Chapter XXVII
Whereas in former times opinions on social questions were determined principally by =economic= considerations, to-day we are to a great extent influenced also by the aims and endeavours of individual and social =hygiene=; for this reason the so-called =problem of population= has come to occupy the consciousness of civilized mankind to a far greater extent than before it has passed from the stage of theory into that of practice. Serious critical political economists, such as, for example, B. G. Schmoller,[709] have recognized this. The increasing understanding of the conditions of social life, knowledge of the connexion between economic conditions and the number and quality of the population, must of itself lead to the discussion of the question whether the regulation of the number of children born is not one of the principal duties of modern civilization. The Englishman Robert Malthus was the first who, stimulated by an idea of Benjamin Franklin, in the year 1798, in his “Essay on the Principles of Population,” discussed this serious, and even alarming, question of the natural =consequences= of unrestricted sexual intercourse, and answered it in an extremely pessimistic sense. For, according to him, whereas human beings tend to increase in number according to a geometrical progression--that is, in the ratio 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and so on--the means of subsistence increase only in arithmetical progression--that is, in the ratio of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Hence it follows that the numbers of the population can be kept within bounds, so as to remain proportional to the nutritive possibilities, only by means of decimating influences, such as vice, poverty, disease, the entire “struggle for existence,” by preventive measures, and by the so-called “moral restraint” in and before marriage. Although this celebrated theory, which filled with alarm, not only all those already living in Europe, but also all those who wished to =produce= new life, has to-day been generally recognized as false,[710] since it failed to take into account technical advances in the preparation of the soil[711] and other ways in which it will become possible to increase the means of subsistence; and he equally ignored the possibility of a better division of property. None the less does his theory remain apposite in respect of many of the social relationships of more recent times; the doctrine has, in fact, temporary validity for certain periods of civilization, such as our own. Malthus recommended, as the principal means of preventing over-population, =abstinence= from sexual intercourse (moral restraint) before marriage, and the =postponement= of marriage; thus he was an apostle of the “relative asceticism” recommended in the twenty-fifth chapter of the present work.
In England this early view found utterance among the political economists and sociologists, such as Chalmers, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Say, Thornton, etc. It was also actively discussed in wide circles of the population, so that as early as the year 1825 the “disciples of Malthus” were a typical phenomenon of English life.
A further development of malthusianism in the practical direction was represented by the so-called “neo-malthusianism”--that is, an actual diffusion of instruction in the means for the prevention of pregnancy and for the limitation of the number of children. Such a procedure was first publicly recommended by Francis Place, in the year 1822; but no widespread teaching of practical malthusianism occurred till a considerably later date, notably after the foundation of the Malthusian League, on July 17, 1877. The principal advocates of neo-malthusianism in England were John Stuart Mill, Charles Drysdale, Charles Bradlaugh, and Mrs. Besant.
Malthusian practice is, however, much older than the theory. Metchnikoff[712] declares the endeavour to diminish the number of children to be a very widely diffused “disharmony of the family instinct,” which in itself is much more recent, and is much less widely diffused in the animal kingdom than the sexual instinct. Animals, at any rate, know nothing of the prevention of conception; that is a “privilege” of the human species. By primitive races such preventive measures are very widely employed. Among these measures one of the best known is the “mica” operation of the Australian natives--the slitting up of the urethra of the male along the lower surface of the penis, so that the semen flows out just in front of the scrotum, and is ejaculated outside the vagina.[713] Regarding the wide diffusion of artificial abortion among savage races, Ploss-Bartels gives detailed reports. The pursuit of material enjoyments, characteristic of civilized peoples, is not here (as recent authors have erroneously assumed) the determining influence; we have, in fact, to do with a widely diffused disharmony of the family instinct,[714] for which in certain =definite= conditions some justification must be admitted. The period for the unconditional rejection of malthusianism by pietists and absolute moralists has passed away definitely. Not only physicians, but also professional political economists, recognize the relative justification and admissibility of the use of preventive measures in certain circumstances for the limitation of the procreation of children. It has rightly been pointed out[715] that in =every= marriage a time must eventually arrive when preventive measures in sexual intercourse are employed, and necessarily must be employed, because, in respect of the state of health of the wife, and also in view of economic conditions, their use is urgently demanded. These relationships have been discussed with great insight by A. Hegar,[716] and he has proved the justification of practical neo-malthusianism in every ordinary marriage, as well as for the population at large. By means of a “regulation of reproduction,” an immoderate increase of the population is prevented; by diminishing the quantity we improve the quality of the offspring. Late marriages, long pauses between the separate deliveries, and the greatest possible sexual abstinence, subserve this purpose.
Like Hegar, the Munich hygienist Max Gruber[717] also recognizes the necessity for setting bounds to the number of children to be brought into the world, since the capacity of the human species to increase is far greater than its power to increase the means of subsistence. He describes very vividly the physical and moral misery of the parents and the children when the latter are too numerous; he also shows that from the birth of the fourth child onwards the inborn force and health of the children diminish more and more. Naturally, also, diseases affecting the parents, and the pressing danger of the inheritance of these diseases, renders necessary the use of sexual preventive measures, or else of moral restraint. Gruber enunciates the thoroughly neo-malthusian proposition:
“The procreation of children must be kept within bounds, if mankind wishes to free itself from the cruel condition by which, in irrational nature, the balance is maintained--death in the mass side by side with procreation in the mass!”
L. Löwenfeld[718] also sees in the recommendation of such measures for the prevention of pregnancy “nothing either improper or immoral”; he sees in these measures “means for diminishing the poverty of the lower classes, and for abolishing, to a great extent, the high infantile mortality of these classes, although neo-malthusianism is in no way a panacea for all the social evils of our time”; and he writes very strongly against the condemnation of preventive measures by a “perverse medical zealotry”; in fact, he assigns to preventive measures an immense hygienic importance. Many other physicians also, such as Mensinga[719] (the discoverer of the occlusive pessary, the first medical man in Germany to assert with energy the justification of employing means for the prevention of pregnancy, and the first to establish with precision the indications for the use of these measures, especially in relation to the disadvantageous consequences to women’s health of bearing a large number of children), Fürbringer,[720] Spener,[721] and others, have drawn attention to the eminent hygienic and social importance of measures for the prevention of pregnancy; whereas, on the other hand, in France, in view of the alarming decline in the population of that country, scientific medicine has adopted a more hostile attitude; no longer, however, so bitterly hostile as in the work (now somewhat out of date, but nevertheless containing interesting details) of Bergeret.[722] A layman also, Hans Ferdy (A. Meyerhof),[723] has published a number of interesting works on practical neo-malthusianism.
We shall now proceed to give a brief account of the means commonly employed for the prevention of pregnancy.
l. =The Restriction of Intercourse to Particular Periods.=--It is clear that by means of relative asceticism, and by restriction of the number of individual acts of sexual intercourse, the possibilities of fertilization can be limited to a considerable extent. Thus, Capellmann, in a work published in 1883, entitled “Facultative Sterility, without Offence to Moral Laws,” recommended abstinence from intercourse for fourteen days =after= the cessation of menstruation and for three or four days =before= the commencement of the flow, in the belief that fertilization occurs principally during the days immediately before and after menstruation. Capellmann thus revived the prescription of Soranos, a gynecologist of the days of antiquity. According to the researches of the physiologist Victor Hensen, it is true that the greatest number of fertilizations take place during the =first= few days after the menstrual period; but conception =may= also occur on any other day of the menstrual cycle, although the probability of conception at other periods than those named is a diminishing one. Feskstitow has based upon statistical data an interesting “conception curve,” according to which the frequency of fertilization on the last day of menstruation, on the first, ninth, eleventh, and twenty-third days after the end of the flow, varies respectively according to the ratios 48, 62, 13, 9, 1; between these points the course of the curve is almost straight. On the twenty-third day after menstruation the probability of conception is thus one-sixty-second of the maximum. Thus, though the probability of fertilization following intercourse on the twenty-third day after the cessation of the flow is much =less= than the probability of fertilization as a result of intercourse shortly after menstruation, still, the possibility of conception in the former case cannot be absolutely excluded.
It has also been recommended that in certain =seasons of the year=, to which a peculiar influence upon fertility has been ascribed, more especially the months of May and June, abstinence from intercourse should be observed. But this is naturally =quite untrustworthy=, since the same mother can conceive in all months of the year, as is sufficiently proved by the ordinary variations in the birthdays of children.
Somewhat more trustworthy, but still =not= absolutely to be depended upon, is the practice, after the birth of a child, of =artificially prolonging the period of lactation=, since it is well known that during lactation the menstrual periods often fail to occur, and that fertilization is exceptional. Upon the recognition of this causal sequence, notwithstanding the fact that it does not possess any absolute validity, there has recently been founded a very remarkable method of practical malthusianism, which the two discoverers, Karl Buttenstedt[724] and Richard E. Funcke,[725] have announced to their astonished contemporaries as a “new revelation,” and as the realization of “happiness in marriage.” These remarkable apostles have combined another observation with the one mentioned above of the relative infertility of women during lactation, the new observation being that sometimes by the mammary glands of women who are not pregnant, and even by those of virgins, milk is secreted, especially during menstruation. This fact was known to earlier gynecologists, as, for example, to Dietrich Wilhelm Busch.[726]
Buttenstedt, to whom the “priority” of the new doctrine of happiness unquestionably belongs, an advocate of the extremely optimistic theory of the possibility of an everlasting life for humanity and of the cessation of death (!), also conceived the idea of evoking lactation artificially in =all= women by means of the sucking of their breasts by men! In this way he believed that artificial sterility and amenorrhœa might be produced.
Naturally, also, woman’s milk is regarded as an elixir of life for old men, a true panacea for the elongation of life ad infinitum; and this “happy marriage” in itself is to be a means by which all the possible ills of degenerate humanity are to be cured. In this pæan he is joined by Funcke, who regards woman’s milk as “the best, most natural, and most valuable drug,” and on p. 70 of his book preaches to girls and women the “new categorical imperative” (sic).
“Thou shalt not leave thy vital force unutilized; thou shalt not menstruate unless thou hast the firm will and desire to become pregnant; thou shalt allow thy vital force in the form of milk to flow from thy breasts for the benefit and enjoyment of other human beings.”
Buttenstedt, who possesses some historical knowledge, wishes also to make the breasts of men lactiferous (p. 24), so that the sexes can exchange their “blood through the breasts,” thus become more and more alike one another, and ultimately become urnings!
This beautiful lactation idyll or, more correctly, mammalian idyll, will not bear the test of scientific criticism. In the first place, the effect of the proposed manipulations is exceedingly =dubious=, and would only produce the desired result in exceptional cases; in the second place, such an artificial lactation, continued for a long period, would be extremely =harmful=, just as an excessive protraction of lactation after normal delivery is known to be deleterious; and in the third place, last, not least, the reputed anticonceptional effect would, in the majority of cases, =fail to occur=. At any rate, there appears to be no reason why pregnancy should not ensue, since the condition of the genital organs would apparently permit this, and would certainly differ from that which obtains in women who give suck in a normal manner after giving birth to a child.
2. =Divergences from the Normal Mode of Coitus.=--Attempts have been made to prevent fertilization by means of various modifications of the sexual act. Thus, starting from the old belief that active participation in the sexual act on the part of the woman, as well as libido and the sexual orgasm on her part, are indispensable prerequisites of the occurrence of impregnation, a more passive demeanour of the woman has been recommended--a distraction of the mind and the senses from the sexual act, after the manner of the cong-fou of the Chinese, who frequently employ this trick during intercourse. This opinion is deceptive, for, in the absence of all activity and orgasm on the part of the woman, in the most diverse conditions possible, conception may ensue.[727] Thus, in this case also we have to do with a quite untrustworthy method.
=Trustworthy=, on the other hand, and therefore extremely widely diffused, is the so-called =coitus interruptus=--interrupted intercourse, in which the penis is withdrawn from the vagina shortly before the ejaculation of the semen (so-called “withdrawal,” “Zuruckziehen,” “Sichinachtnehmen,” “fraudieren,” “congressus reservatus, onanismus conjugalis”). The views regarding the harmfulness of this method, by which pregnancy can certainly be prevented, have in recent years undergone considerable change, in so far as the disadvantages are to-day considered less serious than they formerly were. More especially, Dr. Alfred Damm, in his work “Neura,” overestimated the harmful effects of coitus interruptus, inasmuch as he attributed to it the entire degeneration of a race. These extreme views, supported by no facts whatever, of the degeneration fanatic Damm are briefly described in a little book by E. Peters, “The Sexual Life and Nervous Energy” (Cologne, 1906).[728]
It cannot be denied--and has, in fact, been maintained by other physicians such as Gaillard Thomas, Goodell, Valenta, Bergeret, Mantegazza, Payer, Mensinga, Beard, Hirt, Eulenburg, Freud, von Tschich, Gattel, and others--that the “ineffective” excitement occurring during coitus interruptus, the absence of the natural discharge of sexual tension, the voluntary postponement of ejaculation, the strain put upon the will during the sexual act, may have a transient harmful influence upon the nervous system; but, according to recent researches, it is only in those who are =already= neuropathic that permanent troubles result, in the form of “=anxiety-neurosis=” (which, as Freud[729] has proved, is actually dependent upon coitus interruptus), or in the form of other neurasthenic and hysterical troubles, and also sometimes of local irritative conditions. The harmful influence of frustrated sexual excitement is shown also by the frequency of nervous troubles during the period of engagement, which, as a witty colleague of mine remarked, must be regarded as a single, long-drawn-out coitus interruptus. But it has not been proved that in healthy individuals coitus interruptus, even when the practice is continued for a long time, gives rise to serious and permanent injuries to health. According to the experience of Fürbringer, Oppenheim, von Krafft-Ebing, Rohleder, Spener, and, above all, of L. Löwenfeld, who has instituted exceptionally exact researches into the matter, such consequences are quite exceptional. This is also true of the disorders which coitus interruptus is reputed to cause in women.
Another method for the prevention of pregnancy, which, according to Barrucco, is practised especially in Italy, is the prolongation of sexual enjoyment by means of =repeated= interruptions of the act, followed by =renewed= erections. This, naturally, is extremely harmful. Fürbringer, however, reports the case of certain frigid men who were able to extend the act of conjugal intercourse for long periods, without any disastrous effect upon their health. One of these men was able to find time during the act for smoking and reading!
3. =Mechanical Means for the Prevention of Conception.=--According to Kisch, in Transylvania and in France a method is in use according to which, during the sexual act, the woman, at the commencement of ejaculation in the male, presses her finger forcibly upon the root of his penis just in front of the prostate gland. In this way the passage through the urethra is temporarily occluded, and ejaculation of the semen is prevented: it regurgitates into the bladder, and is subsequently evacuated with the urine. Unquestionably this manipulation would be likely to prove exceedingly injurious to health.
In Italy and in New Guinea many women expel the semen from the vagina, as soon as coitus is completed, by means of muscular action, by vigorous movements of the perineum.
A mechanical apparatus for the prevention of conception which is unquestionably carefully thought out is the so-called =occlusive pessary= of Dr. Mensinga--a hemisphere of rubber surrounded by a steel ring, introduced into the vagina before coitus, and even left in situ for prolonged periods, so that the os uteri is occluded. When accurately applied, it does, in fact, definitely prevent fertilization. Various considerations, however, render its use undesirable: (1) the difficulty of the introduction, which most women are unable to master; (2) liability to displacement of the pessary during the act; (3) the occurrence of irritative conditions of various kinds (discharges, diseases of the uterine annexa, etc.), if, as often happens, the pessary is allowed to remain in the vagina for a long time. Recently a pessary has been constructed of waterproof cambric, which is said not to produce any such irritative reaction. Moreover, Mensinga himself, and Earlet, have made other improvements upon the occlusive pessary. Easier to introduce is Gall’s “balloon occlusive pessary.” In this instrument, by means of a compressible rubber ball and tubing, air is blown into the interior of a thin-walled rubber ring which surrounds a soft elastic rubber disc. A =dangerous= article, and =one to be avoided=, is Hollweg’s “obturator.” The ideal mechanical means for the prevention of pregnancy is, once more, the =condom=, regarding the application and qualities of which we have already said all that is necessary (vide supra, pp. 378, 379). Simple in its mode of application, it is, when of good quality, certain in its effect, and is relatively the =most harmless= of all preventive measures. When it is used, coitus runs a perfectly normal course, with the sole exception of the sensation during ejaculation. We must reject as harmful the use of the so-called “stimulant condom,” which bears a ring of spines or points, in order to increase libido in the woman.
