A fundamental error as to the nature of human sex too generally exists amongst us, from failure to recognise that in the human race the mind tends to rule the body, and that sex in the human being is even more a mental passion than a physical instinct. This superficial view dims our perception of the causes which produce the facts around us; it also prevents our recognising the essential difference which exists between human and brute sex, and it blinds us to the imperative necessity of giving human education to this part of our nature.
As the study of the human body is carried on from its simpler to its more complex parts, it is perceived that the physiology of the more complex functions takes in a wider range of relations. The wise guidance of these more complex powers by parent or physician in health, and disease, demands a careful consideration of this extended range of relations. Thus the proper nourishment and exercise of the brain require more extended knowledge than the hygienic treatment of the skin, and diseases of the brain cause more serious danger to the individual. So all the faculties which belong to the life of relation—viz., the faculties which, like the senses, link us to our fellows—involve a broader range of study than those which appertain solely to those functions of the body which concern only the individual.
The portion of our organization most difficult of study, but also requiring the widest range of knowledge for its healthy guidance, is the faculty of sex. This faculty has a very complex aspect from its three-fold relation to the race, to men, and to women.
Sex is not essential to individual existence, but it is indispensable to the continuance of the race; and the progressive or retrograde character of the race largely depends upon the wisdom with which this faculty is guided in youth, and the character of the parental relations which are established.
A serious difficulty in understanding how to educate and regulate the relations of sex arises from the fact that it is the relation of two equal but distinct halves of the human race, and exists in the dual form—male and female. Unless the distinctive characteristics and requirements of each of these equal halves are fully understood, the relation between them cannot be satisfactory. The physiological meaning of the differences in organization between the sexes is at present very imperfectly understood.
The most striking distinction, however, in the manifestation of the sexual faculties exists between man and the brute creation, and is found in the mental or moral aspects which it assumes in man. The general structural resemblance between man and the lower animals affords no guidance to the education of this human faculty, for the differences between man and the lower animals are radically greater than the resemblance between them.
The most evident form of this mental difference shows itself as a sentiment of self-consciousness which is not observed in the brute. If an animal is not frightened by human beings it never hesitates in carrying on sexual congress in their presence, and neither before nor after the special act does it exhibit the smallest approach to shame in relation to it. In man, however, from the earliest dawn of the approaching faculty, self-consciousness is intense. This is not only observed in well brought-up boys and girls, who shrink from indecency of word or action, but it is never entirely extinguished in the most corrupt man or woman; and even the poor little waifs of our streets, blighted from earliest infancy, exhibit marked consciousness in their infantile depravity. All the vast difference between the gregariousness of the lower animals and the highest human civilization indicates the mental difference which moulds the human form of the sexual relations. Permanent parental care of offspring, mutual respect between the sexes, reverence for these faculties as typifying the mighty Creative Power of the universe, are stages of social progress based upon this mental difference in human and brute sex.
It is the mental or moral aspect of our sexual powers which, as society grows, shapes so much of the literature of every civilized country. In the popular ballads of a people, songs of love are even more abundant than patriotic songs; and as education spreads amongst the masses, romances and novels form the bulk of popular reading.
The subject of love is always of the most absorbing interest to the younger and more active portion of a people; sexual passion, in its ennobling or debasing form, exercises irresistible attraction.
Our amusements and our customs are largely moulded by the same powerful attraction, viz., the mental and moral quality of the relations which are formed between the sexes. As civilization advances, and dense masses of human beings are crowded together in heterogeneous selfish strife, the destructive extremes of luxury and pauperism appear. From this state of society, where misery will do anything for money, and the satiety of luxury seeks fresh stimulus, speculation in this strongest part of our nature—sex—arises. Its creative use disappears, and it becomes a subject of merchandise. Every variety of effort is made to stimulate and debase the mental quality or sentiment of sex, and the strength of human passion furnishes an exhaustless field for corrupt speculation.
It is therefore not the simple physical aspect of the reproductive powers which is remarkable in humanity. The physical instinct is shared with the rest of the animal creation. It is the unique and powerful mental and moral element, the principle that moulds and governs human sex, which produces such striking results in the life of our race.
The mental or emotional element in these powers, both in relation to the action and reaction of mind and body, and the hereditary transmission of tendencies, will, therefore, largely engage the attention of the physiologist who truly studies our human nature. The distinctive moral character of human sex renders the exclusive study of physical phenomena in man as useless and unscientific a method of investigation as would be the study of music on dumb instruments. The distinctively mental character of human sex must therefore always be recognised as a guide in any physiological inquiry into the structure and functions of the physical organs especially appropriated to the use of sex.
