But among all drugs, those which are the longest known, and which were most esteemed, are the _agnus castus_ or _vitex_, and the _nenuphar_. Human credulity is severely taxed, to believe what has been said as to the virtues of these articles. The Greek women, according to Dioscorides, slept during the festivals of Ceres, on the leaves of the agnus castus to preserve their chastity. Arnaud de Villeneuve states that an infallible mode of preserving the breast from all men’s attempts, is to carry a knife, the handle of which is made of this wood. Even now its leaves and seeds are used both externally and internally in monasteries to support more easily the rigors of celibacy. At present, however, no one believes in its virtues. The same is true of the nenuphar. Its reputation, as soothing the genital organs, belongs to the early periods of sciences. It is mentioned in Dioscorides and Galen, and its history is as fabulous as that of the agnus-castus. The list of antiaphrodisiacs would terminate here, if Montegre had not mentioned a tree called mairkonsia, which grew in the East Indies, and which was used by some fakirs to render themselves impotent. Every day those children, who are designed to be fakirs, swallow a small roll of its leaves: the dose is gradually increased, and at the age of twenty-five, the effect is irrevocably produced. This tree is yet to be known by scientific men. (_Dict. des Se. Med._, _Art. Continence_.) Besides those articles which act as stimulants on the genital organs specially, these latter are excited by whatever tends to increase the sensibility in general. A great degree of susceptibility, and a moderate development of the venereal sense, may co-exist, and are often found combined: but this only proves that the genital apparatus may escape certain influences, and not respond to the excitements which are impressed on it. Thus, whatever _tends_ to develop, or to diminish the sensibility of a subject, must be considered not as necessarily modifying that of the genital organs, but as having the power to modify it, and as exercising this power in many cases. Now if we consider that the abuses of the genital organs arise most generally, because the sensibility of these organs has been excited too soon, or too vividly, we can imagine that a very great degree of susceptibility may predispose to these abuses, and, that consequently, to prevent and repress them, we must attend to every thing which favors the development of the genital organs. The power of sensation, like that of thought and action, is in many respects just what it is formed. The _education_, that is, the cultivation of these three faculties, may then give the senses a precocious language, and become indirectly a principle of excess. It may also, when properly directed, be a powerful means of preventing any excess. Let us see then how education acts, and how it is directed.