4. =Chemical Physical Preventive Measures.=--To these belong, above all, =douching= of the vagina immediately after sexual intercourse, for which purpose cold water, solutions of alum (1 per cent.), copper sulphate (1/2 to 1 per cent.), sulphate of quinine (1 : 400), etc., may be used. The douching must be effected when the woman is in the recumbent posture, and the vaginal tube must be introduced deeply. This method, however, is very =untrustworthy=.[730]
The same is true of attempts to destroy the spermatozoa by the insufflation of chemically active =powders=; or by the insertion of antiseptic “=security sponges=,” which Rohleder has rightly named “insecurity sponges”; untrustworthy also is the combination of these with mechanical apparatus.
The number of articles belonging to this category is legion. I need mention a few only: “Security ovals,” containing boric acid, quinine, or citric acid; “little vaginal plugs”; “salus ovula”; Kamp’s anticonceptional cotton-wool plugs; Hüter’s vaginal insufflator “for the malthusian”; Noffke’s tampon-speculum; “spermathanaton”;[731] Weissl’s preservative (a combination of speculum and rubber disc with a steel spring and a cotton-wool plug impregnated with a drug); the “Venus apparatus” (a double rubber ball, the smaller ball filled with “Venus powder” (sic) being introduced within the vagina, whilst the woman herself, at the moment of ejaculation, presses the larger ball lying near to her thighs, whereupon the powder is expelled from the smaller ball into the vagina); the “duplex occlusive pessary” (an occlusive pessary with double walls, perforated with round apertures, containing in its interior boric acid tablets for the purpose of killing the spermatozoa).
It may be that now and again, by some of the means just mentioned, conception may be prevented. But on the whole they are very uncertain; and, on the other hand, it is doubtful if the chemical substances introduced in this way are harmless. It is possible that many peculiar inflammatory conditions of the male and female genital organs may be referred to their use. For example, Blumreich[732] reports the case of a man who, after coitus in which a means of this kind had been used, had an extremely obstinate inflammatory eruption upon the penis.
I take this opportunity of pointing out that the so-called =herpes progenitalis=, a peculiar vesicular eruption of the genital organs, occurring chiefly in males, which alarms a great many patients, because they regard it as the result of syphilitic infection, is, in the great majority of cases, a perfectly harmless affection caused by some transient irritation.[733]
Besides the above-mentioned methods for the prevention of pregnancy, we have also to consider two radical means of practical malthusianism which belong to the =purely medical= province, and can =only= be employed when life and death are involved, when pregnancy and parturition would entail upon the woman severe illness or certain death. These two means are the operative induction of =artificial sterility= and =artificial abortion=.
Artificial sterility can be produced by various measures, as by the intentionally effected =malposition= of the uterus, such as is practised among the indigens of the Malay Archipelago; by =section of the Fallopian tubes=, as recommended by Kehrer; by the so-called castratio uterina by means of =vaporization= (the application of superheated steam by the method of Pincus, whereby menstruation is suspended and the uterine cavity is obliterated); and finally by =castration= proper, the =extirpation of the ovaries=[734] (=oöphorectomy=, spaying, Battey’s operation), which was carried out in ancient times by quite savage races, in order to prevent reproduction.[735] In France, theoretically anti-malthusian, but practically through and through malthusian, in the country from which the song originates--
“Ah! l’amour, l’amour! C’est le plaisir d’un jour Pour le regret d’ neuf mois.”
[“Ah! love, love! ’Tis the pleasure of a day For the regret of nine months”]
--it appears, according to recent descriptions,[736] that oöphorectomy is greatly prized by distinguished ladies as a means for the prevention of pregnancy. It is said that there even exist “specialists” for the production of these child-hating “ovariées,” men who undertake this operation at a high fee. In Germany, happily, this radical measure for the prevention of conception is not employed in healthy persons; the operation is performed only in women who are seriously ill, and strictly for therapeutic purposes.
The preventive measures previously mentioned, if we except coitus interruptus and the condom, are all very untrustworthy, as we learn from the extreme frequency of deliberate, artificial abortion in all countries, and among all classes of the population.[737] Artificial abortion is, as is well known, a criminal offence, punishable by a long term of imprisonment for all those concerned, the pregnant woman herself and her accomplices. In the Orient and among savage races, however, abortion is not punishable. Among the civilized nations of Europe artificial abortion is punished; in Germany the mere =attempt= at abortion is punishable, even though only an imaginary pregnancy is present. That the State must take steps to prevent abortion, as an immoral and unnatural action, is obvious, and this is necessary above all because intentional abortion in so many cases endangers the life and health of women. But in order that such punishment should be reasonable, it is essential that society should work to this end, that the =social conditions= upon which the frequency of the practice depends should be abolished; =society should abandon the artificial defamation of illegitimate motherhood=, and should in every possible way work for the improvement of the possibilities of motherhood--should found homes for mothers and for pregnant women, should provide for the insurance of mothers, etc. It is a remarkable contradiction, to which Gisela von Streitberg[738] draws attention, that illegitimate pregnancy is regarded as sinful and shameful: simultaneously the life of the child =about to be born= is regarded as sacred; whilst this same child, =as soon as it is born=, is once more regarded as infamous. In fact, to the illegitimate child, in the social morality of our time, which is at once ridiculous and profoundly perverted, there inevitably attaches something despicable and dishonourable. It is right that those who make the procuring of abortion a =professional occupation= should be severely punished; but, on the other hand, it is doubtful whether it is right to punish mothers, and more particularly the mothers of illegitimate infants, against whom the Criminal Code is especially directed, for artificially inducing abortion. It is, in fact, open to question whether the punishment is even legal. It is well known that according to § 1 of the Civil Code the rights of a human being are said to begin only with the completion of birth,[739] and it is certainly open to question whether the as yet undeveloped human fœtus has any personal rights at all. Without doubt we have to do with a being which has not yet begun to exist, but which is only in process of becoming. Thus, juristically, and from the standpoint of the philosophy of law, the foundation for the punishment for abortion is a very unstable one. Consider, for example, impregnation resulting from =rape=. Should not the woman concerned have the right to employ any and all means available to her to destroy at the very outset the child thus =forced upon her=?
The means for the induction of abortion[740] prior to the twenty-eighth or thirtieth week of pregnancy are very various, and may be considered under the two categories of =internal= and =mechanical= means respectively. Infallible internal abortifacients =do not exist=; and almost all abortifacients are =dangerous= owing to their toxic effects. Those most commonly employed are ergot, ethereal oil of savin (Juniperus sabina), varieties of thuja, yew (Taxus baccata), turpentine, oleum succini, tansy, rue, camphor, cantharides, aloes, phosphorus, etc. Mechanically, abortion may be effected by blows, by violent movements (for example, during coitus), massage, perforation of the membranes, hot injections, steam, manipulations with the finger at the os uteri, the introduction of sounds and other objects through the os uteri, venesection, application of the electric current, etc. With all these practices there is involved great danger of injury, poisoning, infection, rupture and perforation of the uterus, the entry of air into the uterine veins, scalding of the internal genital organs, etc. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that death so frequently ensues, and that almost always severe illnesses result from the use of these abortifacients.
The State would in this way best put a stop to artificial abortion if, in addition to the above-mentioned removal of the disgrace attached to illegitimate motherhood, it diffused widely among all classes of society a knowledge of the =permissible= means for the prevention of pregnancy.
The fact that neo-malthusian methods are chiefly employed =in large towns=, indicates their dependence upon economical considerations, and upon the struggle for existence, which is especially severe in large towns. Hope for the future rests upon the removal of moral and legal coercion in marriage, in which Gutzkow (“Säkularbilder,” i. 174, 175) saw the principal causes of social and sexual misery; and upon the rational regulation of methods for the prevention of pregnancy, which must be regarded as in no way identical with the hostility to “fruitfulness” in the sense of Weininger. On the contrary, the yearning for children, and the joy in their possession, will then, for the first time, obtain their natural satisfaction.
[709] Cf. his classical essay, “Population: its Natural Subdivision and Movement,” published in “Elements of General Political Economy,” vol. i., pp. 158-187 (Leipzig, 1901).
[710] Cf. Franz Oppenheimer, “The Law of Population of T. R. Malthus, and the more Recent Political Economists: a Demonstration and a Criticism” (Bern, 1900). See also the interesting demonstration and criticism of the malthusian doctrine in the work of Henry George, “Progress and Poverty.”
[711] A notable example of such advances is found in the recently discovered method of =inoculating the soil with nitrifying organisms=, whereby barren lands are made fertile at trifling cost.-TRANSLATOR.
[712] Eli Metchnikoff, “The Nature of Man.”--English translation by Chalmers Mitchell, pp. 101-107; Heinemann, London, 1903.
[713] A more detailed account of this interesting “politico-economical” operation will be found in the work of Max Bartels, “Medicine among Savage Races,” pp. 297, 298 (Leipzig, 1893).
[714] The ancients were also familiar with preventive methods of intercourse and with abortion. Widely renowned is the passage of the historian Polybius (XXXVII. ix. 5) in which we read: “In my time the whole of Greece suffered from =an insufficiency of children=--speaking generally, from =a lack of men=; for men had become so much accustomed to good living, to the greed for money, and to every comfort, that =they no longer wished to marry, or, at any rate, they wished to have only a few children=. Not the sword of the enemy was it that depopulated the ancient States, but the lack of offspring.” In Spain also, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence of the wealth acquired in the New World, there resulted an overwhelming dread of marriage and child-bearing, so that the population became reduced to nine millions, and the bringing up of four children was rewarded with a title of nobility (cf. J. Unold, “Duties and Aims of Human Life,” p. 110; Leipzig, 1904).
[715] Cf. E. H. Kisch, “Artificial Sterility,” published in Eulenburg’s “Real-Enzyklopädie,” third edition, 1900, vol. xxiii., p. 372. See also the elaborate discussion of artificial sterility and means for the prevention of conception in Kisch’s work, “The Sexual Life of Woman,” English translation by M. Eden Paul (Rebman Limited, London, 1908).
[716] A. Hegar, “The Sexual Impulse,” pp. 58, 59, 104, 105 (Stuttgart, 1894).
[717] M. Gruber, “Hygiene of the Sexual Life,” pp. 60-62 (Stuttgart, 1905).
[718] L. Löwenfeld, “The Sexual Life and Nervous Disorders,” pp. 154-156.
[719] C. Hasse (Mensinga), “Facultative Sterility,” fourth edition (Berlin and Neuwied, 1885); same author, “How is the Life of Married Women best Safeguarded?” (Berlin and Neuwied, 1895); same author, “Prognosis of Married Life for Women” (Berlin and Neuwied, 1892); same author, “Vom Sichinachtnehmen” [Coitus interruptus, see p. 702] (Neuwied, 1905).
[720] P. Fürbringer, “Sexual Hygiene in Married Life,” published in Senator and Kaminer’s, “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” p. 209 (London, Rebman Limited, 1906).
[721] Spener, the article “Artificial Sterility,” published in Eulenburg’s Encyclopedic Annual of the Medical Sciences, vol. i., pp. 456-459 (Berlin and Vienna, 1903).
[722] L. Bergeret, “Des Fraudes dans l’Accomplissment des Fonctions Génératrices,” fourteenth edition (Paris, 1893). See also Toulouse, “Les Conflits Intersexuels,” pp. 41-58 (Paris, 1904).
[723] H. Ferdy, “Means for the Prevention of Conception,” eighth edition, two parts (Leipzig, 1907); same author, “Moral Self-restraint: the Reflections of a Malthusian” (Hildesheim, 1904).
[724] Karl Buttenstedt, “Happiness in Marriage (Revelation in Woman): a Nature Study,” third edition (Friedrichshagen, 1904).
[725] Richard E. Funcke, “A New Revelation of Nature: a Secret of the Sexual Life. No more Prostitution” (Hanover, 1906).
[726] Dietrich Wilhelm Busch, “The Sexual Life of Woman in Physiological, Pathological, and Therapeutical Relations,” vol. ii., p. 94 (Leipzig, 1840): “The gradual swelling of the breasts, and the presence of milk in these organs, arouses to a high degree the suspicion of pregnancy, but gives no certain proof of the existence of this condition. These organs often swell very gradually in certain pathological states, and in virgins, unimpregnated wives, widows, old women, and even in men, milk has been found in the breasts.”
[727] Mensinga, in a most readable short study, “A Contribution to the Mechanism of Conception” (Berlin and Neuwied, 1891), has considered this question in detail.
[728] To propagate Damm’s idea, the German Society for Regeneration was founded, whose first president was the above-named Peters; the organ of the society is the newspaper Volkskraft.
[729] S. Freud, “Collection of Minor Writings upon the Doctrine of Neurosis,” pp. 70, 71 (1906).
[730] The most convenient and complete apparatus for vaginal douching is the American irrigating syringe known as the “Lady’s Friend.” The technique of vaginal douching is very thoroughly described by L. Volkmann, “Solution of the Social Problem by Means of Woman,” pp. 29-31 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1891).
[731] R. Braun recently reported (“Experiments made with Spermathanaton Pastilles,” Medizin. Woch., 1906, No. 13) successful results with this means. But, in general, this, like all chemical means, cannot be absolutely depended upon to prevent pregnancy.
[732] L. Blumreich, “Diseases of Women, including Sterility,” in Senator-Kaminer, “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” p. 769 et seq. (London, Rebman Limited, 1906).
[733] Cf. the account of herpes progenitalis given in Iwan Bloch’s “Origin of Syphilis,” part ii., pp. 385-388.
[734] A detailed account of “Operative Sterility” will be found in Kisch’s “The Sexual Life of Woman,” English translation by M. Eden Paul (Rebman Limited, 1908).
[735] Cf. the accounts of this operation among the Australians given by Max Bartels, “Medicine among Savage Races,” pp. 306, 307 (Leipzig, 1895).
[736] Cf. R. Schwaeblé, the chapter “Ovariées” in “Les Detraquées de Paris,” pp. 255-258. [This aspect of the operation of oöphorectomy is the foundation of some of the most striking incidents in Zola’s novel “Fécondité.”--TRANSLATOR.]
[737] Cf. H. Ploss, “The History of Abortion” (Leipzig, 1883); Galliot, “Recherches Historiques sur l’Avortement Criminel” (Paris, 1884).
[738] Countess Gisela von Streitberg, “The Right to Destroy the Germinating Life: § 218 of the Criminal Code, from a New Point of View” (Oranienburg, 1904).
[739] In a work recently published, which I have not yet been able to obtain, entitled “Nasciturus: Life before Birth, and the Legal Rights of the Being about to be Born,” the gynæcologist F. Ahlfeld discusses this question very thoroughly.
[740] Cf. Lewin and Brenning, “Abortion induced by Means of Poisons” (Berlin, 1899); E. von Hoffmann’s “Textbook of Forensic Medicine,” edited by A. Kolisko, ninth edition, pp. 220-258 (Berlin and Vienna, 1903).
XXVIII. SEXUAL HYGIENE
“Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horse, cattle, and dogs, before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage, he rarely, or never, takes such care. Yet he might by selection do something, not only for the bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral qualities.”--CHARLES DARWIN.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXVIII
Sexual hygiene as social hygiene -- Its foundation by Darwin -- Recent works -- “Reproductive hygiene” -- Degeneration and regeneration (hereditary taint and hereditary enfranchisement) -- Possibility of the disappearance of morbid tendencies -- “Eugenics” (Galton) -- Love’s choice and sexual selection -- Principles -- Darwin’s prescriptions regarding sexual selection -- Prohibition of marriage -- Inheritance of morbid tendencies and morbid constitutions -- Danger of alcoholism for the offspring -- Families of drinkers -- Direct influence of alcohol upon the germ-plasm -- Observations on this subject -- Syphilis as a cause of racial degeneration -- Syphilis and the duration of life -- Degenerative effects of tuberculosis -- Direct infection -- Inheritance of the tubercular habit of body -- Mental disorders, diatheses, and malignant tumours -- Nervous disorders -- Inheritable atrophy of the female mammary glands -- Recent works on this subject -- Effect of excessive youth or excessive age of the married pair -- Influence of blood-relationship -- Significance of breeding in-and-in in relation to the evolution of the race -- The dangers of too close blood-relationship -- Importance of spiritual qualities in relation to love’s choice -- The breeding of talent -- Importance of this in relation to the woman’s question -- In relation to the improvement of the race -- Greater resisting powers possessed by women towards degenerative influences -- A quotation from Carl Vogt -- Unfavourable influence of coercive marriage morality and of mammonism -- Importance of racial hygiene and of the sexual sense of responsibility.
