bility are proverbial." We quote from the same tractate the following opinions: "M. Villamay, in his 'Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales,' says, 'It is assuredly true that absolute and involuntary abstinence, is the most common cause of hysteria.' Again, at a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, reported in the Lancet of February 14, 1859, Mr. Holmes Coote is reported to have said, 'No doubt incontinence was a great sin; but the evils connected with continence were productive of far greater misery to society. Any person could bear witness to this, who had had experience in the wards of lunatic asylums.' Again, Sir Benjamin Brodie, at the Birmingham Social Science Meeting, is reported to have said, in a discussion on prostitution, that 'the evils of celibacy were so great, that he would not mention them; but that they quite equalled those of prostitution!'" M. Block informs us that in France out of 100 male lunatics, 65.72 are celibate, 5.61 are widowers, and only 28.67 are married; of 100 female lunatics, 58.16 are celibate, 12.48 are widows, and 29.36 are married. M. Bertillon, dealing with France, Holland, and Belgium, states that men who live celibate lives after twenty have, on an average, six years less of life than those who marry. The same fact holds good as regards married and unmarried women. A long train of formidable diseases results from celibacy—such as spermatorrhœa in the male, chlorosis and hysteria in the female—and no one who desires society to be happy and healthy should recommend late marriage as a cure for the social evils around us. Early marriage is best, both physically and morally; it guards purity, softens the affections, trains the heart, and preserves physical health; it teaches thought for others, gentleness and self-control; it makes men gentler and women braver from the contact of their differing natures. The children that spring from such marriages—where not following each other too rapidly—are more vigorous and healthy than those born of middle-aged parents, and in the ordinary course of nature the parents of such children live long enough to see them make their start in life, to aid, strengthen, and counsel them at the beginning of their career.
Fortunately, late marriage will never be generally practised in any community; the majority of men and women will never consent to remain single during the brightness of youth, when passion is strongest and feelings
