Religion and Lust

The middle class, as ever the true conservators of society, seeing this miserable state of affairs, attempted to remedy it. Not fully understanding the danger of such a procedure, they allowed the degenerate element to share in their deliberations. Their moderate and sensible counsels were quickly overruled by their savage associates, who brought about a Reign of Terror (with such psychical atavists as Marat, Danton, and Robespierre at its head), the like of which the world had never seen before, nor has ever experienced since.

I have demonstrated, in the three instances of history just cited, that degeneration has invariably followed luxury, and that a social and political cataclysm has been, invariably, the result of this degeneration. That certain classes of the Old World, and of the New World, also, are living in inordinate luxury; and that certain other classes are, even now, struggling in the very depths of poverty, is a well-known fact. That this state of affairs is rapidly increasing the percentage of degenerates, such as sexual perverts, insane individuals, and congenital criminals, is not generally known; yet it is a woeful truth.

The factors in the production of degeneration are as multitudinous as they are varied, and I can find space for only a few of them. The artificiality of many peoples’ lives, wherein night is turned into day, is a prominent factor in the production of degeneration. Now, the long continued influence of artificial light exerts a very deleterious effect on the nervous system; hence it is not to be wondered at that so many men and women of society are neurasthenic. Not only are those individuals who, voluntarily and preferably, spend the greater portions of their lives in artificial light, rendered nervously irritable, but those, also, who are driven by force of circumstances to turn night into day are likewise afflicted. Several years ago, I met a distinguished editor at Waukesha, who was suffering greatly from nervous exhaustion. He told me that he was so situated that he did all of his work at night, often writing until three o’clock in the morning. I advised him to quit this and to do his editorial work during daylight. Not long after, he wrote me that he had followed my advice, and that he was a new man in point of health.

The loss of nervous vitality makes itself evident by a feeling either of exhaustion or irritability. The fashionable devotee, in order to counteract this, either stimulates the system with alcohol, or exorcises the “fidgets” by the use of sedatives, such as chloral or morphia. The baneful effects of such medication are not at once appreciable, but, if continued for any length of time, they will eventually result in a total demoralization of the nervous system. Time and again have I seen fashionable men and women, at the close of the season, veritable nervous wrecks.

What necessarily would be the effect of physical and psychical lesions like these on a child begotten by such parents? The inevitable result would be degeneration in some form or other.

Again, many men and women stand the drain of a fashionable season on their nervous systems without attempting to recoup through the agency of drugs, and at the end find themselves physically and psychically exhausted. They go to the seaside or some other resort, and, in a measure, recover their nervous vitality, only to lose it again during the next season. This continues for season after season, the nervous system all the time becoming weaker, until some day there is a collapse, ending in hysteria, paresis, or some other of the hundred forms of neurotic disorder. What will be the effect on the progeny resulting from the union of such individuals? Again the answer must necessarily be—degeneration.

The long and continued intercourse of the sexes in the ball-room, where the women are dressed so décolleté that they excite sensuality in the men, very frequently without the men being conscious of the fact, must necessarily exert a deleterious effect on the nervous system.

Contact of the sexes in the dance is only pleasurable because of that contact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and denied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim that no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. I know from personal experiences that they are honest in this declaration, yet, from a psychical standpoint, they are woefully in error. Aestheticism and carnality are by no means as dissociate as the æsthete would have us believe. All pleasurable emotions that have their inception in the senses are, fundamentally, of carnal origin. The waltz is æsthetic, yet all of its pleasure is based on an emotion closely akin to sensuality. Men derive no pleasure from waltzing with one another, nor do women under like circumstances.

Nature demands in the interest of health a certain amount of exercise. The luxurious society man or woman utterly disregards this demand of nature, consequently indigestion, with all of its associated ills, steps in, and becomes an additional factor in the production of nervous exhaustion. To tempt the appetite, highly seasoned foods, many of which are deleterious and injurious, are prepared and taken into the torpid and crippled stomach. Finally nature rebels and the unfortunate dyspeptic is forced to go through life on a diet of oatmeal, or, weakened by lack of healthy sustenance, the brain gives way, and the victim passes the remainder of his or her life in a lunatic asylum. Children begotten by miserable invalids like these, beyond a peradventure, must necessarily be degenerate.

Indigestion is not the only ill that nature inflicts for any disregard of her laws. She is a rough nurse but a safe one, consequently she forbids the rearing of her hardiest creation, man, in hot houses, as though he were a tender exotic. The luxurious individual pampers his body, following the dictates of his own selfish desires and utterly disregarding the laws of nature, and before he reaches middle age, discovers that he has become an old, old man, weak in body, but still weaker in mind.