Chapter XXVIII
Sexual hygiene in individual relationships has already been discussed in previous chapters, and more especially in those upon the prophylaxis and suppression of venereal diseases, upon the question of sexual abstinence, upon sexual education, and upon the use of methods for the prevention of pregnancy. Here we merely propose to deal shortly with the =social= relationships of the hygiene of the sexual life. After Darwin, more particularly in his work on the “Descent of Man,” had published fundamental observations regarding the social importance of sexual hygiene, other writers, influenced by recent anthropological and ethnological research, occupied themselves with these problems, more especially Hegar,[741] A. Ploetz,[742] and R. Kossmann;[743] the subjects considered by these writers have been aptly comprised under the name “=reproductive hygiene=,” which constitutes a part of general racial biology.
Unfortunately, racial biology, as Max Gruber[744] justly remarks, has formed exaggerated estimates of the ideas of “degeneration” and “hereditary taint”; and, on the other hand, the complementary ideas of “regeneration” and “hereditary enfranchisement” have been unduly neglected. And yet it is certain that these latter influences are continually in active operation in the direction of the resanation and invigoration of the race: that the introduction of =new and healthy blood= is competent to bring about reanimation and regeneration, even in degenerate families. Gruber says with justice (“Hygiene of the Sexual Life,” p. 55, 1905):
“Completely normal, and entirely free from hereditary taint, no single human being can be; and, on the other hand, experience teaches us, that just as morbid tendencies make their appearance in certain families, so also =they may disappear= from these families. Many of these tendencies can be rendered ineffective by a suitably chosen mode of life for the individual; and by means of repeated crossing with stems which are free from these particular taints, the morbid tendency can be led to disappear, unless the degenerative impulse is too powerful.”
The recognition of this fact does not in the least diminish the great importance of purposive choice in love and marriage; nor does it diminish the sense of sexual responsibility in relation to the great fact of =heredity=. But the recognition of the fortunate fact of hereditary enfranchisement supports, on the other hand, all our endeavours in the direction of rational “eugenics” (Galton),[745] in accordance with which we must, as Nietzsche says, not merely reproduce, but produce in an upward direction (“nicht bloss fort-, sondern auch =hinaufpflanzen= sollen”).
The central problem of reproductive hygiene is that of =love’s choice=, of sexual selection. It is a most difficult task, one which is rarely fulfilled to the utmost, for the right man to find the right woman, so that their individualities may in every respect correspond to and complement one another. In most cases it is necessary to be contented with relative harmony, and with sufficient =health= on both sides. The laws of a refined, differentiated marriage choice have not yet been discovered. Havelock Ellis[746] has instituted exhaustive researches on this subject, without, however, attaining any positive result. He was only able to establish the general proposition, that in love’s choice =identity of race= and of =individual= characters (homogamy), and at the same time =unlikeness in the secondary sexual= characters (heterogamy), are to be preferred. In other respects, however, very various and complicated influences are determinative in sexual selection. Havelock Ellis also detected a natural disinclination towards love between blood-relatives, which, however, he regards as merely due to the customary life in close association from childhood onwards.
Darwin propounded the principle for sexual selection, that both sexes should avoid marriage when in any pronounced degree they were defective, either physically or mentally. Upon this idea rests the old and widely diffused custom of killing or exposure of sickly children, as well as the more recent prohibitions of marriage in certain States of the American Union--for example, Michigan, in which the marriage (also sexual union for procreative purposes?) is forbidden on the part of those mentally diseased and of those who are infected with tubercle or syphilis.[747]
The most important fundamental principle, however, of rational reproductive hygiene is, without doubt, that only =healthy= individuals should pair, or, at any rate, those only whose abnormalities or diseases, if any, would not injure their offspring, physically or mentally. Not in disease itself, but in the =inheritance= of disease, lies the great danger for the deterioration of the family and the race. It is for this reason that the study of the inheritance of morbid predispositions and morbid constitutions is of such enormous importance in racial biology.
With regard to illnesses to which attention must especially be paid in connexion with sexual selection, we have here, in the first place, to consider the “three scourges” of humanity: =alcoholism=, =syphilis=, and =tuberculosis=.
Apart from the fact that alcoholism leads in the drinker himself to nervous weakness, to mental disturbances of all kinds (delirium tremens, imbecility, mania, peripheral neuritis, etc.), it also exercises a very serious influence upon the offspring, who are, unfortunately, in many cases very numerous,[748] as the study of “drinker families” shows (cf. Jörger, “The Family Zero,” published in the Archives for Racial Biology, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 494-559). Only a very small fraction of the offspring of such families are physically and mentally normal (about 7 to 17 %); the majority display a =rapidly progressive degeneration=, which manifests itself physically more especially by the tendency to tuberculosis and epilepsy, and mentally by the tendency to drunkenness, crime, and imbecility. Alcohol is a direct poison to the germ cells, so much so that, according to the degree of drunkenness, it is almost possible to estimate beforehand the degree of hereditary taint. Moreover, an =otherwise healthy= father, in a single severe acute alcoholic intoxication, may procreate a child either quite incompetent to live, or weakly, or completely degenerate. On the other hand, it has been observed that a person given to chronic alcoholism is competent, during a temporary =diminution= in his consumption of alcohol, to procreate a comparatively vigorous child. From this it follows that marriage, or sexual union in general for reproductive purposes, with a man or woman addicted to alcohol, and no less the act of procreation in a state of intoxication, are absolutely to be condemned.
The danger of alcoholism to the offspring is illustrated by the experience that about one-eighth of the surviving children of drunken parents become affected with epilepsy, and that more than one-half of idiotic children are born of drunken parents (Kraepelin, “The Psychiatric Duties of the State,” p. 3; Jena, 1900).
In an earlier chapter (pp. 361-363) attention was drawn to the fact that syphilis rivals alcohol in its potency as a cause of racial degeneration.[749] Thanks to the researches of Alfred Fournier and of Tarnowsky, the sinister influence of syphilis in this respect is now widely recognized. E. Heddaeus rightly[750] asserts that since at the present day the whole world is contaminated with congenital or acquired syphilis, the eradication of syphilis is the most important task of reproductive hygiene. The previously mentioned etiological and prophylactic-therapeutic researches, among which may be included the quite recent discovery of syphilitic antibodies in the system of those who have formerly suffered from syphilis,[751] open to us a prospect of the realization of this magnificent idea. The weakening and degeneration of the individual by acquired and inherited syphilis, is also shown by the recent researches into the influence of syphilis upon the duration of life, among which I may mention the works of A. Blaschko[752] and Hans Tilesius.[753] Regarding the disastrous influence of syphilis continued into the second and third generations, see the monograph of B. Tarnowsky, “La Famille Syphilitique et sa Descendence” [Clermont (Oise), 1904]. (See note ^{325} to p. 363.)
The third disease leading to degeneration is tuberculosis, which may be inherited either by direct infection of the germ, or (more frequently) by the transmission of a predisposition to the offspring. This simple predisposition, recognized by the so-called “tubercular physique” (long, thin individuals, with a flattened chest, poorly developed muscles, and a pale countenance), does not offer any absolute ground for prohibiting reproductive activity, since the health of the other party to the marriage may diminish or entirely remove the danger of inheritance. But, on the other hand, manifest tuberculosis or scrofula is a contra-indication to marriage.
The same is true of actual =mental disorders=, of severe diatheses, such as gout, obesity, or diabetes; and of cancer and other malignant tumours; whereas the bulk of “nervous” affections and other bodily diseases only exclude marriage in certain special circumstances.[754]
Very unfavourable to the offspring is the atrophy of the female breasts, and the consequent incapacity for lactation, a matter to which Mensinga,[755] G. von Bunge,[756] G. Hirth,[757] Emil Abderhalden,[758] A. Hegar,[759] and others, have referred, and which exercises a very unfavourable influence upon the offspring, since natural lactation cannot be adequately replaced by artificial feeding. According to Bunge, alcoholism, tuberculosis, syphilis, and mental disorders of the ancestry are the principal causes of atrophy of the mammary glands. Whether atrophy of the mammary glands is really on the increase, and whether it is hereditary, are matters demanding, as Abderhalden insists, more careful critical investigation.
Marriage at an age =too youthful= (below twenty on the part of the woman, below twenty-four on the part of the man) and at =too advanced= an age (above forty on the part of the woman, above fifty on the part of the man) is also disadvantageous to the offspring, as manifested by higher mortality of the infants, by the more frequent occurrence of malformations, idiotcy, rickets, etc. Equally disadvantageous is =too close relationship by blood=,[760] since in this way any unfavourable tendencies are greatly strengthened. Upon a certain degree of inbreeding, or, rather, upon an approximation to inbreeding, depends the formation of every race. The “racial problem” in this sense is a kind of exaltation of the inbreeding principle, for the very idea of =race= implies a more or less close relationship between all the members of a definite stock. Thus the entire absence of fresh blood does not necessarily give rise to any degeneration; but it is certain that =long-continued close in-and-in breeding= on the part of near blood-relatives in the same family results in a =progressive tendency to degeneration=, because, among those who unite in marriage, the same morbid tendencies are present, and accumulate in consequence of the inbreeding. This is shown very clearly by some statistics collected by Morris (published by Gruber, op. cit., p. 32). Marriage between uncle and niece, or between aunt and nephew, and the, unfortunately, far too frequent marriages between first cousins, are therefore to be condemned.
The greatest value is to be placed, in love’s choice, upon =intellectual= qualities. Intelligent persons, and those full of character, are to be preferred. Precisely in relation to the breeding of talents, Nietzsche recommended (“Posthumous Works,” vol. xii., p. 188; Leipzig, 1901) polygamy for men or women of predominant intellectual capacity, so that they might have the opportunity of reproducing their kind in intercourse with several persons of the opposite sex, and in this way, since the later children of the same women are not so powerful nor of such striking capacity as the first-born, they might have the possibility of being the parents of several talented and distinguished individuals. In relation to the woman’s question, the breeding of women well endowed with talent is a matter of especial interest. Charles Darwin[761] writes:
“In order that woman should reach the same standard as man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perseverance, and to have her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point; then she would probably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult daughters. All women, however, could not be thus raised, unless during many generations those who excelled in the above robust virtues were married, and produced offspring in larger numbers than other women.”
In a valuable work W. Schallmayer[762] has recently discussed the great importance of the offspring of talented persons in the improvement of the race, and has considered the details of psychical inheritance.
As in the entire animal world, so also in the human race, the feminine nature has a more conservative character, one more disinclined to variations, whether favourable or unfavourable, as contrasted with the more variable nature of the male, which is also more prone to submit to degenerative influences. For this reason, in declining races, we meet many more women free from degeneration than men. Carl Vogt, in a passage which appears to be very little known, writes on this subject in the following terms:[763]
“It is the women, my friend, who maintain the race, who for the longest time safeguard the type of the people in body and spirit, and for this reason they form the mirror at once of the future and of the past which are allotted to that people. You will no doubt have noticed how, in many races, there exists a disharmony between men and women, so that in one race the male and in another the female stands behind the other in physical beauty and in mental development. This relationship between the two sexes is precisely that from which we are able to learn the past and the future of the nation. Good and bad, advance and retrogression, are first undertaken by the man, and by him passed to the woman, whose conservative nature much more gradually yields to strange influences. But since the stages of mental culture through which a race passes are not only reflected in its bodily development, but actually depend upon this development, it is easy to understand that in a nature which is striving upwards, which we see in the process of advance towards better things, the men possess the advantage in the matter of beauty and of intellectual capacity; whereas when the race is a declining one, the advantages in these respects will lie with woman. If you find a race in which the women are beautiful, but as a rule the men are ugly and badly formed, you can with certainty conclude that this race has long since passed its culminating point in development, and has long been undergoing a process of decline.”
For racial biology it is at least equally important, if not even more important, that healthy, vigorous, and talented men should reproduce their kind, rather than that in love’s choice the corresponding qualities in women should be regarded as determinative. Racial biology, if it really wishes to obtain success in the breeding of humanity, is compelled to demand the abolition of the present evil coercive marriage morality, and, according to the suggestions of Nietzsche, von Ehrenfels, and others, will not hesitate, =in certain cases=, to regard polygamy as desirable, if only from this standpoint--that coercive marriage is the sole cause of the domination of “mammonism” in the sexual life, to the deleterious influence of which we have before alluded.[764]
Mammonism is dangerous if for this alone, because it involves =the annihilation of the sense of sexual responsibility=, and in consequence of this, natural love is rejected on one side, and all considerations of a racial hygienic nature are cast away on the other. The lack of both is the cause of degeneration.
[741] A. Hegar, “The Sexual Impulse” (Stuttgart, 1894).
[742] A. Ploetz, “Outlines of Racial Hygiene” (Berlin, 1895).
[743] R. Kossmann, “Breeding--Politics” (Schmargendorf--Berlin, 1905).
[744] Max Gruber, “Does Hygiene lead to Racial Degeneration?” published in the Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, October 6 and 13, 1903.
[745] Francis Galton, “Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims” (Sociological Society Papers, vols. i. and ii.), 1905; comments on this work by A. Ploetz, published in the Archives for Racial and Social Biology, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 812-829; also W. Schallmayer, “Marriage, Inheritance, and the Ethics of Reproduction,” published in “The Book of the Child,” edited by Adele Schreiber, vol. i., pp. ix-xx (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907); Alfred Grotjahn, “Social Hygiene and the Problem of Degeneration” (Jena, 1904).
[746] Havelock Ellis, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” vol. iv.: “Selection in Man.”
[747] Regarding marriage prohibitions, cf. P. Näcke, “Marriage Prohibitions,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1906, vol. xxii.; M. Marcuse, “Legislative Marriage Prohibitions for Persons who are Diseased or Deficient Mentally or Physically,” published in Sociale Medizin und Hygiene, 1907, Nos. 2 and 3. It is said that in Dakota medical examination of those who wish to marry is legally prescribed (Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1903, vol. xi., pp. 266, 267).
[748] See especially the excellent treatise of A. Leppmann, “Alcoholism, Morphinism, and Marriage,” published in Senator-Kaminer, “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” p. 1057 et seq. (London, Rebman Limited, 1906). See also, regarding alcohol as a “Racial Destroyer,” the fundamental study by Alfred Ploetz, “The Significance of Alcohol in Relation to the Life and Development of the Race,” published in the Archives for Racial and Social Biology, 1904, vol. i., pp. 229-253. [English readers should consult the works of Archdall Reid, “The Present Evolution of Man,” “Alcoholism, a Study in Heredity,” and “The Principles of Heredity.”--TRANSLATOR.]
[749] See also R. Ledermann, “Syphilis and Marriage,” published in Senator-Kaminer, “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” p. 561 (London, Rebman Limited); Alfred Fournier, “Syphilis and Marriage.”
[750] E. Heddaeus, “The Breeding of Healthy Human Beings,” published in the Allgemeine Medizinische Zentral-Zeitung, 1901, No. 6.
[751] A. Wassermann and F. Plaut, “The Occurrence of Syphilitic Antibodies in the Cerebrospinal Fluid of General Paralytics,” published in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1906, No. 44.
[752] A. Blaschko, “The Influence of Syphilis upon the Duration of Life,” published in the “Transactions of the Fourth International Congress of Medical Examiners in Life Insurance,” pp. 95-149 (Berlin, 1906).
[753] Hans Tilesius, “Syphilis in Relation to Life Insurance,” op. cit., pp. 201-213.
[754] In the great work of Senator-Kaminer (“Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” London, Rebman Limited, 1906) we find a detailed account of the circumstances and possibilities which have here to be considered.
[755] Mensinga, “Incapacity for Lactation, and its Cure” (Berlin and Neuwied, 1888).
[756] G. von Bunge, “The Increasing Incapacity of Women to Suckle their Children” (Munich, 1903).
[757] G. Hirth, “The Maternal Breast: its Indispensability and its Education for the Restoration of its Primitive Forces,” published in “Ways to Love,” pp. 1-57.
[758] Emil Abderhalden, “The Question of the Incapacity of Mothers to Suckle their Children,” published in Medizinische Klinik, 1906, No. 45.
[759] A. Hegar, “Atrophy of the Mammary Glands and the Incapacity for Lactation,” published in the Archives for Racial and Social Hygiene, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 830-844.
[760] Cf. F. Kraus, “Blood-Relationship in Marriage and its Consequences to the Offspring,” published in Senator-Kaminer, “Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage and the Married State,” p. 79 (London, Rebman Limited, 1906).
