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298 deities to personify propagation and paid them a worship which did not degenerate into gross and purposeless sensuality until the later periods of the moral decay. Surrounded by symbols which excited their curiosity, the young could not be brought up in that unnatural ignorance which is one of the chief aims of modern training; as the reason was permitted to comprehend the phenomena of the sexual life from the moment it began to take an interest in them, the imagination was not set morbidly to work, thus finding its way into wrong and dangerous paths; that which lay open to the eyes of all did not have the charm of secret and forbidden fruit, so that the unprejudiced, enlightened youth of this ancient civilization was more morally pure and less infected by premature desires than the young of our own flay, who in spite of the anxious pains taken to preserve it, can not be raised in that ignorance considered so salutary, but obtain their knowledge secretly from the most polluted sources, poisoning the mind and deranging the nervous system.

The radical change which has taken place in our conceptions of morality, is the consequence of the influence gained by the ideas of Christianity over the mind of civilized mankind. The fundamental doctrines of Christianity as they are proclaimed in the earliest writings, contradict each other in the most astonishing manner; they are based upon two opposing assertions which would have debarred each other absolutely, if Christianity had been founded by a logical thinker, with a clear understanding. On one side it preaches: Love thy neighbor as thyself, love even thine enemies; on the other, it declares that the end of the world is at hand, that the lusts of the flesh are the most deadly sins, abstinence the most pleasing to God of all virtues, and absolute chastity the most desirable condition. When Christianity preached the