The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy

t " Sur les Alterations pathologo-anatomiques des Testicules pendant la Vieillesse," St. Petersbourg, 1894 (in Russian). A But the presence of ripe spermatozoa is not the only con- dition necessary for functional virility. In the case of old men it happens frequently that there is incapacity to make normal use of the spermatozoa that are produced. This brings about a series of discomforts in the sexual functions of advanced life which, however, do not prevent the reten- tion of the specific sensation and dc si ~e until a very extreme old age. Doctors, in hospitals devoted to old men, have noticed to what an extent their patients are engrossed by sexuality. Even some of the ancient authors have noticed how the amorous sentiments of old men turn into a per- verted attraction to youths.

Sexual irritability and amorousness not only appear before sexual maturity and general fitness of the organism for marriage, but they remain after the disappearance of these. It is remarkable to notice how profound is the differ- ence between the disharmonies of the reproductive functions in man and the perfect condition of adaptation of the same functions in the higher plants. In the case of the higher plants, as I described in my second chapter, the arrange- ments are complicated on account of the necessary media- tion of insect life. Notwithstanding this, the perfection of the adaptation is remarkable. At the exact time when the reproductive products are ripe, the petals open and the nectar is secreted, while, in addition, at this time many flowers discharge odours agreeable to insects. Attracted by the scents and colours, the insects visit the flowers in quest of pollen or nectar, and, becoming dusted with pollen, carry it to the stigmas of the next flowers they visit. As soon as

few years ago, in course of the examination of the body of a man who had died at the age of 103 at Lyons, the seminal vesicles were found to be full of ripe and active spermatozoa. " Annales d'Hygicne publique," p. 370, 1900. fertilisation has taken place the petals fade, the scents are no longer produced, and the insects cease to visit the flowers to which they are no longer necessary. It is not surprising that the disharmonies in the human reproductive apparatus are a frequent source of trouble. Little children, in whom sexual irritability has awakened prematurely, learn to satisfy it by means called " unnatural." In many cases damage rapidly follows. " In the child," wrote Dr. Christian, " there is no secretion of spermatozoa, and it is in the child that the results of onanism are most disastrous to the organism, and disastrous almost in inverse proportion to the age.* It is in early infancy that this aber- ration merits the evil reputation that it has acquired ; it compromises health, intelligence, and even life. Quite young children wither, becoming pale, stupid, and fragile, when they have acquired this disastrous habit. The evil is almost entirely a consequence of the unripeness of the organism for sexuality." Happily these evil occurrences are rare.

A publication by Tissot, a Swiss doctor, on the subject of onanism, made a sensation in the eighteenth century. The book was full of exaggeration, and it was very inexact, but it contained interesting confessions from persons who had contracted the habit. A woman wrote to Tissot in the following terms : " But for the restraint of religion, I should have put an end to my life, which is ruined by my own fault." Not infrequently the vice leads to melancholia.

Other unfortunate results come from the ripening of the sexual products before the organism is ready for marriage, and before the character has been formed. As men cannot contract marriage before they are ready for it, irregular and frequently harmful sexual aberration may occur. * Loc. cit. p. 377. The survival of this specific irritability until too late a period of life is another source of disaster. Old men who can neither excite passion nor satisfy it, often become victims of their own amorousness and unassuaged passions. It has been shown that passion may survive after the com- plete atrophy of the functions of the organs. Similarly it is the case that women from whom the ovaries have been removed, may continue to retain sexual irritability com- pletely.

Disharmony of sexuality may also occur between persons of different sexes. The fact that sexuality is usually more precocious in the male sex often produces a disharmony in the case of married persons. At the time when a woman is still in full possession of this specific irritability, the appetite in the man may be on the wane. From this disharmony there often follows conjugal infidelity or passion between persons of the same sex. Schopenhauer devoted attention to this subject and wrote as follows : " That nature herself may produce a condition totally opposed to the natural function offers a paradoxical problem of very deep interest." * It is clear, however, when we consider the disharmonies in the development and acti- vities of the functions in question, that the apparently paradoxical and strange aberrations of sexuality are natural enough.

The existing disharmony gives rise to many evils from earliest youth to advanced age, and, consequently, it is not surprising to find that religions have denounced sexu- ality more or less severely. Dr. Christian expresses his astonishment " that in nearly all religions it has been considered a homage to the Deity to abstain from sexual * "Die Welt als Wille und Vorsteilung/' vol. II. t Supplement to chap. xliv. intercourse." * It is simply because the disharmonies of sexuality lead to sexual aberrations that religions have found cause for denouncing human nature as vile.f

Disharmonies in the family instincts. — Artificial abortion. — Desertion and infanticide. — Disharmonies in the social instincts As the functions of reproduction are seated deep in the organic world and none the less present cases of striking disharmony in mankind, it is not surprising to find similar want of adaptation in the family instincts of man, as these instincts have been acquired more recently and are less widespread in the living world.

