I hope that no failures will be charged of efficacy of this check which ought to be attributed to negligence or insufficient use of it. I will therefore recommend at least two applications of the syringe, the sooner the surer, yet it is my opinion that five minutes' delay would not prove mischievous--perhaps not ten. CHAPTER IV. REMARKS ON THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT I scarcely need observe that by this instinct is meant the desire for sexual intercourse. Blumenbach speaks of this instinct as "superior to all others in universality and violence." Perhaps hunger is an exception. But surely no instinct commands a greater proportion of our thoughts or has a greater influence upon happiness for better or for worse. "Controlled by reason and chastened by good feelings, it gives to social intercourse much of its charm and zest, but directed by selfishness or governed by force, it is prolific of misery and degradation. In itself it appears to be the most social and least selfish of all instincts. It fits us to give even while we receive pleasure, and among cultivated beings the former power is even more highly valued than the latter. Not one of our instincts perhaps affords larger scope for the exercise of disinterestedness, or fitter play for the best moral feelings of our race. Not one gives birth to relations more gentle, more humanizing and endearing; not one lies more immediately at the root of the kindliest charities and most generous impulses that honor and bless human nature. It is a much more noble, because less purely selfish, instinct than hunger or thirst. It is an instinct that entwines itself around the warmest feelings and best affections of the heart"--_Moral Physiology_. But too frequently its strength, together with a want of moral culture, is such that it is not "controlled by reason;" and consequently, from time immemorial, it has been gratified, either in a mischievous manner, or to such an intemperate degree, or under such improper circumstances, as to give rise to an incalculable amount of human misery. For this reason it has, by some, been regarded as a low, degrading and "carnal" passion, with which family life must be ever at war. But in the instinct itself the philosopher sees nothing deserving of degrading epithets. He sees not that nature should war against herself. He believes that in savage life it _is_, and in wisely organized society of duly enlightened and civilized beings it should be the source of ten-fold more happiness than misery.