Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/9

 and snows, in reference to matters pertaining to, and concerning the, relations, wise and otherwise, subsisting between the separate genders of the human race; especially that portion of it located in the so-called "civilized" lands, and particularly in the cis-Atlantic portion of the Lord's exceedingly immoral vineyard.

Now, whoever supposes that the ignorance alluded to is confined solely to the masses,—sometimes spellable as "them asses," according to Carlyle,—or that the sum total of non-knowledge must be looked for among the unread, unlettered and unwashed crowds that throng the great highways of the world, and whose struggles for life, and clamors for bread, occupy most of their time and attention,—will find him or herself most wofully mistake; for a far less dense and conglobate ignorance upon matters of vital import to every human being exists among the people—the rude crowd who jostle each other everywhere, and which is the plastic material that the brainful few mould into voters, hero-worshippers, or send to fight their battles against each other, armed with ploughs or rifles, pitchforks or bayonets, cannons or spades—than is to be found in circles making very lofty pretensions, not only to knowledge, but to morality also, from its geologic base to its astronomic summit.

For gross and culpable non-knowledge, especially upon all the vital points that cluster round the one word "sex," you must look, not amidst the untaught hosts, the democratic underlayer of society, but right squarely among the so-called "learned," professional, much-boasted, highly-cultured upper-strata, especially in those centres of population whence newspapers by myriads are scattered broadcast over all the lands. Were not this a painful fact, such classes of "reformers" as now march over the world were an utter impossibility.

They are an unhealthy set, the fungi of a false civilization, regnant for a time, but certain to disappear with the advent of common sense among the people as a general thing.

Sex is a thing of soul; most people think it but a mere matter of earthly form and physical structure. True, there are some unsexed souls; some no sex at all, and others still claiming one gender, and manifesting its exact opposite. But its laws, offices, utilities, and