It has been shown that the animal world provides many examples of onanism and of aberrations of sexual congress. On the other hand, there are no cases in the animal world in which pregnancy is destroyed by aberrant instincts. To the human race belongs the distinction of having invented modes of sexual congress which are necessarily barren. No doubt the loss of the os penis has made such occurrences more easy, as the presence of that bone would render interruption of coition more difficult. But there are many ways in which the spermatozoa may be prevented from accomplishing their function, and these are so common and so familiar that it is unnecessary to enumerate them. In civilised countries procreation is limited chiefly by such means. In its early days, the human race must have been distinguished by its unusual procreative capacity, but with the growth of civilisation many devices have been employed to limit that.

Savages and races of low civilisation have recourse tc artificial abortion rather than to means for preventing fertilisation, and abortion is almost universal among them. The great treatise of Floss, " Das Weib," to which I have made repeated reference, contains a whole chapter * on this subject. Deliberate abortion with the object of limit- ing the number of children is customary all over the globe. In most primitive races and among peoples of low civilisa- tion it is practised openly without the smallest restraint. Many of these peoples have adopted the custom of limiting the family to two children by procuring abortion in sub- sequent pregnancies. The aborigines of Kaisar and of the islands of Watubela observe the rule strictly. Among the natives of the islands of Aaru it is rare to find more than three children in a family, because any others are destroyed by artificial abortion.

A similar custom is widespread in India, being quite as common among the Hindoos who are ruled by England as among independent races. In the peninsula of Kutch, women frequently procure abortion, and one woman boasted to Macmurdo that she had made use of the practice five times. Abortion is equally common in Africa and America. Even in Europe there are nations amongst which abor- tion is permitted within certain limits. The Turks do not regard a foetus as being really alive until after the fifth month, and have no scruple in causing its abortion. Even at later stages, when the operation becomes criminal, it is frequently practised. In 1872, at Constantinople, more than three thousand cases of abortion were brought before the Courts in a period of ten months. Under such circum- stances it is not surprising that illegitimate children are rare in the East.

Artificial abortion is not a modern invention, but was common in ancient times. The old Greeks practised it openly, without any legal restraint. Plato regarded it as within the province of the midwife, and Aristotle permitted it to married people when a pregnancy that was not desired took place. Steller, writing of the natives of Kamchatka of the eighteenth century, stated that among them marriage was contracted rather for sensual gratification than for the procreation of children, because they interfered with preg- nancies by various kinds of medicaments and by violent operative interferences.

The arts by which abortion has been produced are numer- ous and varied. In addition to the administration of drugs, chiefly of vegetable origin, implements have been employed. The natives of Greenland use the ribs of seals or of the walrus, and the Hawaians of the Sandwich Islands employ for the purpose a wooden implement fashioned as a deity. On the other hand, certain races have strongly opposed the practice of abortion. In the ancient world such races were the Medes, the Bactrians, the Persians, and Jews. Among the ancient Incas, abortion was a crime punished with death. Later on, the Christian nations followed this view. However, the reprobation of abortion occurs only in a comparatively small number of the nations of the earth, and even amongst these the practice is common in secret.

Animals which are unable to procure abortion very often destroy their young, as I described in the second chapter of this volume. In the human race, infanticide is too common. The Greeks and Romans did not regard the newly born infants as possessing any right to live. The old Germans held themselves free to expose their infants. The Arabs, before the faith of Islam had spread to them, were in the habit of burying many female children alive. In India a similar custom is common, and in China it is notorious. According to figures collected by Eitel,* the Chinese of the province of Canton very often kill female children immediately after birth. " It may be said," he wrote, "that the murder of female infants is the general rule among the Hakrlo, and especially among the Hak-ka of the agricultural classes. The Hak-ka themselves estimate the number of female children exposed as about two-thirds of those born." In a little village in which the author lived for several years, an investigation, made with the help of some Christians, showed that without exception women who had given birth to two children had killed at least one of them.

In Tahiti two-thirds of new-born children are killed, those of the female sex making up the greater part of the numbers. The first three infants and all twins are killed, and as a rule not more than two or at most three are actually reared. f Among the Melanesians the custom of infanticide is very common. " It must also be assumed," said Ratzel,J " that in Ugi (Solomon Islands) all the infants are killed, to be replaced by the Bauros." It is not surprising that such a widespread occurrence of artificial abortion and of infanticide among primitive races is bringing about a rapid diminution in the numbers of these, and may lead even to their extinction. This is taking place in the case of the natives of New South Wales, of New Guinea, and of the islands of Aaru. Nothing could show more plainly the feebleness of the human family instinct.