[761] Charles Darwin, “The Descent of Man,” vol. ii., pp. 354, 355 (London, 1898).
[762] W. Schallmayer, “The Sociological Importance of the Offspring of Talented Persons, and Psychical Inheritance,” published in the Archives of Racial and Social Biology, 1905, vol. ii., pp. 36-75. Cf. also S. R. Steinmetz, “The Offspring of Talented Persons,” published in the Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft, 1904, No. 1.
[763] Carl Vogt, “The Ocean and the Mediterranean: Letters of Travel,” vol. ii., pp. 203, 204 (Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1848).
[764] Alexander von Humboldt (“Journey in Tropical Regions,” vol. ii., p. 17) remarks that in Europe a greatly deformed or hideous girl, if only she possesses property, can marry, and that the children frequently inherit the malformations of the mother; whereas among savage races there exists a natural disinclination to such marriages--a disinclination which money is not able to overcome.
Chapter XXIX
THE SEXUAL LIFE IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONSHIPS (SEXUAL QUACKERY, ADVERTISEMENTS, AND SCANDALS)
“One of the principal reasons which makes the eradication of quackery for ever impossible is to be found in the fact which finds incisive expression in the proverb ‘Die Dummen werden nicht alle.’” [“Stupidity is a hardy perennial.”]--WILHELM EBSTEIN.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXIX
Greater publicity of the sexual life in the age of commerce -- Three forms of this publicity -- Sexual quackery -- The relations of quackery to the sexual life -- Recent examples -- The trade in sexual nostrums and other articles of immoral use -- Public puffing of sexual nostrums -- Quack advertisements.
Newspaper advertisements for sexual purposes -- Matrimonial advertisements -- Their history -- The two oldest matrimonial advertisements -- Mercenary marriages and marriages for position -- Nominal marriages -- Immoral advertisements -- Loan advertisements -- Acquaintance advertisements -- Friendship advertisements -- Employment advertisements -- Heterosexual and homosexual advertisements -- Advertisements regarding correspondence -- Advertisements of rooms for sexual purposes -- Advertisements regarding instruction -- Rendezvous and postillon d’amour advertisements -- Poste restante correspondence -- Private inquiries -- Advertisements for the purpose of sexual perversions -- Street handbills -- Brothel guides.
Public scandals of a sexual character -- Murders and suicides from love -- Seductions, duels, procuress trials -- Orgies and the life of swindlers.
Chapter XXIX
In this age of commerce, of telegraphs, and of the press, the rôle which the sexual life plays =before the public eye= is notably greater than it used to be. From very early times, indeed, sexual matters formed the principal constituent of the chronique scandaleuse, but it was not then possible to disseminate such scandals by means of daily newspapers, as it is now so easy to do. In three forms at the present day the sexual life attains publicity: in the form of an unscrupulous =quackery=; in the form of =newspaper advertisements= relating to the sexual life; and in the form of =sexual scandals= diffused by means of the press. We propose to refer briefly to the principal aspects of all three, and we shall find that they are, for the most part, of an unpleasant character.
According to the well-known saying that hunger and love rule the world, quackery has from its very earliest beginnings concerned itself by preference with the provinces of disorders of digestion and of sexual troubles; and especially in respect of the latter have its developments been so astounding--in fact, there appears to be nothing else which gives such instructive information regarding the possibilities of human folly, depravity, and superstition. When we regard the history of quackery and medical charlatanry of all times,[765] we discern beyond question the justice of the assertion that “=quackery is identical with the diffusion of sexual vice and of fornication=.” These relationships of quackery to the sexual life and to sexual crime have recently had a vivid light thrown upon them by C. Reissig[766] and C. Alexander.[767]
Reissig deals more especially with the “immoral practices of many magnetizers, lay hypnotizers, and similar individuals, who, under the pretence of giving help to the sick, seek and find opportunity for the gratification of =all kinds of immoral lusts=”; and he gives characteristic examples of these practices. Police reports have shown that numerous masseuses and male quacks, who commonly appear under the high-sounding names of “professor,” “director,” “hygienologist,” “magnetopath,” etc., and who profess to treat “secret diseases” or “diseases of women,” are in reality concerned with =abortion mongering, the production of artificial sexual excitement, and the provision of human material for the gratification of perverse lusts=. Who does not know the ominous words, “Rat und Hilfe!” (“Advice and help!”)? Under the mantle of quackery the worst kinds of immorality are practised. Thus, Alexander (op. cit., p. 48) speaks of an “ear specialist” who, paving the way by gigantic advertisements in the local papers, travelled from place to place, nominally in order to relieve “defects of hearing,” but who in reality utilized his opportunities in order to make immoral attempts upon young girls (Glatz Assizes, July 10, 1896). The “magnetizer” M---- hypnotized young girls, and then violated them; another examined the genital organs when professing to treat ear troubles, and carried out improper manipulations. In an article, “Serene Highness’s Quackery,” in the Aerztliche Vereinsblatt, No. 418, August, 1900, Dr. Reissig reports that “to Her Serene Highness the Princess Maria von Rohan in Salzburg” it appears to be a sacred duty to bear witness to the joiner (!) Kuhne, in Leipzig, under date November 9, 1889, that his sexual friction baths (!) “had proved to be of inestimable value, and had had a wonderful effect,” and she felt impelled “to recommend to physicians the most careful examination and trial of this new method of cure.”
The treatment of “secret diseases,”[768] in the hands of quacks, does incredible harm; and the same is true of the uncleanly and dangerous practices of “masseuses” and of professional abortion-mongers. Closely connected with quackery is the =trade in sexual nostrums and in other articles of immoral use=.[769] This trade is occupied in the manufacture and public recommendation of “sexual articles” of every kind: aphrodisiacs; “protective articles”; various celebrated measures for the relief of “sexual weakness,” infertility, pollutions, lack of voluptuous sensation, etc. The artificial sterilization, not of women, but of men, by means of Roentgen rays is recommended.[770] The newspapers overflow with advertisements recommending all these articles. Beneath the aliases of “chiromancy” and “astrology,” sexual quackery also lies concealed. It allures its clients chiefly by means of newspaper advertisements.
Newspaper advertisements for sexual purposes are not more than 200 years old. Their oldest and most harmless form was that of matrimonial advertisements, the first two of which appeared on July 19, 1695, in the Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, published by Houghton, the father of English advertising.[771] These two remarkable and historical advertisements run as follows:
A gentleman, thirty years of age, who says that he has considerable property, would be glad to marry a young lady with property amounting to about £3,000. He will make a suitable settlement.
A young man, twenty-five years of age, with a good business, and whose father is prepared to give him £1,000, would be glad to make a suitable marriage. He has been brought up by his parents as a dissenter, and is a sober man.
We see that from the very outset matrimonial advertisements did not forget the punctum saliens, which I need not specify.[772] All, down to those of the present day, are alike. The only difference is that, in addition to these “money marriages,” advertisements of “nominal marriages” and also of “marriages for position” appear freely in the papers. The majority of matrimonial advertisements are inserted for mercenary or interested purposes, and really belong to the category of “=immoral advertisements=,” which conceal themselves under all possible titles. I give a short classification of some of the commonest immoral advertisements, and append some actual advertisements of each kind taken from leading German and Austrian newspapers.
1. =Loan Advertisements.=--In most cases a “young,” “smart” lady begs an older gentleman for a loan, or vice versa, a young man directs the same request to a “lady belonging to the best circles.” Frequently also it is a “lady living alone,” “a young widow,” or a “recently married woman,” who, “without the knowledge of her husband,” and “in temporary want of money,” seeks a “helper.” Almost invariably the need and the marriage are fictitious. These are in most cases the advertisements of secret prostitutes, of a similar character to the advertisements of masseuses. The following advertisement must otherwise be interpreted:
What noble-minded lady would be willing to lend, to a young, widely-travelled engineer, the sum of 12,000 marks [£600], for six months, on good security?
2. =Acquaintanceship Advertisements, Friendship Advertisements, and Employment Advertisements.=--These may be divided into the two classes of heterosexual and homosexual advertisements. Examples of the former are the following:
A young widow, twenty-seven years of age, desires friendly intercourse with a man of position, who will assist her with word and deed.
A young stranger desires acquaintanceship (!) to relieve her of a temporary difficulty.
A merchant, a man of middle age, desires the acquaintanceship of a good-looking lady (a slender figure preferred), for the purpose of friendly intercourse.
The following advertisements have a more or less definite homosexual note:
A well-placed young lady, nearing the age of thirty, desires an honourable, trustworthy lady friend.
A cultured lady of middle age desires a ladies’ club.
A well-placed elderly gentleman desires friendly intercourse with a young man.
A young merchant, between twenty and thirty years of age, desires friendly intercourse with a young man of good family.
A young lady, a stranger to the town, desires a lady friend; apply by letter to “Lesbos” at the office of this paper.[773]
A newspaper, now defunct, which formerly appeared in Munich, characterized by homosexual “psychologico-erosophical” tendencies, entitled Der Seelenforscher (edited by August Fleischmann), appears to have laid itself open to such advertisements. In No. 11 of the second year of issue, November, 1903, I find the following distinctive advertisements:
A young vigorous (!) man, a Swiss, twenty-four years of age, well recommended, desires a situation with a gentleman living alone.
A young man, twenty years of age, of agreeable appearance, with an honourable and ideal mind, desires a position as correspondent or companion in the house of a well-to-do, even if elderly, gentleman.
A wealthy, talented uranian young man desires the patronage of a noble well-to-do urning.
A good, affectionate, and bright young man, who at the present time is in an official position, desires to find a =well-to-do, kind-hearted, and lonely gentleman=, to whom he could be a true life-companion, and to whom, until the end of his life, he would give true affection. He would faithfully fulfil all his duties.[774]
The numerous advertisements, also, in which young girls and women, or widows, desire “positions” as housekeepers, companions, etc., in the houses of “well-to-do” gentlemen “living alone” have, as a rule, an immoral basis.
3. =Advertisements regarding Correspondence.=--These also form a permanent constituent of the advertisements of the daily papers, and serve in part the aims of prostitution or of assignations for sexual intercourse, but in part really aim at an exchange of more or less erotic letters, as is obviously the case in respect of the following advertisements:
Young cultured man desires a stimulating (!) correspondence with a young lady.
Young lady desires to enter into correspondence with a lady of good position, with similar ideas.
4. =Advertisements of Rooms.=--Among these advertisements, we find that of the “convenient room” or the room “with a separate entrance”--the “storm-free diggings” of the student. Such rooms are usually offered to men; women must seek them for themselves, as in the following advertisement:
A lady artist desires a well-furnished convenient room, with bath-room and piano, as an only tenant.
The advertisements regarding rooms to be let “during the day” mostly refer to opportunities for fornication (“houses of accommodation”).
5. =Pseudo-Educational Advertisements.=--Here also there is a form of advertisement which enables us without difficulty to recognize their true purpose--for example:
A young Englishwoman gives stimulating instruction.
=Jeune= Française, =gaie= (!), bien recomm. qui enseigne de méthode facile et rapide, donne des léçons.
Very frequent are announcements of sadistic or masochistic “instruction,” in which the “energy” or “imposing appearance” of the instructor or instructress is emphasized, or in which the word “discipline” is displayed in a significance which cannot be misunderstood.
6. =Rendezvous and Postilion d’Amour Advertisements.=--These subserve the appointment of lovers, often adulterous lovers; but also the opening up of acquaintanceship. Examples:
Veronika.
To-day unfortunately prevented, therefore 21st.
=“Wireless Telegraphy.”=
Best thanks for dear letter. Drive to-day. A thousand kisses.--L.
=“Good Report.”=
A letter will be found addressed to “Sophie G.,” post restante, Vienna, I/1, principal post-office.
=M.S.A.=
To-day, 4. Please bring news. Most intimate.--K. D. D.
=A. 15.=
Je n’oublie pas et j’espère.
Very frequent also are requests from male advertisers, addressed to ladies they have chanced to meet in the railway, electric tram, etc., asking where the latter may live. These advertisements give a description of the appearance, costume, time, and place of the first meeting, and beg the lady to give her address “in confidence,” or to come to some specified place of meeting. A very large number of =letters addressed post restante= are of an erotic nature, and belong to this category.
7. =Private Inquiries.=--Under this heading persons advertise in the newspapers that for an honorarium (usually a very high one) they will undertake to watch secretly any desired person--and almost invariably such watching relates to the sexual life and activity of the person under observation; when employed, they use all the methods of the most unscrupulous detective. These individuals play a principal part in divorce proceedings, and in conjugal quarrel based upon jealousy; they are a cancer of our time[775] which cannot be too energetically suppressed. A detective advertisement of this character is the following:
=Private Inquiry.=
Confidential! Enlightening! Unfailing! Truthful! Universal! Extraordinarily satisfactory conjugal inquiries; mode of life, family relationships, liaisons, peculiarities of character, occupations, present condition, past misconduct, future prospects, state of property, secret intercourse, etc., etc.
8. =Advertisements relating to Sexual Perversions.=--We have already referred to homosexual advertisements. An even more important part is played by =sadistic= and =masochistic= advertisements, which usually appear under the cloak of “massage,” “instruction,” or of an “energetic” person. Examples:
=Masoch.= Who is interested in this matter? Address “Kismet,” office of this paper.
Widow of noble birth, middle-aged, =energetic=, desires position in the house of a gentleman of standing, as reader, or in some other capacity.
Cabinet de massage, par dame diplômée, hydrothérapie. Mme. D., 82, Rue Blanche.
Massage suédois, par dame diplômée, tous les jours de 10 à 8 heures.
Madame Martinet, leçons de maintien....
Monsieur dés. gouvernante gr. et forte, 40 a. =sévère= pour educ. enfant diffic. A. B. p.r. Amiens.
=Energetic= distinguished lady, in temporary need, wishes to receive a considerable loan, but will meet only the actual lender.
Severin is seeking his Wanda!
A young man begs 30 marks from a lady. “Sacher Masoch,” Post Office, Köpenickerstrasse.
Even fetichistic advertisements sometimes appear, such as the following, from a shoe fetichist:
A young man of means buys for his private collection elegant shoes, which have been worn by leading actresses, or by ladies of high rank.
9. =Handbills.=--In large towns these are distributed by persons standing at the street corners, and usually relate to restaurants with women attendants. One example will suffice:
=The Restaurant of the Good-Natured Saxon Girl.=
The attendants at this restaurant are young and pretty girls from Saxony; Miss Elly waits at the bar. Piano-playing and singing. Your kind patronage is requested by =The Young Hostess=.
“Chiromantists,” magnetopaths, and other charlatans, advertise themselves by means of street handbills. In the Latin countries, and more especially in Paris, true “=brothel guides=” stand at the street corners, and conduct the passers-by to improper dramatic representations, or provide for them children for fornicatory purpose, or invite them to homosexual intercourse, etc.
The third form under which the sexual life makes a public appearance is that of the great scandals and sensational occurrences with a sexual background, which are discussed by the press. I allude here, without attempting completeness, to =murders= and =suicides= arising from jealousy, from rejected love, or from love unsuccessful for some other reason--occurrences which afford sufficient proof that individual =falling in love= in our own time is just as violent and passionate as it was formerly; further, to =abduction= and =seduction=; to =divorce scandals= and =divorce proceedings=; in general, to all =law-court proceedings relating to sexual offences=; to =duels= dependent upon erotic motives; to =family tragedies= upon a similar basis; to the great =procuress trials=; to the discovery of =secret sexual clubs= and of =erotic orgies=; to =revelations from nunneries and from secular institutions=; to the exploits of =swindlers=, who very frequently make use of sexual passion in others to assist them in their pursuit of plunder, etc. Examples of all these varieties of scandals and sensational occurrences are found day by day in the newspapers. Very frequently, on account of the very nature of sexual psychology, they exercise a suggestive influence, so that we often hear of similar occurrences at brief intervals. If we assume the existence of psychical contagion, there is no doubt that these sensational newspaper reports play a far greater part therein than the =whole= of the so-called erotic literature.
[765] Cf. the valuable historical and critical monograph of Professor Wilhelm Ebstein, “Charlatanry and Quackery in the German Empire” (Stuttgart, 1905).
[766] C. Reissig, “Medical Science and Quackery,” p. 114 et seq. (Leipzig, 1900).
[767] C. Alexander, “The True and the False Healing Art,” pp. 46-49 (Berlin, 1899).
