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132 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
constitution. With the young girl, the danger is equally
imminent. Her passions are as strong, and her power
of gratification even greater. If, in maturity, women
seem to have the capacity for greater and more frequent
enjoyment than men, in childhood afar greater number
destroy all desire, and all power of enjoyment.
There are some children, born of parents with disor
dered Amativeness, who inherit passional activities, and
organic excitabilities, which hurry them to swift de
struction. Mere infants, both male and female, fall
spontaneously into habits of self-pollution. This is not
simply a vice ; it is a disease. I do not say that all vices
are not of the nature of disease; but this early propen
sity to the use, and consequent destruction of the sexual
organs, is a special disease which demands earnest
sympathy and prompt attention for its cure. I shall
speak of this matter fully in treating of disease and its
causes.
In a normal condition, there is considerable excite
ment of the passion of love, on the approach of puberty.
This period comes, in boys, at the age of fifteen to
seventeen ; in girls, from thirteen to fifteen ; and later
or earlier in exceptional cases. Boys and girls, as they
approach this age, are full of romantic sentiment, which
expresses itself in profound sighs, in a sweet melancholy,
a love of solitude, and in idealizations of the adored,
rather than beloved object.
I am satisfied, from many observations, that the most
natural love of a youth of fifteen, is a mature woman of
thirty or forty ; and that the affections of a girl of a
corresponding age, are most likely to be bestowed upon
some mature man. At a later period, men love women