In more highly civilised nations, the rude proceedings of savages have been replaced by clever devices to prevent conception, and infanticide has become rare. Artificial abortion is excited by modern methods suggested by the progress of science. The embryonic membranes are pierced not by the ribs, of seals or hair-pins, but by sterilised sounds, and the operation is performed with strict asepsis. In avert- ing the natural results of passion the woman is subjected to the smallest possible risk.

It is indubitable that more than one race has perished because of its lack of the instinct of family. However, it need not be feared that the human race itself will disappear because of the failure of procreation. But it is plain that the readiness with which devices to prevent the production of children have been adopted shows the weakness of the family instinct in man, and opens up a problem to which the atten- tion of moralists and legislators may well be directed.

The family instinct is deeply seated, as it arose among animals more ancient than man ; none the less it exhibits disturbances and aberrations in the human race capable of bringing about the extinction of peoples or nations. It is, however, strong enough to secure that man will persist in the future. Man certainly is a social animal, but the instinct impelling him towards union with his fellows is of recent origin. Such animal societies as are to be found among insects are not comparable with human associations. Among mammals, the nearest allies of man, the social instincts are developed only to a slight extent, and even the anthropoid apes show very little progress in this direction. Many of these creatures have shown in captivity the aptitude to become friendly with man or with other animals, and thus have displayed the beginnings of the capacity to form societies. But, in

the wild condition, anthropoids live only in families, and these contain few individuals. As regards the social capa- cities of the chimpanzee Dr. Savage wrote : * " They cannot be called gregarious, seldom more than five, or ten at most, being found together. It has been said on good authority that they occasionally assemble in large numbers in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty SD engaged ; hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks on old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities."

We have little acquaintance with the social life of the anthropoids, but, so far as we know, these creatures present only the merest beginnings of the social instinct. Man has moved much beyond them in that direction. Even the lowest races and the most primitive of living peoples such as, for instance, the Bushmen or the aborigines of Australia, display a well-developed social instinct. f The universal presence of the social instinct among human beings would seem to afford the basis of a happy life. In the numerous attempts made to find a purely rational principle that may serve as the basis for morality without the intervention of supernatural sanction, abundant use has been made of man's craving to live in association with his fellows. Those who have tried to deduce moral law from the essential constitution of man have relied largely upon the innate sympathy between man and his fellows. Such a line of argument is so common and has been employed so frequently that I need not spend much space in developing it. I shall limit myself to a few examples.

f Sutherland, " Origin and Development of the Moral Instinct." physician, published a materialistic code of morality that made a considerable sensation. He wrote as follows on the question now before us : " What we term the moral sense arose from the social instincts and habits which, under pain of extinction, are developed in every society of men and animals. Morality depends on sociability, and varies with the peculiar conditions of each particular association. As man is essentially a social animal, and to be regarded, apart from society, merely as a wild beast, it is plain that the needs of the community must impose on him certain restrictions and directions that in time will pass into a settled code of morals."

Half a century later practically the same idea was repeated. Haeckel,* the well-known German naturalist, expressed it as follows in a volume that appeared a few years ago : — " Modern science shows that the feeling of duty does not rest on an illusory ' categorical imperative,' but on the solid ground of social instinct, as we find it in the case of all the social animals. It regards as the highest aim of all morality the re-establishment of a sound harmony between egoism and altruism, between self-love and the love of one's neigh- bour. ... If a man desire to have the advantage of living in an organised community he has to consult not only his own fortune but also that of the society and of the ' neigh- bours ' who form the society. He must realise that its prosperity is his own prosperity, and that it cannot suffer without his own injury. This fundamental law of society is so simple and so inevitable that one cannot understand how it can be contradicted in theory or in practice ; and yet that is done to-day and has been done for thousands of years."

The sexual and family instincts may be satisfied in many different ways, and this is also the case with the social instincts. Onanism and perverted passion may satisfy the sexual instinct ; celibacy, artificial abortion and infanticide exist alongside the love of the wife and the parental cares. So also the social instinct of a criminal may be satisfied by his association with other criminals. It is well known that the most hardened criminals have their own codes, and they join faithfulness to their own companions to an atrocious attitude towards the rest of the world.