The clue to a true knowledge of sexual functions in man and woman is found in this striking peculiarity of the human race, viz., that these functions are largely dominated by mental action, and that sex in the human being does not mean simply the action of the physical organs, but also the conjoined mental principle directing those organs.
Sex, therefore, in the human race alone, resting upon that broad, well-marked mental foundation, is capable of great development towards good or towards evil. As simply material satisfaction soon reaches the limit which bounds matter, so mental or spiritual enjoyment is capable of indefinite growth. It is this mental sentiment peculiar to human sex which is capable of a twofold development. It may grow into a noble sympathy, self-sacrifice, reverence, and joy, which enlarge and intensify the nature through the gradual expansion of the inborn moral elements of sex. It is also this same intensity of the mental form and power of sex, possessed by mankind alone, which allows of the perversion and extreme degradation of sex which is observable only in the human race. It is the degradation of this mental power when running riot in unchecked license that converts men and women into selfish and cruel devils—monsters, quite without parallel in the brute creation.
These facts are strikingly illustrated by the anatomical and physiological constitution of the human being. The structure and functions of the generative system in our race are contrived in such a way as to support two great leading principles of existence.
These fundamental principles are—First, the independence, freedom, and perfection of the individual. Second, the preservation of the race. These two objects are secured to a certain extent in all highly organized creatures; but in the human race provision is made for individual freedom in a much more marked and perfect manner, in accordance with the superior rank of man in creation.
The brute, both male and female, is at certain times blindly dominated by the physical impulse of sex. This impulse in the lower animal is a simple imperative instinct, unhesitatingly yielded to, with no preparation or after-thought, with no calculation, shame, triumph, or regret. But it is very different with the human race, as it grows from lower to higher states of society. Thoughts and feelings, social ties and conscience, religious training and the objects of life, all act upon the distinctive mental character of sex; and it is seen that the welfare of a third factor, viz., the child, is inseparably connected with these relations.
Its character is thus changed to a very complex faculty. The young man or woman blindly yielding to this power of sexual attraction, against the remonstrance of a high sense of duty, is torn by remorse, and is consciously self-degraded.
The influence of the moral element is also strikingly shown by an evil peculiar to the human race, viz., suicide or insanity as the result of unhappy love.
The growing power of the mental element over sex in all the higher races of mankind is demonstrated by the ennobling friendships between men and women which increasingly brighten life in our own Anglo-Saxon civilization. The free and friendly intercourse of self-respecting youth of both sexes satisfies the complex wants of early man and womanhood; there is physical as well as mental refreshment in such honourable and natural human intercourse.
In the young man or woman, just entered into the full possession of all the human faculties, where the special attraction of two tends towards marriage, this moral or mental predominance is still remarkable. The attraction towards the other sex is rich in mental delights. The passing sight of the object beloved, a word, a look, a smile, will make sunshine in the gloomiest day. The consciousness of spiritual attraction will sustain and guard through long waiting for more complete union.
The physical pleasure which attends the caresses of love is a rich endowment of humanity, granted by a beneficent Creative Power. There is nothing necessarily evil in physical pleasure. Though inferior in rank to mental pleasure, it is a legitimate part of our nature, involving always some degree of mental action. The satisfaction which our senses, sight, hearing, touch, etc., derive from all lovely objects adapted to the special sense, indicates that beneficence latent in the ‘cosmic process’ which enters into the physical manifestation of our present earthly life. The sexual act itself, rightly understood in its compound character, so far from being a necessarily evil thing, is really a Divinely created and altogether righteous fulfilment of the conditions of present life. This act, like all human acts, is subjected to the inexorable rule of moral law. Righteous use brings renewed and increasing satisfaction to the two made one in harmonious union. Unrighteous use produces satiety, coldness, repulsion, and misery to the two remaining apart, through the abuse of a Divine gift.
At a public table in the Tyrol I once heard an Austrian officer, a most repulsive spectacle, dying of his vices, boast of his ruined life, and declare that he would take the consequences and live it over again had he the power to do so. This is the insanity of lust. But it illustrates the inseparable union of soul and body in human sex.
It is the mental element dominating the physical impulse in man, for evil, which produces that monstrous creation, cold, selfish, and cruel, which is seen only in the man or woman abusing the creative powers of sex.
It will thus be seen that in the varieties of degradation of our sexual powers, as well as in their use and ennoblement, it is the predominance of the mental or spiritual element in our nature which is the characteristic fact of human sex. The inventions and abuses of lust, as well as the use and guidance of love, alike prove the striking and important distinction which exists between the sexual organization of man and that of the lower animals.