The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological studyForel, Auguste
Science
The sexual question : $b A scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study
Forel, Auguste
Sex
In the Canton of Zurich I have had the opportunity of closely
observing the physical and moral effects of this degeneration. The
individuals most incapable as hospital attendants were always factory
hands. These wretched beings were generally so atrophied in body and
mind that they were no use for anything except the weaving of silk and
cotton. In the large English towns, such as Liverpool, and among the
population of certain mining districts in Belgium, I have met with
even worse degeneration of the human species. Modesty, morality and
health are destroyed in this swarming human mass--dirty, anæmic,
tuberculous, rickety, imbecile, or hysterical--and there is no
distinction between the factory girl and the prostitute. In certain
Belgian districts which are a prey to alcoholism, one sometimes sees
human beings copulating in the streets like animals, or like the
drunken Kaffirs in South Africa. What can we expect from the
descendants of a population so completely degenerate? Marriage and
even concubinage among peasants is golden in comparison!
I will now draw attention to a contemporary phenomenon of the greatest
interest. The immense development of means of transport, combined with
progress in the sanitation of dwellings, favors the transportation of
town to country and country to town. This brings together the two
modes of human life, and in this I see the dawn of salvation in the
future. The modern towns of North America, thanks to the great
extension of their territory, already resemble the country to a great
extent, each house being surrounded by a garden. The electric tramways
shorten distances and facilitate this manner of building towns. As
means of communication become still more simplified and cheapened, the
advantages of country life will be joined to those of the town without
suffering from the promiscuity of the latter. The disadvantages of
country life consist in atrophy of the intellectual dispositions from
want of contact; improvement in means of transport will bring this
contact to the country. The result of such distribution of the
territory of a civilized state, such as I have in view, might be
called an _Agropolis_--an urbanized country or a countrified town. It
would then be possible to live a life more ideal in human sentiments,
and healthier as regards material and sexual matters.
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