It is not enough then merely to give scope to the social instincts that we all possess. We have to determine how far, and towards which of our fellow creatures, we are to exercise such instincts, and it is here that the difficulty arises which as yet has not been resolved by religion or rationalism. Must our social instincts reach to our relatives near or distant, or to our fellow townsmen, or compatriots, or to all white men, or to all men, white and black, or to the good only, or to the good and bad alike ? Perhaps we should limit the operation of the instinct to those of our own religion, or who share our views of life ? The instinctive feeling is quite silent on these points, and it is precisely on them that the difficulties arise. It is well known that at different epochs and in different circumstances very different answers have been given to such questions. When religion was predominant, a common faith was a bond transcending patriotism. Later on, patriotism itself became the dominant bond. In recent days, a conception of international solidarity began to appear. Thus, for instance, there was recently a combination of different nations against China, and nation- ality was forgotten. Some of the European nations banded themselves together and even assumed an Asiatic race in the union, with the object of punishing a common enemy.

What was the bond that united nations so different ? It was not religion, for the bond included Catholics and Pro- testants, orthodox Christians and Buddhists. Most pro- bably the bond of union was a community of interest, the result of similar civilisation and military and political organisation. It has been suggested occasionally that the social instinct, or human sympathy, for the terms are practically identical, may stretch further and further and become so widespread that all the members of the human stock will unite and act only for the common good. But the problem is complex. Sympathy, when pushed too far, may become harmful. Nations have taken part in a campaign, impelled by some feeling of sympathy, and have brought harm on themselves. Sympathy extended to criminals and wicked persons is equally harmful. The social instinct itself must be regu- lated for the good of the community which it holds together.

Ought we to extend our sympathy to all humanity, or to limit it to some particular section ? Theorists have spoken of the solidarity of all humanity, believing it possible to extend our sympathy to the races furthest removed from us. In countries in which different races are brought in contact, very practical difficulties are encountered by 'the theorists. In America and in some other countries, for instance, laws have been passed against the Chinese, exclud- ing the latter from the consideration granted to other races. The negro question also is very difficult in those countries in which the black race dwells amongst whites. In Europe it has been the custom to condemn the action of civilised races in taking their land from natives of primitive type. Sutherland, the author of a striking work on the origin and development of morality, justifies such arbitrary conduct.

To the question, "Was it right for thewnites to take posses- sion of the Australian forests of the blacks ? " he replied in the affirmative. " No doubt," he said, " there is a moral instinct against it, but the action undoubtedly was right." * In a summary of his conclusions he lays down that moral conduct is a compromise between the individual and social instincts that so often are opposed. But he has no more to say than his predecessors as to the rational basis of the compromise.

The social instinct has been acquired by mankind too recently, and it is still too feeble, to be a trustworthy guide in all conduct. To obviate this difficulty, at many different times, divine sanction has been evoked to control the rela- tions among men. The categorical law has been formulated with the same object. Thus by one means or another, some kind of social order has been kept up. The efficacy of these additional guides is seen clearly on those rare occasions when some special combination of circumstances has set people free from them. Thus at Moscow, in 1812, before the arrival of the French army restored authority, and lately, after the eruption in Martinique, the ordinary authority lapsed, the anti-social instincts of the people were loose, and a clear idea was given of the inherent weakness of the human social instinct.

I have shown that in man the instinct for choosing food and the sexual and social instincts are still so weak that it is impossible to trust to them in the absence of other guidance. It is as equally necessary to determine what kind of food is most suitable for men in different conditions of life, and what means are best fitted to satisfy rationally his sexual and family instincts. So also it is urgent to determine exactly the direction and object of the social instinct. For * Loc. cit. p. 796.

the love of our fellow creatures we should seek the best ways of making them happy. But what is happiness? Is it the feeling of well-being experienced by the individual himself, or is it the judgment of others on his sensations ? It is notoriously difficult to pronounce on the happiness of another. From the outside, when a man seems to enjoy health, to have a family and comfortable means of subsistence, we are inclined to call him happy ; but the individual himself may have a very dif- ferent opinion about himself. It is often impossible to rely on the judgment of others. On the other hand, the opinion of an individual himself on his own condition may be equally fallacious. Very often the feeling of well-being is a symptom of general paralysis, as may be inferred from the follow- ing quotation : " The patient is well pleased with himself, and delighted with his constitution and circumstances. He boasts without ceasing of his robust health, his muscular strength, the clearness of his complexion and of his general ' fitness.' His clothing is magnificent and his residence palatial. In a more advanced stage of the disease, the exaggeration becomes extreme. He believes that he is able to blow down the walls with his breath, or that he could carry a ton, or drink a hogshead of wine, or that nothing could tire him out. Then megalomania begins, and the patients believe themselves in possession of titles, of power, and wealth. They are members of parliament, noblemen, princes, generals, kings, emperors, and popes, or God Himself." *