The children resulting from the union of the various neurasthenics described above are necessarily degenerate. As they grow up, they show this degeneration by engaging in all kinds of licentious debauchery, and unnatural and perverted indulgences of appetite. In nine cases out of ten, they will spend the fortunes inherited from their parents in riotous debauchery, and will eventually sink, if death does not overtake them, to the level of their fellow degenerates—those who have been brought into existence by poverty and debauchery, and who await them at the foot of the social ladder. Among such degenerate beings, the doctrines of socialism, of communism, of nihilism, and of anarchy have their origin.

Now let us turn our attention to the evidences of luxury and debauchery, and the consequent evidences of degeneration, which obtrude themselves on all sides. The reckless extravagance of the nobility of the Old World is well known. Vice and licentiousness even penetrate to royal households, and princes of the blood pose as roués and debauchees. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, degeneration in the wealthy classes of society generally makes itself evident by the appearance of psycho-sexual disorders. The horrible abominations of the English nobility, as portrayed in the revelations of Mr. Stead, are well known. Charcot, Segalâs, Féré, and Bouvier give clear and succinct accounts of the vast amount of sexual perversion existing among the French, while Krafft-Ebing informs us that the German empire is cursed by the presence of thousands of these unfortunates. When we come to examine this phase of degeneration in our own country, we find that it is very prevalent. This is especially noticeable in the larger cities, though we find examples of it scattered broadcast throughout the land.

The editor of one of our leading magazines, in a remarkable series of letters, has shown that the wealthy New Yorkers revel in a luxuriousness that is absolutely startling in its license. Thousands are expended on a single banquet, while the flower bills for a single year of some of these modern Luculli would support a family of five people for three or four years! Bacchanalian orgies that dim even those of the depraved, corrupt, and degenerate Nero are of nightly occurrence.139 Drunkenness, lechery, and gambling are the sports and pastimes of these ultra rich men, and it is even whispered that milady is not much behind milord in the pursuit of forbidden pleasures.

Psycho-sexual disorders are not the only evidences of degeneration in the wealthy, by any means. Many a congenital criminal is born in the purple, who shows his moral imbecility in many ways. Sometimes he sinks at once to the level of a common thief, but generally his education keeps him within the pale of the law. Always, however, his sensuality is unbounded, and he will hesitate at nothing in order to gratify his desires. This unbridled license has already had its effect elsewhere. We see that it has even corrupted the guardians and conservators of the public peace. The recent investigation of the police board of New York shows a degree of corruption that is simply overwhelming, and that the same state of affairs exists in Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and other large cities, I have every reason to believe.

There are yet other evidences of degeneration; witness the eroticism that is to be found in our literature. Unless a book appeals to the degenerate tastes of its readers it might just as well never have been published. This is not cynicism; it is plain, unvarnished truth. Again, turn to the stage, and we find the same thing. The tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare are shelved, while immoral “society plays” and “living pictures” and “problem plays” hold the boards. Salacity, with only sufficient and that is, degeneration. That which happened centuries ago will happen again, for covering to hide downright lewdness, is everywhere apparent. Now what is the result of this? There can be but one answer, man is governed by the same laws of nature now as he was then.

Statistics show that insanity is markedly on the increase. This is not to be wondered at when we take into consideration the fact that debauchery is the rule, and not the exception, among certain classes of people. Syphilis, one of the most productive causes of degeneration, is exceedingly active throughout the whole civilized world. Blashko states that one out of every ten men in the city of Berlin is tainted with this terrible malady. This is wholly attributable to the unbounded sensuality of the people. Crime of every description is rearing its hydra-head, and clasping in its destroying embrace an alarming proportion of human beings.

I have shown elsewhere, that the congenital criminal is the result of degeneration, and that he comes from all classes of society. He is, however, most frequently the product of the lower classes, and lives and dies among his congeners. I have shown, also, that the anarchist, the nihilist, and the socialist belong to the same category of degenerate beings. Poverty, brought on by high taxation, by war, and by overcrowding, has been, during the last millenary period, very fertile in the production of degenerates in the Old World. Lack of food and sanitation, the usual adjuncts of poverty, are powerful factors in the production of degenerate individuals. The Old World has gotten rid of these people as rapidly as possible by unloading them on our shores. Year after year, practically without restriction, thousands of these anti-social men and women have swarmed into our country, until we, comparatively speaking, a nation just born, contain as many of these undesirable citizens as any of the older nations. They still continue to enter our gates, and we ourselves are adding to their number, as I have shown, by our own production.

Some day—and I greatly fear that day is not very far distant—some professional anarchist (for there are professional anarchists as well as professional thieves) will consider the time ripe for rebellion, and, raising the fraudulent cry of “Labor against Capital!” instead of his legitimate cry of “Rapine! Murder! Booty!” will lead this army of degenerates, composed of anarchists, nihilists, sexual perverts, and congenital criminals, against society. And who will bear the brunt of this savage irruption? The ultra-rich? By no means! The great “middle class”—the true conservators of society and civilization—will fight this battle. It will be a fight between civilization and degeneration, and civilization will carry the day. There would have been no French revolution had the middle class been as wise then as it is to-day. It was taken by surprise at that savage, bloody time, but as soon as it recovered, how quickly it brought order out of chaos!

