Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/24

6 of civilization—this hiding of the animal propensities—is, at least, a concession that vice makes to virtue.

From a reading of Scherr’s works (“History of German Civilization”) one would certainly gain the impression that, in comparison with those of the Middle Ages, our own ideas of morals have become refined, even when it must also be allowed that in many instances finer manners, without greater morality, have taken the place of earlier obscenity and coarseness of expression.

When widely separated periods of history are compared, no doubt is left that public morality, in spite of occasional temporary retrogression, makes continuous progress, and that Christianity is one of the most powerful of the forces favoring moral progress.

To-day we are far beyond the sexual conditions which, as shown in the sodomitic worship of the gods, in the life of the people, and in the laws and religious practices, existed among the ancient Greeks,—to say nothing of the worship of Phallus and Priapus among the Athenians and Babylonians, of the bacchanals of ancient Rome, and the prominent place prostitutes took among these peoples. In the slow and often imperceptible progress which human morality makes there are variations or fluctuations, just as in the individual sexuality manifests an ebb and flow.

Periods of moral decadence in the life of a people are always contemporaneous with times of effeminacy, sensuality, and luxury. These conditions can only be conceived as occurring with increased demands upon the nervous system, which must meet these requirements. As a result of increase of nervousness, there is increase of sensuality, and, since this leads to excesses among the masses, it undermines the foundation of society,—the morality and purity of family life. When this is destroyed by excesses, unfaithfulness, and luxury, then the destruction of the state is inevitably compassed in material, moral, and political ruin. Warning examples of this character are presented by Rome, Greece, and France under Louis XIV and XV. In such times of political and moral destruction