Moral Physiology; Or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question |
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affections Animalcules argument ascetic become parents believe calculation celibacy character chastity check to population circumstances connexion consequences consider cultivated daugh degrading desirable discussion enjoyment enquire especially evil fact Fallopian tubes father fear French gentleman gratified heart hereditary disease Hippocrates honest honour human ignorance imagine immoral important impregnation injury instinct knowledge less letter Libertines little book little treatise Malthus mankind marriage married persons mind moral feelings Moral Physiology moral restraint mother nature never obtain onanism ovum or egg passion perhaps physicians pleasure political economy poor population question portunity practice prejudice present profligacy profligate prostitution prudes pseudo-civilization public opinion race readers regard reproduction Robert Dale Robert Dale Owen sacrifice selfish semen sentiments sexual Sexual intercourse Shaker social society speak stinct Tertullian thing thought tion tivated unrestrained uterus vagina vice and misery virtue woman womb women young
Popular passages
Page 40 - But our flower was in flushing, When blighting was nearest. Fleet foot on the correi, Sage counsel in cumber, Red hand in the foray, How sound is thy slumber ! Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and for ever ! XVII.
Page 20 - A royal messenger he came, Though most unworthy of the name. A letter forged ! Saint Jude to speed ! Did ever knight so foul a deed ! At first in heart it liked me ill, When the king praised his clerkly skill. Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine, Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line : So swore I, and I swear it still, Let my boy-bishop fret his fill.
Page 30 - It is, indeed, the most important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and moralist can be applied.
Page 44 - The man that lays his hand upon a woman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch Whom 'twere gross flattery to name a coward.— I'll talk to you, lady, but not beat you.
Page 29 - And yet, if the superstitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be very difficult to be found...
Page 10 - Approach it, resolving to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.
Page 47 - What is the practice you allude to of forcing marriages?" A. "I believe nothing is more erroneous than the assertion, that the poor laws tend to imprudent marriages; I never knew an instance of a girl being married until she was with child, nor ever knew of a marriage taking place through a calculation lor future support.
Page 34 - Is it desirable—is it moral, that such women should become pregnant ? Yet this is continually the case, the warnings of physicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring grievous hereditary diseases ; perhaps that worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents ; and the world suffers by it. That a human being should give birth to...
Page 39 - She it is who bears the burden, and therefore with her also should the decision rest. Surely it may well be a question whether it be desirable, or whether any man ought to ask, that the whole life of an intellectual, cultivated woman, should be spent in bearing a family of twelve or fifteen children ; to the ruin, perhaps, of her constitution, if not to the overstocking of the world.