Education is the bulwark of civilization, and the great middle class, freed of dogmatism, bigotry, and superstition, is welcoming education with outstretched hands. It is gaining recruits, and is strengthening its defenses, so that when the time comes its enemies may find it fully prepared.

From the signs of the times and the evidence before me, I have no hesitation in declaring that I believe that the beginning of the end is at hand! This social cataclysm may not occur for many years, yet the agencies through which it will finally be evolved are even now at work, and are bringing the culmination of their labors ever nearer and nearer as time passes!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnobius: Adversus Gentes.

Balboa: History of Peru.

Bancroft: Native Races of the Pacific States of North America.

Bates: The Naturalist on the River Amazon.

Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan.

Becan: Origines Antwerpianae.

Biart: The Aztecs.

Bird: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan.

Bosman: Africa.

Bremen: De Situ Daniae.

Browlow: Travels.

Buchardi: Decretorum Libri.

Cary: Translations of Herodotus.

Chaille-Long: Naked Truths of Naked People.

Darwin: Works.

Dall: Alaska and its Resources.

De Remusat: Lettrés Edifiantes.

De Remusat: Nouv. Mel. Asiatiques.

Draper: The Conflict between Religion and Science.

De Quatrefages: The Human Species.

De Quatrefages: Hommes Fossiles.

Dorsey: Siouan Cults; An. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1889-90.

Du Chaillu: Equatorial Africa.

Eden: The Fifth Continent.

Ellis: Polynesian Researches.

Forbes: Oriental Memoirs.

Fletcher: Peabody Museum Report. Vol. iii.

Friedreich: Psychologie.

Garcilasso: The Royal Commentaries of the Incas.

Golnitz: Itinerarium Belgico-Gallicum.

Gregory: The Great Rift Valley.

Haeckel: The History of Creation.

Hammond: Impotence in the Male.

Haeckel: The Evolution of Man.

Herodotus: Euterpe, Clio, Etc.

Horace: Priap. Carm., Lxxxiv.

Johnston: The Kilima-Njaro Expedition.

Keller: The Amazon and Madeira Rivers.

Knight: The Worship of Priapus.

Krafft-Ebing: Psychopathia Sexualis.

Lanercroft: The Chronicles of.

Letourneau: Evolution of Marriage.

L’Estoile: Confession de Sancy.

Lydston: Diseases of Society.

Lumholtz: Among Cannibals.

Martene and Durand: Scrip. Ampliss. Collect.

Maspero: The Dawn of Civilization.

Martene et Durand: Coll. Antiq. Poenit.

Maspero: Egypt. Ant. Etud.

Maudsley: The Physiology of Mind.

Newbold: Appleton’s Pop. Sci. Month., Feb. 1897.

Parkman: The Jesuits in North America.

Peschel: The Races of Man.

Prescott: The Conquest of Peru.

Rabelais: Works.

Romanes: Mental Evolution in Animals.

Reclus: Primitive Folk.

Romanes: Mental Evolution in Man.

Sepp: Heidenthum u. Christenthum.

Sidis: Multiple Personality.

Sherwill: The Rajmahal Hills.

Spencer: Principles of Sociology.

Spitzka: Insanity.

Stanley: In Darkest Africa.

Stephens: Yucatan.

Stuhlman: Mit Emin Pasha.

Strabo: Works.

Teulon: Orig. de la Famille.

Tylor: Anthropology.

Vignoli: Myth and Science.

Vogt: Lectures on Man.

Wappaus: Allgem. Bevoelkerungsstatistik.

Wallace: Travels on the Amazon.

Westermarck: Human Marriage.

White: History of the Warfare of Science with Theology.

Wallace: The Malay Archipelago.

Weir: Dawn of Reason.

1

Spencer: Principles of Sociology, vol. i, p. 281.

2

“Theology and religion are of service in morals and conduct in direct proportion as they have become adapted to our knowledge of natural phenomena”—Lydston: The Diseases of Society, p. 68.

3

Tito Vignoli: Myth and Science, p. 85.

4

Clarke in his interesting book gives us some very readable stories anent the ability of animals seeing imaginary objects. I myself have seen a parrot with a marked case of delirium tremens, due to excessive use of alcoholic stimulants (Vid. Author: The Dawn of Reason). Romanes also gives valuable data in his Mental Evolution (in Animal, and in Man) concerning this subject. The fox terrier (Vid. Author: Dawn of Reason) which carried his dreams into his awakened state is apropos.

