Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/32

Rh great world's population. Now these philosophers either are conscious hypocrites, teaching what they don't believe; else they think us fools, and we know they are.

I have seen a book, of nearly a thousand mortal pages, and that doctrine was the whole gist and burden of its labored and lame argument: lame, for its author shows in a hundred places that he don't believe his own logic; he continually confutes himself, and the completest refutation of the absurdity is to be found in the words: It is not true! Why? because man is not a beast, and is not governed by identical laws; but comes under, and is played upon, and moved by, higher ones altogether than such as rule in the kingdom of beasts, birds, reptiles, fish and insects.

In those realms, sex is an instinct, a periodical function and appetite. In man, it is a fact of soul; a principle, and a mystical and divine power, altogether superior to the passing furore of beasts that perish and arc known no more; and it means more in his case than it does in all other departments of the sentient world, singly or combined.

I here throw down the gauntlet, and state, boldly and squarely, right in the teeth of all the so-called scientists on earth or under heaven, that the sexive principle, habitude, and instinct in the human is not in very many respects identical with that of the non-human inhabitants of the globe we live on; on the contrary, in us it means, implies, and leads to immeasurably more and deeper things than the average thinker ever dreams of or imagines. In the organic kingdoms outside of the human, the instinct is blindly obeyed, and self-seeking there, as everywhere else, and not propagation at all, is the all-powerful impelling motive, if motive there be. Bears and horses, cats and fishes, dogs and flies, and every other living thing bearing gender, invariably trouble themselves not at all concerning increase of family, or prolongation of the species, until such increase appears; by which time Nature has brought a new instinct and passion into play. Parallels between man and beasts are not correct or just; for in beasts sexive and parental instincts are separate affairs,—in man they coexist. In beasts the offspring and parents become disunited at maturity; in the human, the practical relationship lasts not only