[768] Cf. C. Alexander, “Venereal Diseases and Quackery,” published in the “Reports of the German Society for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases,” 1902-1903, vol. i., Nos. 6 and 7; Hennig, “Venereal Diseases and Quackery,” op. cit., No. 7; “Petition of the German Society for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases to the German Imperial Chancellor, regarding the Injury done to Venereal Patients by Quacks,” op. cit., No. 7.
[769] Cf. the work of H. Beta, which is still of value in relation to present conditions, “The Trade in Sexual Nostrums and Other Articles of Immoral Use, as advertised in the Daily Press” (Berlin, 1872), at which early date we find mention of the “hygienologist,” Jakobi, the Nestor of the Berlin quacks.
[770] Cf. W. Ebstein, op. cit., p. 46.
[771] Cf. the complete history of matrimonial advertisements which is given in my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 140-159 (Charlottenburg, 1901).
[772] “Proputty, proputty, proputty--that’s what I ’ears ’em saäy.”--TRANSLATOR.
[773] Cf. Paul Näcke, “Newspaper Advertisements by Female Homosexuals,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, edited by Hans Gross, 1902, vol. x., pp. 225-229 (taken from Munich newspapers).
[774] Cf. Paul Näcke, “Supply of and Demand for Homosexuals in the Newspapers,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1902, vol. viii., pp. 319-350.
[775] Cf. also the account of these detectives given in the essay “The Love-Market,” published in “Roland von Berlin,” No. 45, of November 8, 1906. In this case, a jealous young woman offered 1,500 marks (£75) in order to have her husband “watched” by such a detective.
XXX. PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE AND ART
“Wer will das Höchste aus Wollust machen, der krönt ein Schwein in wüster Lache.” [“He who devotes his talents to the glorification of lust is like one who crowns a pig in the midst of a dismal swamp.”]--HANS BURGKMAIR.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXX
Distinction between pornography and eroticism -- An old medical thesis concerning obscene books, dating from the year 1688 -- Definition of obscenity in this thesis -- Modern definition of an obscene book -- Treatment of purely sexual relationships from the artistic and scientific standpoints respectively -- Summary of the general tendency -- Morality-fanaticism and medical authorship -- The artistic treatment of sexual matters -- Humorous mode of treatment -- The erotic in caricature -- The mystic-satanic conception of the sexual -- The importance of the individuality and the age of the reader or onlooker -- Danger of Bible-reading for children -- A remark of John Milton upon this subject -- Importance of the standard of the time, and of contemporary moral ideas, in our judgment of an erotic work -- Example of the works of Nicolas Chorier and of the Marquis de Sade -- Observation regarding the recent German translations of pornographic works -- Comparison of obscene books with natural poisons -- Recent obscene literature -- Remarkable fondness of great artists and poets for the pornographic-erotic element -- French celebrities as pornographists (Voltaire, Mirabeau, de Musset, Gautier, Droz, etc.) -- Goethe and Schopenhauer as erotic writers -- Schiller’s and Goethe’s fondness for French erotic writings -- Occupation of women with pornographic literature -- Obscene pictures by great painters, from Lucas Cranach to the present time -- Pornographic garbage literature and garbage art -- Origin of these -- Dangers of hawkers’ literature -- Futility of the efforts of Purity Societies -- Historical examples of this -- The true means to render pornography harmless.
Chapter XXX
What is an obscene, pornographic book or picture? In order to obtain an accurate and objective definition of this idea, we must always keep clearly before our minds the distinction between “=pornography=” and “=eroticism=.” The confusion between these two ideas explains the great conflict of opinion on the part of expert witnesses in connexion with the question whether any specified book or picture is to be regarded as “immoral” or “indecent.”
The obscene differs toto cœlo from the erotic. In my own possession is a rare work which is probably the first monograph regarding obscene books. It dates from the year 1688, and is the thesis of a Leipzig doctor.[776] At that time it was still possible to compose =academic= essays upon such topics. To-day this would only be possible in the legal faculty and from the criminal standpoint. In respect of the unprejudiced scientific and historical consideration of pornography, we have experienced a notable retrogression, and at the present day a certain degree of courage is needed to make these things an object of scientific study, to consider in an unprejudiced and objective manner these peculiar outgrowths of the human soul.
In the above-mentioned essay the learned writer gives, on p. 5, a definition of the obscene, which shows that he had not thoroughly differentiated it from the erotic, but confused the two ideas under the same term. In his view, obscene writings are “all such writings whose authors use distinctly improper language, and speak plainly about the sexual organs, or describe the shameless acts of voluptuous and impure human beings, in such words that chaste and tender ears would shudder to hear them.”
But such improper descriptions might occur in a work without its being possible to designate this as obscene. =A book can justly be called obscene only when it has been composed simply, solely, and exclusively for the purpose of producing sexual excitement=--when its contents aim at inducing in its readers a condition of coarse and brutish sensuality.
This definition clearly excludes all those literary products which, notwithstanding the existence of isolated erotic, or even obscene, passages, =are yet composed for purposes radically different from that above described=--it excludes, for example, artistic, religious, and scientific works (the history of civilization, poetry, belles-lettres, medicine, folk-lore, etc.).
The question, namely, whether =simple sexual relationships= can properly be made the object of =artistic= or =scientific= representation, may be answered with an unconditional affirmative, if we presuppose a purely artistic or scientific critical representation and consideration of erotic objects; that is to say, in the work of art, or the scientific work, as the case may be, the purely sexual must completely disappear behind the higher artistic or scientific conception. This is possible only when that which is represented is =completely devoid of actuality=; when time and place are entirely ignored, so that the object is regarded rather from its =general human= aspect; and when, further, in the artistic representation of the purely sexual we find expression also, on the part of the artist, of a conception enlightening and to a degree =overcoming= the purely physical; or when, finally, on the part of the man of science, we recognize a critical point of view, by means of which the =causal= relationships of the sexual find expression.
The =general tendency= is determinative, not the shocking individual detail. I need not waste any more words upon the importance of medical, ethnological, psychological, and historical works upon the sexual life.[777] This fact is, fortunately, now fully recognized even by the greatest morality fanatics, and it would hardly now be possible in Germany that a law-court--as recently in Belgium[778]--should witness proceedings against a medical undertaking on account of pornographic (!) illustrations.[779]
The same is true of the artistic consideration of sexual matters. For example, how readily everything sexual lends itself to the =humorous= point of view! How short here is the step from the sublime to the ridiculous! In a copy which lies before me of Fr. Th. Vischers’ first work, “The Sublime and the Ridiculous” (Stuttgart, 1837), which was once in the possession of a friend of Goethe, the Driburg physician, Anton Theobald Brück, we find on p. 203, in his handwriting, the apt marginal note: “Wit gilds the nickel of the obscene.” Sexual matters actually provoke humour. This fact was enunciated by Schopenhauer, and was ascribed by him to the profound earnestness which underlies the sexual (“Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” i., 330). For this reason, as Eduard Fuchs[780] rightly insists, the majority of all erotic creations are of the nature of caricatures. The most brilliant advocate of this humorous view of sexual matters is the brilliant English artist Thomas Rowlandson, whose works, both in England and in Germany, have long been kept under lock and key.
The =mystic-satanic= element in the sexual also stimulates artistic representations, and in the works of Baudelaire, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Félicien Rops, Aubrey Beardsley, Toulouse Lautrec, etc., we see that the “perverse” also is thoroughly capable of erotic representation. But even pure obscenity, without any underlying idea--as, for example, we see it to-day in the obscene drawings of Carracci--may have the effect of a simple artistic product, if the taste of the onlooker is so far matured that the purely sexual can recede completely behind the artistic conception. We must, generally speaking, not fail to take into account the individuality and the age of the spectator or reader. For =children= and =immature= persons, even works that are obviously =not obscene=, such as artistic, religious, and scientific literature, may, in certain circumstances, be dangerous--works which adults regard and judge in the spirit of their own time, as, for example, the =Bible= and the writings of the =Fathers of the Church=. John Milton, who was certainly not lacking in piety, wrote: “The Bible often relates =blasphemies= in no very delicate manner; it describes the =fleshly lusts of vicious men= not without elegance.”[781] =Books which are to be read by children= cannot be chosen too carefully, for a very large proportion also of the literature which is not, properly speaking, obscene, but which deals with sexual matters, has =upon the childish imagination= an effect equivalent to that of true pornography upon the adult.
In passing judgment on an erotic work, we must, finally, take into consideration the =standard of the epoch= to which the work belongs; we must bear in mind the nature of the =contemporary moral ideas=. Much which to us to-day appears obscene was not so in the middle ages. On the other hand, we must not excuse everything on this plea, for our forefathers were also familiar with pornographic and utterly obscene books. Works such as those of the Marquis de Sade or of Nicolas Chorier (“Gespräche der Aloysia Sigaea”) have not only an importance in the history of civilization: they also have an interest for anthropologists and medical men. They constitute remarkable documents of the nature and mode of manifestation of sexual perversities in earlier times. Moreover, all pornographic writings afford us valuable assistance in our study of the genesis of sexual perversions. But while we admit the importance of such writings--for example, those of de Sade--to learned men and bibliophiles, we cannot condemn in sufficiently strong terms the insane undertaking of translating de Sade’s books in our own day. This is simply pornology; for all those who, as medical men, psychologists, or historians of civilization, are occupied with pornographic literature, are--or, at any rate, should be--competent to read these authors in the original tongue.[782] I feel therefore that the mass of recently published German translations of the pornographic writings of John Cleland, Mirabeau, Nerciat, de Sade, of the “Antijustine” of Rétif de la Bretonne, of the “Portier des Chartreux,” of Alfred de Musset’s “Gamiani,” etc., can only be described as pornography, although I must admit that the original editions are often inaccessible to the scientific student interested in the matter, who in such cases must, faute de mieux, content himself with translations.
These obscene writings may be compared with =natural poisons, which must also be carefully studied=, but which can be entrusted =only to those= who are fully acquainted with their dangerous effects, who know how to control and counteract these effects, and who regard them as an object of natural research by means of which they will be enabled to obtain an understanding of other phenomena.
The pornographic element of literature and art[783] has an ancient history. In Greece, Rome, and Egypt, but more especially in India, Japan, and China, there existed an extensive obscene literature. In Europe the =French=, =Italian=, and =English= obscene literature occupies the first place as regards comprehensiveness and wide diffusion. Exceptionally dangerous in their effect are French pornographic writings, because their mode of expression is so elegant, whereas the English obscene books, with the single exception of Cleland’s “Fanny Hill,” are positively deterrent, on account of the coarse phraseology employed in them. The German writings in this department are not much better than the English, and consist to a large extent of bad translations of foreign pornographic works--if we except a few older writings, which are repeatedly reissued, such as the “Denkwürdigkeiten des Herrn von H.,” by Schilling, or the “Memoiren einer Sängerin,” the first part of which is ascribed to the celebrated Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Speaking generally, it is a remarkable phenomenon (and one which is in flat contradiction to the assertion so frequently made that pornography and true art cannot possibly be associated) that so many spirits of the first rank, great artists either in literature or plastic art, have enriched pornography themselves by works of their own, or, failing this, have at least been notorious lovers of pornography. This fact was clearly manifested at the time of the Italian renascence, but it can be traced down to the present day. Men like Voltaire (“La Pucelle d’Orléans”), Mirabeau (“L’Éducation de Laure,” “Ma Conversion,” etc.), Alfred de Musset (“Gamiani”), Guy de Maupassant (“Les Cousines de la Colonelle”), Théophile Gautier (“Lettre à la Présidente”), and Gustave Droz (“Un Été à la Campagne”), have written indubitably pornographic books. But the heroes of our own German literature have not been free from such tendencies. Goethe not only wrote the “Tagebuch,” but composed other (=still completely unknown=) erotica, which, by command of the Grand Duchess Sophie, were sealed and hidden away.[784] Schopenhauer,[785] who said to Frauenstädt that a philosopher must be active, “not only with his head, but also with his genital organs,” was a lover of pornography, even of a skatological character, and was fond of telling “bawdy stories which will not bear repetition”--for example, he would enumerate the different kinds of kissing, describe the varieties of the sexual impulse, etc.[786] Schiller and Goethe enjoyed reading Diderot’s “The Nun” (“La Religieuse”) and his “Bijoux Indiscrets,” Rétif’s “Monsieur Nicolas,” and the “Liaisons Dangereuses” of Choderlos de Laclos, books which would nowadays be suppressed as “immoral.” Lichtenberg also was a very zealous reader, and a connoisseur, not only of erotic, but also of pornographic literature. In his letters he alludes to reading such pornographic works as Cleland’s “Woman of Pleasure” (“Letters,” edition Leitzmann and Schüddekopf, vol. ii., p. 187) and “Lyndamine,” etc. Talented women of that period also read pornographic works. Pauline Wiesel, the beloved of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, greatly admired Mirabeau’s obscene writings, as we learn from a letter of Friedrich Gentz, in which the latter decries them as “cold libertinage,” and recommends to his friend similar products of Voltaire, Crébillon, and Grécourt.[787]
These facts do not excuse pornography, but they refute the assertion that pornography and true artistic perception are incompatible. As Schopenhauer truly says, many contrasts can exist side by side in the same human being. This is even more clearly manifest in pictorial art. Anyone who turns over the leaves of Eduard Fuchs’ book upon the erotic element in caricature will learn that the greatest painters have occasionally painted deliberately =improper, obscene= pictures. I need mention only the names of Lucas Cranach, Annibale Carracci, H. S. Beham, Rembrandt, G. Aldegrever, Adrian van Ostade, Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Vivan-Denon, Gillray, Lawrence, Rowlandson, Heinrich Ramberg, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Schadow, Otto Greiner, Willette, Kubin, Julius Pascin,[788] Beardsley, etc.[789]
Side by side with these higher pornographic works there exists also a lower kind--obscene garbage writings and pornographic pictures of the worst possible kind, such as picture postcards, “act-photographs,” etc., in which all possible sexual perversities are represented, either in printed matter or by pictures (masturbation, poses lubriques, representations of nude portions of the body, copralagnistic and urolagnistic acts, bestiality, sadism, masochism, pæderasty, incest, fornicatory acts with children, orgies, obscene paraphrases of proverbs, rape, etc.). Kemmer (op. cit., pp. 31-45) gives a detailed account of the sale of these obscenities, and of the way in which they are advertised in catalogues, etc. They are manufactured in France, Germany, Belgium, and Spain (especially in Barcelona). The dangerous character of these articles is indisputable; they have a suggestive influence, and stimulate those who look at them to imitative acts. They may thus directly give rise to sexual perversities.[790] But they are not so dangerous as the true =hawkers’ literature=[791] and =popular garbage writings= about “secret sins.” These inflame the imagination, and thus lead to crime and sexual infamies. This is an old experience. In the year 1901, at the trial of the boy murderers Thärigen and Kroft (Vossische Zeitung, No. 161, April 5, 1901), the two murderers confessed that they had been incited to the commission of crime by backstairs romances, and by tales of Indians and robbers. The same cause was alleged, in December, 1906, in Kottbus, by a boy fourteen years of age, who was accused of murder.
How are we to counteract the moral harm done by such literature? I consider all the efforts of societies for the suppression of immorality to be illusory and two-edged, for they =always fail= to attain their end; and in addition, unfortunately--a matter of which there is no doubt--they endanger the freedom of art and science.[792] All measures calculated to keep away from children and immature persons books which might serve to give rise to sexual stimulation are worthy of support; and it must be remembered that =for children and immature persons scientific books, religious writings--as, for example, the unexpurgated Bible--and also illustrated comic papers, etc., may be dangerous=. But, for the most part, all prohibitions, and the whole campaign against immorality, =serve only to favour pornography=. The stricter the measures taken against it, =the wider becomes its diffusion=. This is a =very old experience=, an incontrovertible fact. Tacitus (“Ann.,” XIV., c. 50) rightly explained this peculiar phenomenon: “Libros exuri jussit, =conquisitos lectitatosque, donec cum periculo parabantur=: mox licentia habendi oblivionem attulit” (“He issued a decree that the books were to be burned; =but as long as it was dangerous to publish them they were in great request, and were eagerly read=: whereas as soon as people were permitted to possess them they passed into oblivion”). The pornographic books which during the last five hundred years have been burned by the public executioner, which have been confiscated, and which have been repeatedly destroyed to the last copy, the obscene engravings of which the plates have been destroyed--have all these disappeared from the surface of the earth, have all these confiscations and condemnations[793] of livres défendus been of any use whatever? No. All the pornographic writings, confiscated and destroyed a thousand times over, =reappear again and again=; indeed, they become more numerous the more the attempt is made to suppress them. The campaign against them has always been a campaign against a hydra, a labour of the Danaïdes, which has no object, and only entails the disadvantage that, in the general zeal to put an end to immoral literature, scientific and artistic interests are most seriously endangered. Happily, this campaign is to-day less vigorous than it was of yore. In proportion to the population, immoral literature in Germany was before 1870 far more widely diffused than it is at the present day. During the sixth and seventh decades of the nineteenth century it flourished more luxuriantly; even during the time of the war of liberation numerous original obscene books were printed in Germany. To-day the interest in social, scientific, technical, and philosophic questions, and in sport, has become so great, and the interest in sexual questions has become so much =more profound=, that an overgrowth of pornography is no longer to be feared. From these facts we recognize at once =the only way=, and =the right way=, which we must follow in order to paralyze the evil influences of pornography. This is to take a proper care for =genuine popular culture, to increase educational opportunities=, and to =reduce the price of books=. A single undertaking such as that of A. Reimann, who, in his Deutsche Bücherei, publishes for threepence a volume a collection of choice literature, containing not only the best fiction, but also popularly written scientific works from the pens of leading men of science and essayists--such an enterprise is far more effective in the suppression of garbage literature than all the Unions for the Promotion of Morality.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE TO CHAPTER XXX.--In connexion with the questions discussed in this chapter, the reader may profitably consult the recently published book of Willy Schindler (written, however, from an unduly subjective standpoint), “The Erotic Element in Literature and Art” (Berlin, 1907).
