organs are fully developed, but a double sexual congress is necessary to impregnate the eggs. Now in the higher animals, including man, there is great evidence to show that each individual is really hermaphrodite, and possesses both sets of organs, and the only difference in this respect between them and the snail is, that one set of organs remains rudimentary and undeveloped in each sex. Man has the male organs fully developed and the female ones in a rudimentary state, and vice versa. Thus, the clitoris in the female is in reality the male penis. In the embryo the two organs are so alike, as not to be distinguishable; but the developement of the clitoris is arrested at an early stage, so that it remains small and imperforate, while the penis increases in size, and is closed beneath so as to form the urinary canal. In like manner the womb is represented in man by a minute cavity called the sinus pocularis in the prostate gland, &c. Thus, according to this view, the difference of sex is rather apparent than essential, and all of us are truly hermaphrodite beings.

Before taking leave of the interesting subjects of generation and developement, some singular reflections arise on considering these wondrous phenomena.

We call each human being a distinct individual, because he has been produced by an act of generation, and lives independently. But in truth we are not distinct individuals. Each of us is formed of a part of his two parents, a part which is indeed separated from them, but which once was included in their individuality. Hence we are merely a part of our parents, largely developed, and existing independently; and therefore, a man who has given birth to children, does not wholly die at death, but a part of him survives in his offspring. In this way, man is in a manner immortal on this earth. Children of the same families are in reality parts of the same parental organisms; allied to each other something like the different buds on a tree, or different polyps on a compound polyp stock, except that they spring from two instead of one parental organism, and the connection between them has been cut at an early stage.

But the whole human family, whether they are descended from a single pair of first parents, or from many, are so connected together by intermarriage, that in reality they form one great consanguineous whole. The progenitors of all of us have at some time or other formed parts of the same body. Thus, mankind may be termed one great composite individual, instead of a collection of individuals, nearly in the same way as the compound polyp. We form an organism, whose earlier parts are dead, and whose life is ever renewed afresh to the latest posterity by the reunion of certain of its component parts.

Following the same train of thought further, it may be said that we are in the same way, though more remotely, connected with all other living beings, and form with them one great individual; if it be true, as everything leads us to believe, that we have been developed in contiuuation with them. This great unity of life should serve to bind us more closely to our fellow men and to all living things, and to increase the heartfelt sympathy between the different races and individuals of mankind. However widely separated by time and circumstanses, we are

in reality all parts of the same being, and our interests are indissolubly woven together. It is as impossible for one class of human beings to be wretched without ultimately affecting the happiness of all the rest, as for one organ of the body to be long diseased without involving the others.

Another interesting reflection connected with the subject of generation is, that every child must include in itself the mingled qualities of its two parents. Neither parent furnishes alone, the embryo, as was at one time believed, but both together, by the union of the sperm and germ cells. Therefore the child is just midway between the parents, and can possess no quality which did not exist in them. The qualities of the parent, both mental and bodily, are blended together in the child so as to form a third being. The parental characters may indeed be disguised, as the properties of oxygen and hydrogen are, when they combine to form water; but still they must be there, and it is most interesting to trace them.

By an analytic comparison of the child with its two parents, we may gain an insight into the laws, just as definite and fixed as those of chenistry, or any other part of nature, according to which two sets of quali ties of mind and body are blended together, so as to form a third. If we possess any prominent gift of mind or body, the seeds of it must have existed in our parents; and whether we inherit a good or a bad constitution, and a healthy or a delicate mind, depends entirely on them, subject of course to the modifying influence of circumstances. It is commonly and vaguely said, that such a child is like its parents and such another unlike; but the truth is, that every child is the mingled essence of its two parents, and must, if we look deep enough, be a thorough representation of them. The laws of hereditary transmission, and of the commixture of parental properties in the child, are as yet little understood, but are a most important province for investigation.

Neither is it yet known what decides the sex; what are the causes which produce at one time a male, and at another a female. Some interesting experiments on this subject have been made on plants, (and here, as elsewhere, it is only by studying the problem in the lowest organisms, and so reducing it to its simplest expression, that we can hope to solve it) and it has been shown that in some monoecious flowers, male organs alone are produced, if they be subjected to an excessive heat with little light; and female ones alone, if these conditions be reversed. But with regard to the decision of the sex in the human being, nothing certain has been discovered.

Having thus given a short sketch of the phemonena of generation and developement, I proceed to that which I believe to be by far the most important of all subjects, in the present state of the world, namely, the diseases of the generative organs, viewed in connection with the evils of poverty and hard work. I shall give a short description of these diseases, and endeavour to trace them along with poverty to their great primary

source.

