45, 46:--
To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.
To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.
Shelley
She lives a life
of infamy: the loud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all
return. She dies of long and lingering disease: yet SHE is in fault, SHE
is the criminal, SHE the froward and untamable child,--and society,
forsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion
from her undefiled bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of
her own creation; she is employed in anathematizing the vice to-day,
which yesterday she was the most zealous to teach. Thus is formed
one-tenth of the population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold.
Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society
of modest and accomplished women, associate with these vicious and
miserable beings, destroying thereby all those exquisite and delicate
sensibilities whose existence cold-hearted worldlings have denied;
annihilating all genuine passion, and debasing that to a selfish feeling
which is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their body and mind
alike crumble into a hideous wreck of humanity; idiocy and disease
become perpetuated in their miserable offspring, and distant generations
suffer for the bigoted morality of their forefathers. Chastity is a
monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural
temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root
of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race
to misery, that some few may monopolize according to law. A system could
not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness
than marriage.
I conceive that from the abolition of marriage, the fit and natural
arrangement of sexual connection would result. I by no means assert that
the intercourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary, it appears, from
the relation of parent to child, that this union is generally of long
duration, and marked above all others with generosity and self-devotion.
But this is a subject which it is perhaps premature to discuss. That
which will result from the abolition of marriage will be natural and
right; because choice and change will be exempted from restraint.
In fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical
code of misery and servitude: the genius of human happiness must tear
every leaf from the accursed book of God ere man can read the
inscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays
and finery, start from her own disgusting image should she look in the
mirror of nature! --
6.
45, 46:--
To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.
The north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present
state of obliquity, points. It is exceedingly probable, from many
considerations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the
equator coincides with the ecliptic: the nights and days will then
become equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons
also. There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of
the perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of
intellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral
and physical improvement of the human species. It is certain that wisdom
is not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the
climates of the earth, health, in the true and comprehensive sense of
the word, is out of the reach of civilized man. Astronomy teaches us
that the earth is now in its progress, and that the poles are every year
becoming more and more perpendicular to the ecliptic. The strong
evidence afforded by the history of mythology, and geological
researches, that some event of this nature has taken place already,
affords a strong presumption that this progress is not merely an
oscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers. (Laplace,
"Systeme du Monde". )
Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the
north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been
found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the
present climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, "Rapports
du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme", volume 2 page 406. ) The researches
of M. Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract
in Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either
the Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations
derived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, "Lettres sur les Sciences,
a Voltaire". ) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that
Britain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that
their great rivers were annually frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also
that since this period the obliquity of the earth's position has been
considerably diminished.
of infamy: the loud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all
return. She dies of long and lingering disease: yet SHE is in fault, SHE
is the criminal, SHE the froward and untamable child,--and society,
forsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion
from her undefiled bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of
her own creation; she is employed in anathematizing the vice to-day,
which yesterday she was the most zealous to teach. Thus is formed
one-tenth of the population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold.
Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society
of modest and accomplished women, associate with these vicious and
miserable beings, destroying thereby all those exquisite and delicate
sensibilities whose existence cold-hearted worldlings have denied;
annihilating all genuine passion, and debasing that to a selfish feeling
which is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their body and mind
alike crumble into a hideous wreck of humanity; idiocy and disease
become perpetuated in their miserable offspring, and distant generations
suffer for the bigoted morality of their forefathers. Chastity is a
monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural
temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root
of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race
to misery, that some few may monopolize according to law. A system could
not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness
than marriage.
I conceive that from the abolition of marriage, the fit and natural
arrangement of sexual connection would result. I by no means assert that
the intercourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary, it appears, from
the relation of parent to child, that this union is generally of long
duration, and marked above all others with generosity and self-devotion.
But this is a subject which it is perhaps premature to discuss. That
which will result from the abolition of marriage will be natural and
right; because choice and change will be exempted from restraint.
In fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical
code of misery and servitude: the genius of human happiness must tear
every leaf from the accursed book of God ere man can read the
inscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays
and finery, start from her own disgusting image should she look in the
mirror of nature! --
6.
45, 46:--
To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.
The north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present
state of obliquity, points. It is exceedingly probable, from many
considerations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the
equator coincides with the ecliptic: the nights and days will then
become equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons
also. There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of
the perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of
intellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral
and physical improvement of the human species. It is certain that wisdom
is not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the
climates of the earth, health, in the true and comprehensive sense of
the word, is out of the reach of civilized man. Astronomy teaches us
that the earth is now in its progress, and that the poles are every year
becoming more and more perpendicular to the ecliptic. The strong
evidence afforded by the history of mythology, and geological
researches, that some event of this nature has taken place already,
affords a strong presumption that this progress is not merely an
oscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers. (Laplace,
"Systeme du Monde". )
Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the
north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been
found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the
present climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, "Rapports
du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme", volume 2 page 406. ) The researches
of M. Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract
in Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either
the Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations
derived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, "Lettres sur les Sciences,
a Voltaire". ) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that
Britain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that
their great rivers were annually frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also
that since this period the obliquity of the earth's position has been
considerably diminished.