[English readers interested in the question of the dangers of pornographic literature and art in relation to that “liberty of unlicensed printing” which is so essential to the welfare of the modern social democratic State, should read the thoughtful and luminous discussion of the topic by H. G. Wells, in one of the later chapters of his admirable “Mankind in the Making.”--TRANSLATOR.]
[776] Johannes David Schreber (of Meissen), “De libris obscoenis” (Leipzig, 1688, quarto).
[777] Cf. Iwan Bloch, “The Lex Heinze and Medical Authorship,” published in Die Medizinsche Woche, No. 9, March 12, 1900.
[778] Cf., regarding this matter, the Aerztlicher Zentral-Anzeiger, No. 24, June 10, 1901.
[779] Unfortunately, I was mistaken in this optimistic assumption. In the Journal of the German Book Trade, No. 77, April 3, 1906, I find among the list of confiscated works “Means for the Prevention of Conception”--a separate impression of the Deutsche Medizinische Presse, Berlin, No. 7, April 5, 1899. By the decision of one of the Berlin courts the further issue of this work, and the further use of the stereotype forms from which it was printed, were forbidden.
[780] Eduard Fuchs, “The Erotic Element in Caricature,” p. 10 (Berlin, 1904), Cf. also Paul Leppin, “The Ludicrous in the Erotic,” published in Das Blaubuch, edited by Ilgenstein and Kalthoff, No 4, February 1, 1906, pp. 149-155.
[781] John Milton’s “Areopagitica.”
[782] An exception must be made of the work of Aretino, which in the Italian original is extremely difficult to understand. I, therefore, regard the masterly translation published by the Insel-Verlag as a justifiable undertaking.
[783] To those desirous of obtaining information regarding modern pornography, I can recommend, above all, the work of Ludwig Kemmer, based upon official material, “Die graphische Reklame der Prostitution,” Munich, 1906. Cf. also Heinrich Stümcke, “The Immoral Literature of the Present Day,” published in “Zwischen den Garben,” pp. 100-107 (Leipzig, 1899); same author, “Literary Sins and Affairs of the Heart,” pp. 30-34 (Berlin, 1894); Sebastian Brant, “Prostitution as displayed in the Great Art Exhibition of Berlin, 1895” (second edition, Berlin, 1895). Consult also the chapter concerning erotic literature and art in my “Recent Researches regarding the Marquis de Sade,” 1904 (pp. 237-272), and my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii., pp. 235-473.
[784] Cf. G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 352. This fact has been confirmed to me by Herr F. von Biedermann. When Frauenstädt once said to Schopenhauer that Goethe, when away from the Court, gladly made use of coarse expressions, Schopenhauer replied: “Yes, many contrasts can exist side by side in the same human being,” and he confirmed the fact from his own experience that Goethe was fond of gross phrases. Cf. Sohopenhauer’s “Gespräche und Selbstgespräche,” edited by E. Grisebach, p. 40 (Berlin, 1902). Certain “Secret Epigrams of Goethe” have recently been privately printed (forty copies only were issued). Many similar erotic poems of Goethe’s are still carefully preserved in Goethe-Archives, and withheld from publication.
[785] “Arthur Schopenhauer,” by E. O. Lindner, and “Memorabilia, Letters, and Posthumous Pieces,” edited by Julius Frauenstädt, p. 270 (Berlin, 1862).
[786] Schopenhauer’s “Gespräche und Selbstgespräche,” pp. 42, 53, 106.
[787] Rudolf von Gottschall, “The German National Literature of the Nineteenth Century,” vol. i., p. 255 (fifth edition, Breslau, 1881).
[788] Julius Pascin. Regarding this painter of the perverse, who has recently become more widely known, see Max Ludwig, “Erregungen und Beruhigungen,” published in Welt am Montag, December, 21, 1906.
[789] The name of Hokusai may well be added to this list. There exists a series of outline drawings by this great Japanese artist, in which the beauty of the draughtmanship is only equalled by the ingenuity with which sexual perversions are depicted.--TRANSLATOR.
[790] Cf., regarding this matter, my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 194-200.
[791] Cf. Paul Dehn, “Modern Hawkers’ Literature” (Stuttgart, 1894); “The Repression of Garbage Literature,” published in the Nationalzeitung, No. 683, December 11, 1906; Johannes Liebert, “Das Indianerbuch und die Backfischerzählung,” published in Der Zeitgeist, No. 51, of December 17, 1906.
[792] The literature dealing with the campaign against pornography is very extensive. I may mention: Francisque Sarcey, “La Presse Pornographique,” published in Le Livre: Bibliographie Moderne, November, 1880, pp. 287-289 (Paris, 1880); Hermann Roeren, “Public Immorality and its Repression” (Cologne, 1903); F. S. Schultze, “Immorality and the Christian Family” (Leipzig, 1892); Jacques Jolowicz, “The Campaign against Immorality” (Leipzig, 1904). Works of an opposite tendency: Karl Frenzel, “Art and the Criminal Law” (Berlin, 1885); rejoinder to this by Max Heinemann, “The Graef Trial and German Art” (Berlin, 1885); “The Moral Salvation Army in Berlin: a Union of Men for the Repression of Public Immorality. A Contemporary Picture by * * *” (Berlin, 1889); “Against Prudery and Lying” (Munich, 1892), contains, inter alia; “The Campaign against Immorality on the Part of the Pietists, and Free Literature,” by Dr. Oskar Panizza; Georg Keben, “The Pons Asinorum of Morality” (Berlin, 1900); Heinrich Schneegans, “Prudery and Science,” published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 123, May 5, 1906; “Punishment and Morality,” published in the Vossische Zeitung, No. 447, September 24, 1903 (condemning the confiscation of Hans von Kahlenberg’s “Nixchen”).
[793] With regard to the extent of this campaign against pornography, consult: “Catalogue des Ecrits, Gravures et Dessins condamnés depuis 1814 jusqu’au 1^{er} Janvier, 1850, suivi de la Liste des Individus condamnés pour délits de Presse” (Paris, 1850); “Catalogue des Ouvrages condamnés comme contraire à la Morale publique et aux bonnes Mœurs du 1^{er} Janvier, 1814, au 31 Decembre, 1873” (Paris, 1874); Fernand Drujon, “Catalogue des Ouvrages, écrits et Dessins de toute Nature poursuivis, supprimés ou condamnés depuis le 21 Octobre, 1814, jusqu’au 31 Juillet, 1877, etc.” (Paris, 1878); Index Librorum Prohibitorum Sanctissimi Domini, Pii IX. Pont. Max. Jussu editus. Editio novissima in qua libri omnes ab Apostolica Sede usque ad annum 1786, proscripti suis locis recensentur (Rom, 1876); Catalogue des Livres défendus par la Commission Impériale et Royale jusqu’à l’année 1786 (Brüssel, 1788); O. Delepierre, “Des Livres condamnés au Feu en Angleterre.” For Germany, see the recorded reports regarding forbidden and confiscated matter contained in the Journal of the German Book-Trade.
XXXI. LOVE IN POLITE (BELLETRISTIC) LITERATURE
“The question arises whether it is not absolutely =necessary= that art should represent this erotic element forbidden by the culture of our time, because it corresponds to a profound subjective human need, to a yearning for the completion of man’s imperfect existence.”--KONRAD LANGE.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXXI
Love the nucleus of belletristic literature -- Necessity for the erotic element in polite literature -- Remarks of the æsthetic Konrad Lange on this subject -- Sexual topics in belles-lettres are principally problem-literature -- As a mirror of the times -- Description of puberty in our poems -- The demi-vierge type -- The “Vera” books -- Misogyny and ascetic romances, and rejoinders -- The “intimacy” and free love in literature -- Irregular sexual intercourse in literature -- Marriage in literature -- Novels of divorce -- The emancipated woman in belletristic literature -- Novels dealing with “fallen woman” -- Precursors and imitations of the “Diary of a Lost Woman” -- Belletristic descriptions of brothel life, and of the life of prostitution -- Alcoholism and syphilis in literature -- Sexual perversities in belletristic literature -- Larocque’s “Voluptueuses,” etc. -- Homosexuality and bisexuality in belles-lettres -- Masochism and sadism -- Psychological love romances -- More earnest and more profound grasp of sexual questions displayed in modern belletristic literature.
Chapter XXXI
It is a familiar fact that from the very earliest uprising of belletristic literature its nucleus has always been the passion of love. There are, indeed, very few recent romances or dramas in which love does not play a part. It is a fable to say that sexual matters have =to-day for the first time= been freely discussed in belletristic literature, to assert that the predominance of erotic literature (which is to be distinguished from pornographic literature by its artistic intention and form) is especially characteristic of modern civilization. A glance at the catalogue of the library of the poet and bibliophile Eduard Grisebach,[794] which contains the erotic literature of the world, teaches us that such literature has existed at all times and among all civilized nations. The erotic in belles-lettres has not merely a permissive existence, but by necessity forms a part of it--a fact very justly recognized by the æsthetic Konrad Lange.[795] Who that knows human nature can doubt the fact? Lange remarks:
“Art which represents the nude, because an opportunity exists for it to delight in the representation of the flesh, because it regards humanity as the crown of creation, and because it admires the purposive anatomical structure of the human body--such an art is =within its own rights=, and does what it =may= and =must=.
“If we regard the representation of the nude in painting and sculpture as not repulsive, although it does not suit us in ordinary life to go naked, =so also in the poesy of the erotic we must sometimes allow a form to which in ordinary life a justification is refused=. Indeed, the question arises whether it is not absolutely =essential= that art should represent the erotic, although this is forbidden by the civilization of our time; for this corresponds to a profound subjective human need, a yearning for the completion of man’s imperfect existence.
“Next to hunger and thirst, love is the strongest human emotion; next to death, its enjoyment is the most important human experience. It is not to be wondered at that art is especially fond of depicting it. Art which wishes to represent life in general cannot leave unconsidered an instinct which plays so important a part in the life of the majority of human beings, and from which such a number of conflicts proceed. With regard to the degree and the kind of representation, =the decision depends not upon moral, but exclusively upon æsthetic, considerations=. The task of the poet is no more than this: to describe transgressions of the moral code in such a manner that they appear to arise by an inner necessity out of the whole course of activity, out of the characters, out of the objective relationships. Then the immoral content comes to the help of the illusion.”
It is naturally impossible, within the narrow compass of this work, to give an exhaustive account of the sexual element in modern belletristic literature. I shall only refer to a few well-known phenomena which all exhibit a common feature. Love and sexual topics in belles-lettres are principally =problem= literature. The earnest and profound social perception with which sexual problems are to-day considered and explained is reflected also in the literature of our time. The adult will long ago in these matters have risen above the level of shallow story-telling and schoolgirl morality, and demands an earnest and honest representation of sexual problems. Frey[796] justly observes that it is a general and a healthy tendency of the time, not a tendency to perverse lust, which impels the choice of erotic material. In the economically determined forced labour of persons of average ability, in the monotony and the poverty of adventure of our civilized life, it is only by eroticism that into many a life any individual colouring is brought.
In the following brief sketch of the sexual problems treated in recent belletristic literature, I hope to give some idea of the =very numerous= and interesting topics which the various phenomena of the sexual life now offer to the poet.
The very =first= sexual activities of the child have been subjected to poetic treatment, as in Frank Wedekind’s drama, “Frühlingserwachen” (“The Awakening of Spring”); and the sexual note of the time of puberty is treated in Bonnetain’s celebrated onanistic novel, “Charlot s’Amuse,” in Walter Bloem’s novel, “Der krasse Fuchs,” in Max von Münchhausen’s “Eckhart von Jeperen,” and very strikingly in the novel “Lothar oder Untergang einer Kindheit” (“Lothar, or the Ruin of Childhood”), by Oscar A. H. Schmitz. In connexion with the consideration of the time of puberty in belletristic literature, the following works may also be mentioned: “Unterm Rad,” by Hermann Hesse; “Freund Hein,” by Emil Strauss; “Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless,” by Robert Musil; “Was zur Sonne Will,” by Hans Hart; “Eine Gymnasiastentragödie,” a drama in four acts, by Robert Sandeks. Consult also Gustav Zieler’s review of “Frühlingserwachen,” published in Das Literarische Echo of August 15, 1907.
The type of girl who ripens to a premature sexuality, and who, though physically still intact, is spiritually corrupt, has been made widely known by Marcel Prévost’s “Demivierge.” A companion novel to this is “Nixchen,” by Hans von Kahlenberg. Nobler types of girls playing with this vice are described by Clara Eysell-Kilburger in “Dilettanten des Lasters.”
Diametrically opposed to these are the “Vera” characters, so called after the book by Vera, “Eine für Viele. Aus dem Tagebuche eines Mädchens” (“One for Many. From the Diary of a Girl”), which demands from the man before marriage the same purity and chastity that man himself demands from his future wife. Svava, in Björnsen’s drama “Der Handschuh,” is a similar type. Regarding this problem an entire literature has sprung into being, which associated itself with Vera’s above-mentioned book, such as “Eine für sich Selbst” (“One for Herself”), by “Auch Jemand” (“Somebody Else”); “Einer für Viele” (“One Man for Many”); “Eine für Vera. Aus dem Tagebuche einer jungen Frau” (“One for Vera. From the Diary of a Young Wife”)--these in favour of Vera’s demand--and Christine Thaler’s “Eine Mutter für Viele” (“One Mother for Many”); by Verus, “Einer für Viele” (“One Man for Many”), and “Kranke Seelen. Von einem Arzte” (“Morbid Souls. By a Physician”)--these in opposition to Vera’s demand--for masculine abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage.[797]
Next we may mention certain novels glorifying =misogyny=, such as Strindberg’s “Beichte eines Toren” (“Confessions of a Fool”) and “Vergangenheit eines Toren” (“The Past of a Fool”); and Tolstoi’s “The Kreutzer Sonata,” in which absolute asceticism is demanded. These ideas, which in Weininger found a pseudo-scientific apologist, have been contested in an interesting autobiography in the form of a romance, “Das Weib vom Manne erschaffen: Bekenntnisse einer Frau” (“Woman created from Man: Confessions of a Woman”), translated from the Norwegian by Tyra Bentsen. Zola’s magnificent hymn in favour of fruitfulness in “Fécondité” is also a refutation of this extreme ascetic-malthusian standpoint.
The “intimacy” and “free love” are to-day the subject of innumerable romances and novels. Tovote discusses the problem in “Im Liebesrausch” (“In the Intoxication of Love”), and in other novels, more superficially from the grossly sensual side; the ideal free love, ending indeed in marriage, is described in Peter Nansen’s “Maria.”[798] Similarly, Frenssen, in “Hilligenlei,” deals with the preconjugal sexual intercourse so common in country districts, and he reproves in powerful words the repression of natural impulses by conventional morality.[799]
In “Martin Birks Jugend,” Hjalmar Söderberg has described the great difficulties of ideal-minded young men who are not in a position to marry, and who are repelled by the idea of intercourse with common prostitutes.
In contrast to this, Camille Lemonnier, in “Die Liebe im Menschen,” describes the great danger of an =overgrowth= of the sexual; and Arthur Schnitzler, in his admirable “Reigen,” describes the utter misery of =irregular sexual intercourse=, of true “wild love,” and displays vividly before our eyes the results of sexual promiscuity.
