|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 10
But perhaps, looking at our complicated civilization, which, at least in
the upper classes, involves, as a rule, the deferring of
marriage--looking at the strength of the passions which generations of
indulgence have evolved beyond their natural limits, some women will
feel constrained to ask, "Is this standard a possible one? Can men keep
their health and strength as celibates? Is not my husband right when he
says that this is a subject we women can know nothing about, and that
here we must bow to the judgment of men?"
I answer that a mother must know by what standard she is to educate her
boy, and therefore must have the data supplied to her on which to form
her own judgment, and be fully persuaded in her own mind what she is to
aim at in the training she is to give him; and the mere fact that the
current judgment of men involves the sacrifice in body and soul of a
large class of our fellow-women lays a paramount obligation upon all
women to search for themselves into the truth and scientific accuracy of
the premises on which that judgment is based.
"Can men keep their health and strength as celibates till such time as
they have the means to marry?" is the question we have, then, to face.
Is the standard of the moral law possible to men who have to maintain a
high level of physical efficiency in the sharp competition of modern
life?
Primarily, the answer to this question must come from the acknowledged
heads of the medical profession. Now, I am thankful to say, we have in
England a consensus of opinion from the representative men of the
faculty that no one can gainsay. Sir James Paget, Acton in his great
text-book, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir George Humphrey, of Cambridge,
Professor Millar, of the Edinburgh University, Sir William Gowers,
F.R.S., have all answered the above question in the strongest
affirmative. "Chastity does no harm to body or mind; its discipline is
excellent; marriage may safely be waited for," are Sir James Paget's
terse and emphatic words[4]. Still more emphatic are the words of Sir
William Gowers, the great men's specialist, who counts as an authority
on the Continent as well as here:
"The opinions which on grounds falsely called 'physiological'
suggest or permit unchastity are terribly prevalent among young
men, but they are absolutely false. With all the force of any
knowledge I possess, and any authority I have, I assert that this
belief is contrary to fact; I assert that no man ever yet was in
the slightest degree or way the worse for continence or better for
incontinence. From incontinence during unmarried life all are worse
morally; a clear majority, are, in the end, worse physically; and
in no small number the result is, and ever will be, utter physical
shipwreck on one of the many rocks, sharp, jagged-edged, which
beset the way, or on one of the banks of festering slime which no
care can possibly avoid. They are rocks which tear and rend the
unhappy being who is driven against them when he has yielded to the
tide of passion, they are banks which exhale a poison for which, no
true antidote exists."
In face of such testimony as this, well might Mr. George Russell, in an
address to young men, speak of "this exploded lie which has hitherto led
so many astray."
Turning now from knowledge to fact, we have only to look at the French
clergy to see that even in the extreme case of life-long celibacy it is
not injurious to health. I know, in taking this case, I am grating
somewhat harshly against Protestant prejudice. But the testimony that
Renan bears on this point is irrefutable. Himself a renegade priest, he
certainly would not have hesitated to expose the Order to which he had
once belonged, and vindicate his broken vows by the revelation of any
moral rottenness known within the walls of its seminaries. Far from
this, he bears the most emphatic testimony in his autobiography that
there is enough virtue in St. Sulpice alone to convert the world; and
owns so strong was the impress made on his own soul by his training as a
priest that personally he had lived a pure life, "although," he adds,
with an easy shrug of his shoulders, "it is very possible that the
libertine has the best of it!" Another renegade priest, also eminent in
literature, bears exactly the same testimony. Indeed, when we remember
the argus-eyed hatred with which the French priesthood is watched by the
anti-clerical party, and the few scandals that appear in the public
prints only too anxious to give publicity to them, this unimpeachable
testimony is borne out by fact. I believe this testimony to be equally
true of the English and Irish Roman Catholic clergy. Yet few would
dispute the vigor of the physique of the Roman Catholic priests, or
their capacity for hard and often exhausting work.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|