strangle and murder each other, we may persecute and despise those whose sexual necessities force them to break through our unnatural moral codes, we may burn alive if we please the prostitutes and the adulterers; we may break our own and our neighbours' hearts against the adamantine laws that surround us, but not one step, not one shall we advance, till we acknowledge these laws, and adopt the only possible mode in which they can be obeyed. But if we do this, it is my earnest hope and belief that we shall ultimately triumph over that mighty difficulty, that sexual dead-lock, which has hitherto laughed to scorn all the efforts of our race; that a new era will dawn upon the world, the only real era of improvement in the whole of human history; a blessed era, which shall usher in the golden age, when truth and virtue shall be no longer a mocking phantom, and progress not a dream; when every advance in science and art shall bear its true fruit, unembittered by the necessary sacrifice of an equivalent amount of love; when the poor friendless prostitute shall no more be seen in our streets, the able-bodied pauper in our workhouse, or the helpless beggar at our gate; when all of us shall have a share in the blessings of independence and sexual love, befitting the exalted position of the human race; when the poorhouses shall be shut up, and the gaols nearly emptied of their tenants, poverty, the chief cause of crime, having been removed; when the various classes of our society, no longer separated from each other by impassable difference of circumstances, shall fuse into one great and united whole, and learn to look back, with mingled pity and amazement, on the dark ages of mutual destruction and delusive struggles, in which their less fortunate ancestors were plunged. A true Sexual Religion can alone save mankind from the mighty wants of Food, Love. and Leisure. END OF PART II. PART III. NATURAL RELIGION. DIGNITY, LIBERTY, AND INDEPENDENCE. "Live and let live." MAN stands at the head of the universe, and we can form but a very inadequate conception of the wonderful majesty and glory of his being, We admire the extraordinary energies and transcendant perfections of the simplest organised substances; we can watch a humble plant construct a huge complex fabric, by the magical powers inherent in a cell, almost inconceivably minute; but when we come to reflect on the natural powers inherent in man, which build up our wondrous being from a cell no less minute, to a perfection of developement, which no imagination can reach, our astonishment can know no bounds. Man is beyond all comparison the most powerful and elevated part of Nature, and the majesty of his position cannot be too highly estimated. If a thing is to be valued in proportion to the great time and care spent in its production, in proportion to the grandeur of its construction and its purpose, and the multiplicity of the energies it possesses, Man cannot be too highly valued. It needed myriads and myriads of ages, for the working powers of life to develope this their master-piece; and it is only by this patient and long continued elaboration, that we could have been produced. Of the boundless energies of Man how shall we obtain a conception? In every little cell within us reside occult powers of life and death, whose study is worth a life-time. By their united agency an individual is formed, so perfect, and with such various endowments, as to deserve the name of the microcosm; for his manifold being is an epitome of the whole universe. Man is nature become self-conscious; the crowning effort of Nature to understand herself, to know, as well as to be. And it would almost seem as if the scale of being, having been developed far, need not go further; for man, unlike other animals, contains in himself the powers of indefinite progress. It is probable, that there is scarcely a secret in Nature, (who has, as it has been beautifully said, in various places told all her secrets,) which man may not gradually learn, and that to all legitimate questions he may obtain an answer. Another reason for supposing that developement will not proceed higher than Man, is that the inferior organisms, whether existing or extinct, seem to prefigure man, who has thus been called the fulfilment of the geological prophecies. If we thus, forgetting that we belong to the human race, and viewing it in an objective, not a subjective, light, consider man's unapproachable elevation in the universe, we must regard him as the greatest and most glorious manifestation of nature; and if we look up to the heavens and around us on this beautiful earth with wonder, and almost with awe, we must still more look up to man, as a being far more incomprehensible, and immeasurably further above our conception in his natural sublimity. He who does not profoundly feel the unutterable grandeur of humanity, does not feel that of nature; for man is nature incarnate. We may give the reins to our imagination, and form the most extravagant ideal of perfection; nothing that we can conceive or express of power, virtue, or sublimity, will give the least idea of the perfection of a human being, who contains in himself the concentrated energies of the universe. When we reflect on the elevation of man's position, and observe the wondrous products of his power; the sciences, the arts, the material and mental wealth he has accumulated; the way in which he has bent to his purpose the various agencies in nature, and in which he is looked up to by the other creatures as their lord and master; we would expect that the possessor of such powers would have a due sense of his own dignity, would be able easily to raise himself above the grosser wants of inferior beings, and enjoy a much freer and more independent life. But alas! when we look upon the present state of mankind, we find this by no means the case. We see the world's Lord reduced to contend on every side with the most degrading evils, which take away the sense of liberty and dignity, that so lofty a being should possess; and make him cringing and timid, the slave instead of the master of fortune. Dignity, liberty, and independence, are among the most valuable of human possessions. Independence, or the capability of self-maintenance,' is indeed the very foundation of all other advantages; and from it comes the delightful sense of dignity and liberty, which is so essential to happiness. The great aim in social economy should be, that every adult should be independent; that every one should be able to obtain for himself the necessaries of life; and that no one in this essential respect should be more in the power of his neighbour, than the latter is of him. Of course there must exist a mutual dependence, which indeed is the great bond and condition of society; but this should be reciprocal, and as equal as possible, else there can be no satisfactory liberty. Upon individual independence alone, possessed by every adult member of the community, can social freedom or secure political institutions be based; for a state of |