The social contempt and the other disastrous consequences which to-day follow free love, in the form of =illegitimate motherhood=, have been described in dramas, such as Sudermann’s “Heimat” and Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Rose Bernd,” and in romances such as Gabriele Reuter’s “Aus guter Familie,” Johann Bojer’s “Eine Pilgerfahrt,” and Ernst Eberhardt’s “Das Kind.” The manifold conflicts resulting from free love and illegitimate motherhood are also described by Marcelle Tinayre in “La Rebelle.”
In belles-lettres we also find numerous accounts of the burning question of our day--that of =coercive marriage=. Above all, Ibsen, in “Ghosts,” “A Doll’s House,” “The Lady from the Sea,” “Hedda Gabler,” and “Little Eyolf,” has exposed the manifold injuries resulting from modern conventional marriage, and has propounded the ideal of a new marriage, based upon a deeply subjective conception of love and upon life’s work in common. The influence of Ibsen is further shown in numerous dramas and romances dealing with the marriage problem. Of these, it will suffice to mention a few of the most successful, such as “Die Sklavin,” by Ludwig Fulda; “Fanny Roth: eine Jungfrauengeschichte,” by Grete Meisel-Hess; and “Was siehst du aber den Splitter,” by Karl Larsen.
The important question of differences in class and social position in married life is considered by Ernst von Wildenbruch in his drama, “Die Haubenlerche.”
The classical novels of adultery are, and will remain, Erneste Feydeau’s delightful “Fanny,” and Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.” In French literature in general, in dramas as well as romances, adultery is a favourite motive.[800]
Isolated but especially characteristic phenomena of the sexual life have also found expression in poetry. Thus Ernst von Wolzogen, in “Das Dritte Geschlect,” describes the various types of =emancipated women=; the same question forms the theme of “Die Neue Eva,” by Maria Janitschek. Anna Mahr, also, in Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Einsame Menschen,” is such a type. In all of these the conflict between woman and personality is described; and this is done with exceptional force and clearness in “Das Neue Weib,” by M. Janitschek.[801]
The contrast to the woman who wishes to become a personality is to be found in the woman who has never possessed a personality, or who has lost it, the woman who has become only a chattel, an object of enjoyment for man--=the prostitute=. I alluded before (p. 315) to the fact that Margarete Böhme, in her sensational “Diary of a Lost Woman,” was not the first to describe the life of a prostitute. Already from the sixteenth century there date such romances as, for example, the celebrated “Lozana Andaluza” of Francisco Delgado; also Defoe’s “History of Moll Flanders,” and Abbé Prévost’s “Manon Lescaut” (both belonging to the eighteenth century). Besides the “Memoirs of a Hamburg Prostitute” (vide supra, p. 315), there exist still other precursors, belonging to the nineteenth century, of the “Diary of a Lost Woman,” such as E. de Goncourt’s “Fille Elisa,” Leon Leipsiger’s “Ballhaus-Anna,” etc. The “Diary of a Lost Woman” naturally soon found imitations, such as Hedwig Hard’s “Confessions of a Fallen Woman,” the “Diary of Another Lost Woman”; and the purely pornographic “History of Josephine Mutzenbecher, a Viennese Prostitute,” Daudet’s “Sapho,” Zola’s “Nana,” Cristian Krogh’s “Albertine,” and George Moore’s “Esther Waters,” belong to the same class.[802]
=Brothel life= and the =life of prostitution=, in all their relationships to modern civilization, and in their influence upon human character, are described by Frank Wedekind in “Die Büchse der Pandora” (“Pandora’s Box”) and in his “Hidalla”; and with exceptional vividness by Oscar Metenier, in his romance cycle, extending to seven volumes, “Tartufes et Satyres.”
The rôle of =alcohol= and of =syphilis= in the sexual life have also been discussed in belletristic literature. In Gerhart Hauptmann’s “Vor Sonnenaufgang” (“Before Sunrise”), Loth abandons his beloved Helne as soon as he learns that she springs from a degenerate family of drunkards. The disastrous consequences of syphilis are described by Ibsen in “Ghosts,” and recently most vividly by Brieux in “Les Avariés.”[803]
Extraordinarily comprehensive, especially in France, is the belletristic literature of =sexual perversities=. After the manner of the “Rougon-Macquart” series by Zola, Jean Larocque has written a romance cycle of eleven volumes, under the general title of “Les Voluptueuses” (the separate titles are: “Isey,” “Viviane,” “Odile,” “Fausta,” “Daphne,” “Phœbe,” “Fusette,” “La Naïade,” “Louvette,” “Lucine,” and “Hémine”; in the last volume we find even a discussion of copralagnistic details!). Some volumes of this series--for example, “Phœbe”--have even been translated into English. The works also of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Guy de Maupassant, offer a rich material for the study of psychopathia sexualis. In this connexion I may also mention the poetic collections “La Légende des Sexes,” by Edmond Haraucourt; “Rimes de Joie,” by Théodore Hannon; and also the “Chants de Maldoror.” Octave Mirbeau also, in his “Journal d’une Femme de Chambre,” provides us with a review of the entire register of sexual perversities.[804] He, and also the talented Rachilde (who in her romances “Monsieur Venus,” “Les Hors Nature,” and “Madame Adonis,” considers the question of homosexuality), never fail to exhibit the artistic spirit in their descriptions of these delicate topics--and, indeed, l’art pour l’art doctrine seems to have been created especially in relation to this department of thought.
=Homosexuality= and =bisexuality= have been considered in such a large number of works that it is quite impossible to mention them all here. A fairly complete bibliography of these will be found in the volumes of the Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages.[805] I can allude here only to a few especially well-known and artistically important homosexual romances and poems. Jouy, in his admirable “Galerie des Femmes” (Paris, 1799), devotes to the “Lesbiennes” a special chapter; Théophile Gautier, in “Mademoiselle de Maupin,” discusses the interesting problem of bisexuality; Zola, in “Nana,” represents the Lesbian relationship; Paul Verlaine in 1867 published tribadistic poetry under the title of “Les Amis.”[806] Since that time Englishmen, Germans, Belgians, and Italians have published belletristic descriptions of homosexual relationships. I may allude to Oscar Wilde’s “Dorian Grey,” Georges Eekhoud’s “Escal-Vigor,” Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” Prime-Stevenson’s “Irenæus,” Louis d’Herdy’s “L’Homme-Sirene,” F. G. Pernauhm’s “Ercole Tomei,” “Die Infamen,” and “Der junge Kurt”; also the sensational “Idylle Sapphique” of the demi-mondaine Liane de Pougy, the epic “Ganymedes” of C. W. Geissler, and the drama “Jasminblüte” of Dilsner.
Masochism found its introduction to belles-lettres by the writer from whom the very name is derived, L. von Sacher-Masoch, more especially in “Vermächtnis Kains.” Of his novels, the best known is “Venus im Pelz”; others are “Galizischen Geschichten,” “Messalinen Wiens,” “Die schwarze Zarin,” and “Wiener Hofgeschichten.” He still remains the only writer who has treated this peculiar perversity in an artistic manner. The more recent masochistic and sadistic novels belong to the worst kind of hawker’s literature. Lou Andreas-Salomé only, in “Eine Ausschweifung,” has artistically described the spiritual masochism of a woman with the fine psychological characterization peculiar to her work.
Quite recently there has actually appeared a masochistic monthly magazine, entitled Geissel und Rute: Archiv für Erziehung [sic!] Erwachsener (Whip and Rod: Archives for the Education [sic!] of Adults), edited by C. vom Stein, Buda-Pesth. The first number appeared on February 1, 1907. It contains masochistic stories, correspondence, historical sketches, and advertisements.
Sadistic love is the theme of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome,” and of the “Diaboliques” of Barbey d’Aurevilly. The satanic element is dealt with in Huysmans’ “La Bas,” and in various novels by St. Przybyszewski. Herbert Eulenburg’s drama “Ritter Blaubart” also represents a sadistic type.
In conclusion, I may allude to some authors who represent to us the whole psychology of modern love, and, above all, the depths of the love of reflection, its spiritual refinement, all the manifold moods, illusions, and dreams of the modern eros. J. P. Jakobsen’s “Niels Lyhne,” Hans Jäger’s “Christiania-Bohême,” Oskar Mysing’s “Grosse Leidenschaft,” Heinrich Mann’s “Jagd nach Liebe,” Gabriele d’Annunzio’s “Il Piacere,” “Trionfo della Morte,” and “Fuoco,” represent aspects of love. With the profoundest art, Lou Andreas-Salomé, in her stories--which in this respect I regard as among the most valuable products of modern literature--“Ruth,” “Fenitschka,” “Ma,” and “Menschenkinder,” represents the finer spiritual relationships between man and woman. This writer appears to possess the most intimate knowledge of the soul of the modern woman. Elisabeth Dauthendey, also (“Vom neuen Weibe und seiner Liebe”), Gabriele Reuter (“Liselotte von Reckling,” “Ellen von der Weiden”), and Rosa Mayreder (“Idole”), give most powerful descriptions of complicated feminine characters.[807] An important and interesting topic is discussed by Yvette Guilbert in “Les Demivieilles”--the psychology of the woman beginning to grow old, who cannot yet renounce love and yet is forced to do so by rude reality.
The writings to which I have referred in this chapter--the number of which could easily be increased tenfold without exhausting the abundance of recent belletristic literature occupied in the discussion of the sexual problem--should suffice to give some idea of how great is the interest in the important problems of the sexual life, how detailed and complicated the problems of that life have become under the influence of modern civilization, and with what earnestness they are treated in the belles-lettres of the day. The light and frivolous mood of Wieland and Clauren is no longer found to-day. In its place we have grandiose moral description, a more =dramatic= treatment of sexual problems, an unsparing exposure of the gloomier aspects of amatory life, and a psychological penetration into all the activities of the loving soul. Regarded =as a whole=, love in modern belletristic literature is treated from far worthier and higher standpoints than formerly. =There is no ground whatever for regarding the widespread discussion of sexual problems in modern literature as a stigma of degeneration.= In this respect our literature is merely a mirror of our time; and its tendencies indicate very clearly the emergence of a new, earnest, and more profound conception of the sexual relations between man and woman.
[794] Eduard Grisebach, “Catalogue of World Literature, with Literary and Bibliographical Annotations” (second edition, Berlin, 1905).
[795] K. Lange, “The Nature of Art,” vol. ii., pp. 161-177 (Berlin, 1901).
[796] Philipp Frey, “The Battle of the Sexes,” pp. 33, 34 (Vienna, 1904).
[797] Reference has previously been made (p. 673) to an English novel similar in character to Vera’s book--viz., “The Heavenly Twins,” by Sarah Grand. But the classical English example of a novel devoted to the consideration of the differing standards by which preconjugal sexual intercourse is judged in man and in woman respectively is “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” by Thomas Hardy.
[798] In “The Woman who Did,” by Grant Allen, we have an English novel advocating free love; like “Eine für Viele,” this evoked a number of novels with allied titles, such as “The Woman who Didn’t,” “The Woman who Wouldn’t,” and the like. A far profounder study of a free union between a man whose wife refused to divorce him (on “moral” grounds) and another woman is George Meredith’s “One of Our Conquerors.” In “Jude the Obscure,” by Thomas Hardy, we have another detailed consideration of the difficulties attendant on a free union in a society under the dominion of Philistine morality. A recent novel in which freer sexual relationships are discussed from a somewhat ideal standpoint is “In the Days of the Comet,” by H. G. Wells. (In the character of Sue Bridehead, in “Jude the Obscure,” we have a remarkable study of the “frigid” type of woman. I have before alluded, in a note to p. 435, to a recent novel by Hubert Wales, “Mr. and Mrs. Villiers,” devoted to the question of sexual frigidity in woman.)--TRANSLATOR.
[799] “Bourgeois morality is the arch-murderer, which murders your youth and the youth of many of your sisters. If we lived in natural conditions, you would always, from the days of your childhood, be surrounded by young persons of the other sex. One of these would have contracted a friendship for you; another would have honoured you from a distance; with a third you would have played joyfully. But from your twentieth year onwards, three or four or more of them would have ardently wooed you, because you are strong and beautiful and chaste. And so with tears, and passion, and suffering, with games and kisses, you would have gladly become a woman; thus it is even yet among the children of manual labourers. A beautiful, chaste, diligent workman’s child has wooers enough. But among the so-called cultured people, morality has distorted and destroyed all the beauty of nature.... Where the middle-class youth goes to and fro, there goes also, like an old youth-hating aunt, morality, and destroys for each poor girl the best time of her life; and many never come to marriage, and many come too late.”
[800] In “Divorçons,” a comedy by V. Sardou and E. de Najac, we have an exceedingly witty, though trivial, treatment of the idea of a terminable marriage contract.--TRANSLATOR.
[801] An early example of the “emancipated woman” in English literature is to be found in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh.” This conception of feminine character aroused the usual hostility in minds working along the older grooves, so that Edward Fitzgerald, when Mrs. Browning died, is said to have exclaimed: “Thank God! No more ‘Aurora Leighs’!”--TRANSLATOR.
[802] George Gissing’s “The Unclassed” is a powerful study of the life of a London prostitute.--TRANSLATOR.
[803] Bayet, “À propos des ‘Avariés’” (Brussels, 1902).
[804] We may include in this category Willy’s “La Môme Picrate,” and also the “Claudine” novels by the same author (“Claudine à l’École,” “Claudine à Paris,” etc.).
[805] Consult also the work “Lieblingsminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur,” by Elisar von Kupffer.
[806] And at a later date Verlaine wrote other homosexual poems, “Les Hommes,” which for the most part are still unpublished.
[807] A work of similar character to these is the notable novel recently published (February, 1907) “Die Stimme,” by Grete Meisel-Hess (Berlin, 1907).
XXXII. THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE OF THE SEXUAL LIFE
“Stress has been laid upon the harm which can be done by the publication of works dealing with sexual problems. Undoubtedly the pornographic interest of the laity, and also of men of science, does play a part here! =But the benefits which the unreserved scientific elucidation of the sexual problem is able to diffuse throughout the widest circles of the population are so extensive that this consideration of any possible harm that may ensue becomes infinitesimal in comparison.=”--A. VON SCHRENCK-NOTZING.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXXII
Indispensable need for the scientific investigation of sexual problems -- Insignificance and ludicrous character of the objections made to such investigation -- The diffusion of sexual perversities was just as extensive before their scientific study was first undertaken -- de Sade’s system of psychopathia sexualis -- Recent additions to the scientific literature of the subject -- Works upon homosexuality -- Upon erotic symbolism -- General investigations regarding the sexual impulse -- General works upon the sexual problem -- Periodical literature relating to the sexual life.
Chapter XXXII
Truth is always a good thing, even truth regarding the sexual life. Neither prudery nor moral hypocrisy can controvert this proposition. He who recognizes the immense importance of sexuality in relationship to civilization at large--he who, like the author of the present work, has been occupied for many years in the study of the subject from the points of view of medicine, anthropology, ethnology, literature, and the history of civilization--is not only entitled, but will also consider it his duty, to publish his investigations, to make publicly known his views and his opinions, and to take a definite and clear position in relation to the burning questions of the day in this province of thought.
Such men as Ploss-Bartels, who, in their celebrated and purely scientific work, “Woman in Natural History and Folklore,” could not avoid collecting numerous piquant and even obscene details, and who, for example, have described in a special chapter the various postures assumed during sexual intercourse; such a man as von Krafft-Ebing, whose “Psychopathia Sexualis”[808] contains a number of detailed autobiographies and clinical histories of sexually perverse individuals--such men as these have been blamed because their books have been diffused in numerous editions, extending to many thousands of copies, and because these books have been read more by laymen than by medical men. Apart from the fact that in earlier times much more dangerous books--such, for example, as the works of Virey, Flittner, G. F. Most, and Rozier, characterized by a lascivious style, or such a book as the dictionary “Eros”--obtained the widest possible circulation; apart, also from the fact that even in works conceived and executed in a strictly scientific spirit--such as the numerous monographs of Martin Schurig, or the work of Frenzel (belonging to the nineteenth century) concerning impotence (see, for example, Frenzel, op. cit., pp. 155, 156, 161)--obscene passages and incredibly depraved stories occur; and apart, finally, from the incredible mass of pornographic writings, in comparison with which the scientific literature of the sexual life is almost infinitesimally small--putting on one side all these considerations, it is merely necessary to refer to the =established fact= that all possible sexual perversities were known to exist before the publication of von Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia Sexualis,” and that they made their appearance spontaneously at all times and in all places. In the eighteenth century the Marquis de Sade, in his romance “The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom,” was able to found a system of psychopathia sexualis which not only contained =all= the perverse types described by von Krafft-Ebing, but was even more varied in its contents, and exhibited yet more numerous categories of sexual anomalies than the book of the Viennese alienist.[809] This work is a document of enormous importance to civilization,[810] because it provides a complete refutation to the fable of modern degeneration, and because it gives us a proof that =quite shortly= before the powerful upheaval of the French nation and the heroic campaigns of the Napoleonic epoch, in this nation there were diffused the most frightful perversities, regarding the reality of which there can, according to recent experience, be no doubt whatever.
