If rude man identifies himself, in a manner, with nature; if
he fails to distinguish the impulses and processes in himself from
the methods which nature adopts to ensure the reproduction of plants
and animals, he may leap to one of two conclusions. Either he may
infer that by yielding to his appetites he will thereby assist in
the multiplication of plants and animals; or he may imagine that the
vigour which he refuses to expend in reproducing his own kind, will
form as it were a store of energy whereby other creatures, whether
vegetable or animal, will somehow benefit in propagating their
species. Thus from the same crude philosophy, the same primitive
notions of nature and life, the savage may derive by different
channels a rule either of profligacy or of asceticism.
To readers bred in religion which is saturated with the ascetic
idealism of the East, the explanation which I have given of the rule
of continence observed under certain circumstances by rude or savage
peoples may seem far-fetched and improbable. They may think that
moral purity, which is so intimately associated in their minds with
the observance of such a rule, furnishes a sufficient explanation of
it; they may hold with Milton that chastity in itself is a noble
virtue, and that the restraint which it imposes on one of the
strongest impulses of our animal nature marks out those who can
submit to it as men raised above the common herd, and therefore
worthy to receive the seal of the divine approbation.
Pages:
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410