5

Maspero (Sayce): The Dawn of Civilization, p. 103, and Maspero: Etudes de Mythologie et d’Archiologie Egyptiennes, vol. ii, pp. 34, 35.

6

Maspero (Sayce): The Dawn of Civilization, p. 183 et seq.

7

That the patriarchs had their household gods, we have every reason for believing; these household gods were, however, tutelary divinities, such as were kept in the house of every Chaldean, and were not the images of ancestors. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole the household gods of Laban, her father, who is called a Syrian. Abraham himself was a Chaldean. Gen. 11:31; also Gen. 31:19-20.

8

Bancroft: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. i, p. 400.

9

Balboa: History of Peru.

10

Garcilasso: The Royal Commentaries of the Incas.

11

Browlow: Travels, p. 136.

12

Bancroft: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. i, p. 400.

13

Reclus: Primitive Folk, p. 18.

14

Dall: Alaska and its Resources, p. 96.

15

In a letter to me, a naval officer of high rank states that, beyond question of doubt, the Aleutian priests keep male concubines whom they use in their religious observances. He, also, gives other evidences of phallic worship among these people.

16

Negroes of Benin and Sierra Leone (Bosman, loc. cit., p. 526), Mandingoes (Waitz, vol. ii, p. 3), Bechuanas (Holub, loc. cit., p. 398); quoted also by Westermarck, Human Marriage, p. 206.

17

Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 351.

18

Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 351.

19

Inasmuch as the hæmaturia occasioned by the larvæ of Bilharzia has its origin in the parenchyma of the kidney, and, since we have no reason for believing that this race has any idea of histology or pathology, it is manifest folly to ascribe circumcision as a prophylactic measure against this parasite. Bilharzia is now considered a true parasite by Wolfe.

20

Stuhlmann: Mit Emin Pasha, p. 848.

21

Johnston: The Kilima-Njaro Expedition, p. 412.

22

Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 344.

23

Lumholtz: Among Cannibals, p. 282.

24

Ibid., p. 279.

25

Lumholtz: Among Cannibals, p. 283.

26

Ibid., p. 283.

27

Eden: The Fifth Continent, p. 69; quoted also by Lumholtz: Among Cannibals.

28

Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 170.

29

Stanley: In Darkest Africa, vol. ii, p. 400.

30

Du Chaillu: Equatorial Africa; Chaillé Long: Naked Truths of Naked People; Stanley: In Darkest Africa.

31

Du Chaillu: Equatorial Africa, p. 240.

32

Possibly, this god is the same as the god mentioned by Livingstone, Baker, and Stanley.

33

Bates: The Naturalist on the River Amazon, p. 381.

34

Prescott: The Conquest of Peru, vol. i, p. 101.

35

Prescott: The Conquest of Peru, vol. i, p. 95.

36

Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 13.

37

Bird: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan.

38

Vogt: Lectures on Man.

39

De Quatrefages: The Human Species.

40

De Quatrefages, in his Hommes Fossiles, places the Ainus anthropologically among the Primeval Teutons!

41

Peschel: The Races of Man, p. 388.

42

Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 89.

43

Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 87.

44

Knight: The Worship of Priapus.

45

Knight: The Worship of Priapus, p. 14.

46

The Aleutians, according to the testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, make their neophytes pass through like physical exercises in preparing them for their duties in celebrating Priapic Rites.

47

Krafft-Ebing: Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 201; see also Hammond: Impotence in the Male.

48

Herodotus: Euterpe, 46.

49

Masculine hetarism is still in vogue among many primitive peoples, and is distinctly a religious rite. “The Kanats of New Caledonia frequently assemble at night in a cabin to give themselves up to this kind of debauchery… In the whole of America, from north to south, similar customs have existed or still exist.” Letourneau: The Evolution of Marriage, p. 62. The same author says: “It was also a widely spread custom throughout Polynesia, and even a special deity presided over it. The Southern Californians did the same, and the Spanish missionaries, on their arrival in the country, found men dressed as women and assuming their part. They were trained to this from youth, and often publicly married to the chiefs. Nero was evidently a mere plagiarist. The existence of analogous customs has been proved against the Guyacurus of La Plata, the natives of the Isthmus of Darien, the tribes of Louisiana, and the ancient Illinois.”

50

I Kings: chap xi, verse 5.

51

Ibid., verse 7.

52

II Kings: chap. xiv, verses 3, 4.

53

Ibid., chap. xxiii, verse 7.

54

Herodotus: Euterpe, 64.

55

Strabo, when writing of the Armenians, who were phallic worshipers, says: “It is the custom of the most illustrious personages to consecrate their virgin daughters to this goddess (Anaïtis). This in no way prevents them from finding husbands, even after they have prostituted themselves for a long time in the temples of Anaïtis. No man feels on this account any repugnance to take them as wives.” Strabo: vol. xi., 14; quoted also by Letourneau: The Evolution of Marriage, p. 46.