Scientific authorship--even popular scientific works[811]--dealing with the province of the sexual life cannot therefore be made responsible, in any respect, for the diffusion of sexual perversities. The founder of modern sexual science, A. von Schrenck-Notzing,[812] insisted on this fact; and recently it has been once more emphasized by S. Freud, who has probably gone further than any other writer in biologico-physiological derivation of sexual perversions.
Havelock Ellis’s “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse” (vol. iii. of this writer’s “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” published by the F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia)--a book in which we find an admirable analysis of the development and variations of the sexual impulse, including an account of sadism and masochism, enriched by numerous examples--has recently appeared in a German translation (Würzburg, 1903). The translator, Dr. H. Kurella, in his preface to this work, says (pp. ix, x), in my opinion with perfect justice:
“Daily experience among my patients suffering from nervous diseases--patients who were for the most part women and girls--has shown me how extremely important is enlightenment regarding the sexual life for women suffering from nervous disorders. =For this reason, I hope the book will have the widest possible circulation among the mothers of daughters about to grow up.= If they will employ in a proper manner the knowledge which they will be able to obtain from its contents, in this way an immeasurable quantity of sorrow and misery can be prevented. This use of its teaching will, by itself, suffice to compensate the author and the translator for the scruples they must always feel in giving to the world a book which is likely to be valued by some simply as providing prurient reading matter, and which by such persons will perhaps be circulated for this purpose--a fate to which every book dealing with erotic subjects is exposed, however earnest its style and tendency may be.”
The lively scientific activity which now animates the department of sexual problems is a matter for rejoicing, since it indicates the advance of knowledge in one of the most important of all vital problems. Whereas earlier none but alienists and neurologists concerned themselves with sexual questions, an interest in these questions is now very generally displayed by the circles of other medical men, of anthropologists, folk-lorists, psychologists, æsthetics, and historians of civilization. One good result of this wide diffusion of interest is, as I have already remarked (pp. 455 et seq.), that a one-sided consideration of the problems under investigation will thereby be prevented. Every earnest investigator, to whatever discipline he may personally belong, can here contribute something =new=, something which will advance knowledge; but most helpful, unquestionably, can the =physician= be who, as von Schrenck-Notzing[813] declared, is competent to consider the question in relation to various other departments--those of biology, anthropology, history, belles-lettres, psychology, and forensic medicine.
It would subserve no useful purpose to enumerate once more in this place the works of all the recent authors who have dealt with the subject of the sexual life. In the text of the present book they have for the most part received sufficient mention.[814]
Of larger monographs upon homosexuality, there still remain to be mentioned those of Havelock Ellis and J. A. Symonds,[815] A. Moll,[816] J. Chevalier,[817] and Laupts.[818] In these works we find extensive reports of cases; and more especially in the two first mentioned do we find a record of all the historical and critical data of homosexuality up to the time of the first publication of the “Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages” (1899 et seq.).
A new work by Havelock Ellis[819] recently reached me, the fifth volume of the American edition of his “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,”[820] giving an account of “Erotic Symbolism” (fetichism, exhibitionism, etc.), the “Mechanism of Detumescence,” and the “Psychical Condition during Pregnancy,” with an appendix giving an analysis of the sexual development of various individuals. This book, full of interesting details, will doubtless, like the earlier volumes of his “Studies,” soon appear in a German translation.
The fundamental work of A. Marro on “Puberty in Man and Woman” also deserves especial mention. It can most usefully be consulted in the French edition, “La Puberté chez l’Homme et chez la Femme. Etudiée dans ses Rapports avec l’Anthropologie, la Psychiatrie, la Pedagogie, et la Sociologie” (Paris, 1902; 536 pp.).
Special studies on the subject of the sexual impulse have been published by Moll[821] and Féré.[822] In Moll’s work, of which hitherto the first part only has appeared, the sexual impulse is divided into two components, the “detumescence impulse”--that is, the impulse towards the evacuation of the reproductive products--and the “contrectation impulse”--that is, the impulse towards the other individual; and from these two components the various manifestations of sexuality are explained. Féré, more especially, has made an exhaustive study of the instinctive element of the sexual impulse; and, apart from this, he appears to be the most extreme advocate of the atavistic theory of sexual perversions.
An interesting study of sexual psychology, based upon the doctrine of Freud, has been published by Otto Rank.[823] The tendency of this work also is in opposition to the degeneration-phobia.
The work of the Italian psychiatrist Pasquale Penta, “I pervertimenti sessuali nell’ uomo e Vincenzo Verzeni strangolatore di donne” (“The Sexual Perversions observed in Vincenzo Verzeni, the Strangler of Women”), Naples, 1893, contains numerous interesting details. In the first chapter the author gives contributions to a history of psychopathia sexualis; the second chapter contains a detailed report of Verzeni and an account of his lust-murders; in the third chapter Penta discusses the similarities and differences between the sexual impulse in man and in the lower animals; in the fourth chapter he deals with the biological foundations of lust-murder; in the fifth chapter he reviews the different sexual perversions; in the sixth chapter he considers rape; and in the seventh and last chapter he discusses the forensic importance of rape and of sexual perversions.
The recently published work on “Sexual Biology,” by Robert Müller (Berlin, 1907), is written from the standpoint of veterinary medicine, and the sub-title of the book, “Comparative and Evolutionary Studies in the Sexual Life of Man and the Higher Mammals,” indicates the author’s intention to elucidate the general biological roots of sexual phenomena. This =comparative= consideration of the sexual life of man and of the higher mammals throws a new light on many matters, and enables us to understand a number of phenomena of the sexual life which have hitherto seemed obscure.
A comprehensive, general, popular work upon the sexual life is now in course of publication--“Man and Woman.” It is issued by R. Kossmann and J. Weiss, with the collaboration of a number of leading specialists (Stuttgart, 1907). A number of illustrated sections have already been issued.
Finally, two other works must be mentioned which consider the sexual life as a whole, a larger work and a smaller one. Forel’s[824] comprehensive book is distinguished from beginning to end by an =original, subjective= grasp of the question, and by an =optimistic view of the future=, as I have pointed out in my review of this book in the Deutsche Aerztezeitung. As such a subjective programme of a future solution of sexual problems, it will ever retain a value; and we can always follow with pleasure the demonstrations of the talented and sympathetic author, although the book is perhaps somewhat monotonous in character. Its merits, moreover, are counterbalanced by the almost complete neglect of the numerous recent researches in almost every department of the sexual life. More particularly the chapter upon syphilis and venereal diseases, the chapter upon homosexuality and sexual perversions, and the chapter upon marriage betray this fault. The chapter on marriage is a mere extract from Westermarck. The author is fully conscious of these defects, and freely admits them; and in spite of them the book must not be ignored, because its value really lies in its subjectivity, and because we find in it so profound a conviction of the great importance of =social= activity for the higher development of love. A shorter consideration of sexual problems, but one abounding in paradoxes, is to be found in a book by Leo Berg.[825]
In conclusion, I may give a brief survey of the reviews and other periodical publications which are occupied with sexual questions. A great periodical devoted to the =entire province= of sexual research does not exist. Such periodicals as we have deal with separate departments of the sexual life. A rather insignificant periodical, Vita Sexualis, which appeared for the first time in 1899, seems to have become extinct a few years later. An exceedingly valuable publication, especially occupied with the problems of homosexuality, bisexuality, and sexual intermediate stages, is the one edited by Magnus Hirschfeld, and entitled Annual for Sexual Intermediate Stages (of this eight volumes have hitherto appeared). Purely popular and belletristic aims are subserved by the homosexual monthly magazine Der Eigene (edited by Adolf Brand). Another annual, not less valuable than the one previously mentioned, is that edited by Friedrich S. Krauss, entitled Anthropophyteia. This treats more especially of folk-lorist research in sexual matters, and is a true treasure-house of new facts and observations.[826] The periodicals for the study of venereal diseases, such as the Archives of Dermatology and Syphilis, edited by F. J. Pick (hitherto eighty-two volumes), the Monthly Magazine of Practical Dermatology, edited by Unna and Tanzer (hitherto forty-four volumes), the Monthly Magazine for Diseases of the Urinary Organs and Sexual Hygiene, edited by W. Hammer, in succession to K. Ries (hitherto four volumes), and the other German and foreign dermato-urological periodicals, also contain much material regarding venereal diseases and sexual perversions. Interesting contributions to all sexual problems, as well as an extensive case-literature and bibliography, are to be found in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology and Criminology, edited by Hans Gross (hitherto twenty-seven volumes), proceeding largely from the pen of the learned and most original alienist Paul Näcke; also in the Monthly Magazine for Criminal Psychology and Criminal Law Reform, edited by Gustav Aschaffenburg; in the monthly magazine The Protection of Motherhood; a Magazine for the Reform of Sexual Ethics, edited by Helene Stöcker (vide supra, pp. 270 and 273); in the monthly magazine Sex and Society, edited by Karl Vanselow (hitherto two volumes); and in the illustrated magazine, under the same editorship, Beauty (hitherto four volumes). Finally, we have to mention certain periodicals concerned chiefly with the aims of racial hygiene, and containing valuable material--the Politico-Anthropological Review, edited by Ludwig Woltmann (hitherto five years of issue), and the Archives for Racial and Social Biology, edited by Alfred Ploetz (hitherto three years of issue).
[808] R. von Krafft-Ebing, “Psychopathia Sexualis.” Only Authorized Translation from the Twelfth revised German Edition (Rebman Limited, London, 1906).
[809] Cf. my “New Researches concerning the Marquis de Sade,” pp. 437-450 (Berlin, 1904).
[810] Recently A. Moll (Enzyklopädische Jahrbücher der gesamten Heilkunde, 1906, vol. xiii., pp. 238, 239) has expressed the “opinion,” =without offering the slightest proof in support of his views=, that “The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom” is a forgery. But I myself, in my French edition of this work, have given all the historical and critical details regarding its origin; moreover, the original manuscript, as has been shown by the examination of all the experts, (1) =dates from the eighteenth century=; (2) =is throughout in de Sade’s original handwriting=; (3) =is written in his characteristic style=; and, finally, the forgery of this manuscript, a roll 12 metres 12 centimetres in length, written on both sides in letters of microscopic smallness, would be an absolute impossibility. If anything is genuine and authentic, this work is such. Dr. Albert Eulenburg, without doubt one of the most experienced, if not the most experienced, student of de Sade, assured me that this work unquestionably came from de Sade’s pen. I must, therefore, reject Moll’s opinion, which was formed independently of any proof, and without any examination of the original manuscript, as =unscientific and utterly futile=.
[811] In popular writings dealing with the sexual life, I have myself found many interesting remarks, and even many new ideas. Naturally, when I say “popular,” I mean truly popular writings, not hawkers’ literature or garbage literature.
[812] A. von Schrenck-Notzing, “Suggestive Therapeutics in Cases of Morbid Manifestations of Sexual Sensibility,” preface, p. ix (Stuttgart, 1892).
[813] Von Schrenck-Notzing, “Bibliography of the Psychology and Psychopathology of the Vita Sexualis,” published in the Zeitschrift für Hypnotismus, vol. vii., Nos. 1 and 2, p. 121.
[814] In order to give an idea of the great interest in sexual science exhibited by the most diverse circles of cultured men of the present day, I shall merely mention in this note a few names, without pretending to give an exhaustive list: R. von Krafft-Ebing, Mantegazza, Ploss-Bartels, A. Eulenburg, von Schrenck-Notzing, Fr. S. Krauss, Tarnowsky, L. Löwenfeld, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, S. Freud, Georg Hirth, H. Kurella, H. Swoboda, Laurent, A. Hoche, C. Lombroso, P. Fürbringer, E. Carpenter, Rohleder, Alfred Fournier, A. Binet, Marro, J. J. Bachofen, J. Kohler, E. Westermarck, Max Dessoir, Alfred Blaschko, Albert Neisser, Eli Metchnikoff, Fritz Schaudinn, Ducrey, Unna, Oskar Schultze, Wilhelm Waldeyer, V. von Gyurkovechky, Louis Fiaux, Léon Taxil, Wilhelm Fliess, Willy Hellpach, P. J. Möbius, Heinrich Schurtz, B. Friedländer, Eduard von Meyer, Hans Ostwald, R. Kossmann, Otto Adler, W. Hammond, Beard, Wilhelm Erb, Paul Näcke, J. Salgó, H. T. Finck, F. Neugebauer, C. Wagner, H. Ferdy, Rosa Mayreder, Ellen Key, Helene Stöcker, Anna Pappritz, Maria Lischnewska, Lily Braun, and many others.
[815] Havelock Ellis and J. A. Symonds, “Contrary Sexual Sensibility.”
[816] Albert Moll, “Contrary Sexual Sensibility,” third edition (Berlin, 1899).
[817] J. Chevalier, “L’Inversion Sexuelle,” with a preface by A. Lacassagne (Lyons and Paris, 1893).
[818] Laupts, “Perversion et Perversité Sexuelles,” preface by Émile Zola (Paris, 1896). (Containing interesting critical, literary, and medical studies upon the subject of homosexuality.)
[819] Havelock Ellis, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” vol. v.: “Erotic Symbolism, etc.” (Philadelphia, 1906).
[820] Apart from “Man and Woman” (fourth edition, 1904, revised and enlarged), all Havelock Ellis’s writings on sexual questions are included in the “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” 5 vols. (sixth concluding volume not yet completed), published by the F. A. Davis Company, of Philadelphia, U.S.A.--TRANSLATOR.
[821] A. Moll, “Investigations regarding the Libido Sexualis,” Part I. (Berlin, 1897).
[822] Charles Féré, “L’Instinct Sexuel, Évolution et Dissolution” (Paris, 1899).
[823] Otto Rank, “The Artist: Contributions to Sexual Psychology” (Vienna and Leipzig, 1907).
[824] August Forel, “The Sexual Question” (Rebman, 1908).
[825] Leo Berg, “Geschlechter” (Berlin, 1906).
[826] Prior to the issue of the first edition of the present work, three volumes of Anthropophyteia had appeared, and references to many of the most important papers in these volumes have already been given in the appropriate chapters. While the sixth edition of “The Sexual Life of Our Time” was in the press, in October, 1907, the fourth volume of Anthropophyteia was issued, and constitutes an especially weighty section of this work. Among the contributions are the following: A. Mitrović, “Temporary Marriages in Northern Dalmatia”; Fr. S. Krauss, “Selective Marriages in Bosnia”; H. E. Luedecke, “Erotic Tattooing”; W. von Bülow, “The Sexual Life of the Samoans”; F. Wernert, “Tales of the German Peasantry” (of an erotic character); A. Mitrović, “A Visit to a Sorceress in Northern Dalmatia”; Krauss, Mitrović, and Wernert, “The Sense of Smell in the Sexual Life”; B. Laufer, “A Japanese Spring Picture”; O. Knapp, “The ‘ολισβος’ of the Hellenes”; A. Kind, “Coitus and the Sexual Instinct”; K. Amrain, “The Increase of Virile Potency”; H. E. Luedecke, “Eroticism and Numismatics”; V. S. Karadžić, “Erotic and Skatological Proverbs and Locutions of the Servians”; Luedecke, “Elements of Skatology”; Fr. S. Krauss, “Slavonic Popular Traditions regarding Sexual Intercourse.”
XXXIII. THE OUTLOOK
“A happy man is he who in his individuality possesses an instrument upon which the world can play with all its wealth of powers. To him the sexual will be a means by which he will be enabled to grasp the innermost of life, to understand its most painful sorrows and its most intoxicating delights, to plumb its most frightful abysses and to scale its most shining summits.”--ROSA MAYREDER.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXXIII
The future of human love -- Indications of progress and of a happier configuration of the sexual life -- Relationship of sexuality to intimate individual love -- The categorical imperative of the sexual life -- The association of love with the work of life -- Love and personality.