrue when kept under due restraint.

Chemical science and experimental investigation, aided by the recent discoveries in that department of literature, have enabled the Editor to offer to the suffering mother a safe and sure preventive of conception. The expediency and moral propriety of its use he trusts will be satisfactorily explained in the subsequent pages.