It is in vain to treat of disease as a separate subject in the manner generally pursued: almost all prevalent diseases depend primarily on some

great cause operating widely throughout our society, and unless they are traced to this, and means be taken to remove it, they cannot possibly be remedied or prevented. There is not a better instance of this than the sexual diseases. These are inseparably bound up, as will appear hereafter, with other great social miseries; and thus the researches of medicine are so thoroughly interwoven with those of political economy, that neither science can lead to any good result without the other.

It is from the want of perception of the dependence of these, and many other diseases, on deeply rooted social difficulties and errors, that so little has yet been done to prevent them. It is from studying disease as a separate entity, and not tracing its causes far enough back, by which its dependence on the great social embarrassments, and its inseparable connection with other fields of inquiry would be seen, that the efforts of medicine are so frequently frustrated. It is not by endeavouring to cure individuals merely that human health can be advanced; if the mainspring of the disease remain hidden and unattended to, individuals may indeed be cured, but an endless succession of new diseases will constantly arise so that the health of the race on the whole will make no advance.

DISEASES

OF THE

MALE GENERATIVE ORGANS.

Ir is deeply to be regretted, that mankind are in general so little acquainted with the laws of bodily health, and the penalties or rewards consequent on their observance. In the young world, it was long the custom to leave the care of men's spiritual welfare in the hands of a certain class, and it is only after progressive reformations, that we can clearly see how vain it is for us to trust to another, in matters where our own knowledge and judgment are required.

The case is the same now-a-days with man's bodily welfare; he is too pre-occupied by other pursuits, to pay attention to this, and delivers himself over in health and sickness to the guidance of chance or the physician, a passive unreasoning instrument.

And yet but little reflection is needed to show us, that in this, as well as in spiritual and moral matters, our own knowledge and independent judgment are required at every step in life; that if we have not as full a knowledge of the body and of the paths to physical health and disease, as of the mind and the phenomena of its virtues and vices, our life is the sport of chance, and our brightest hopes are all liable to end in disappointment and misery; that no mental culture or moral excellence will avail us, if we are borne to the ground by bodily disease. The laws of our body will not be neglected; they demand our attention, and woe to him who offends against them.

Shall we then, like our ancestors, be content to remain as children, on matters of such infinite importance? It is said, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but truly none at all is still more dangerous, and far more unpardonable. Deeply convinced as I am, that there is no safety for man, till the laws that regulate our bodily health and disease be as well known to all, as any of the other most widely-spread branches of knowledge, I shall endeavour in this essav to give a short sketch of a class of diseases, perhaps more fatal at present to the health and happiness of our race than any other, and also from their peculiar nature, if possible, less understood by the world at large.

It is of the diseases of the genital organs that I shall speak, to which man and woman are most liable in the years that follow puberty. This is probably at the present day the most dangerous period of life, with the exception of the first year or two of existence; not so much because

more die in it, but because the foundation of many chronic lingering diseases is then laid, which may embitter all the rest of life's cup.

The great danger of the period arises from the fact of the genital organs, these mighty powers for the happiness or misery of each individual, then coming first into play; and from the lamentable ignorance in which youth, and indeed the whole of society, is plunged, as to the laws of these organs. There is no subject at present on which such a dense cloud of ignorance, prejudice, and every imperfect and degrading feeling lies brooding, as upon the genital organs, and their whole nature and duties. To raise this veil of obscurity and shame, which degrades the sexual part of man, and to strive to show, by the lights which modern research has thrown upon it, the simple and beautiful natural laws to which it is subjected, like other parts of the economy, shall be my endeavour in this essay. It is not sufficient that all men should become acquainted with the laws of health, as has been so admirably dwelt upon in some late popular works on physiology; it is necessary also that we should be acquainted with the history of disease; for it is as important that we should be aware of the penalty for breaking a law, as of the reward for obeying it.

The great causes of the deplorable ignorance and prejudice which prevail on sexual subjects are, first, the erroneous moral views which are entertained regarding them; and, secondly, the ideas of mystery and shame which are attached to them, and which must be completely overcome throughout society, before we be rescued from the innumerable evils that overwhelm mankind at present from their diseases. Mystery always causes ignorance, which is of itself sin, and the parent of sin; and therefore every one of us should seek entirely to rid ourselves of such feelings on sexual subjects, and to view that part of nature, like all others, with the calm and reverential spirit that the pursuit of truth demands.

PUBERTY IN THE MALE.

This period, which generally occurs about the age of fifteen or sixteen, is accompanied by important changes in the economy, connected with the developement of the genital or reproductive organs. Were anatomy and physiology as well known as the comparatively unimportant dead languages, it would be unnecessary to explain to any one, with a liberal education, the nature of these changes. They consist mainly, as has been already mentioned, in the production of a new secretion, called the seminal fluid, by the testicles, and the simultaneous growth of the generative organs, and increase of strength and manliness in the whole frame. With this new bodily developement, come the fresh and powerful feelings of sexual love, and the young man is impelled to new energy of thought and action.

It is at this time that the senses, and that part of our nature, which