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172 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
passion. Every child should be a love-child, and this is
the only legitimacy that nature .knows ; and this would
be the case, if the legal marriage was what it always
should be, the outward expression of an inward reality.
3. It should not be performed, by either man or wo
man, so as to entail hereditary disease upon their off
spring. Insanity, scrofula, consumption, syphilis, dis
eased amativeness, deformities of body, or distressing
singularities of mind, should not be entailed upon pos
,
terity.
4. A woman should avoid conception, if her pelvis is
so small, or so deformed, as to hazard her own life in
delivery, or destroy that of the child, or compel an
abortion.
5. In the present social state, men and women should
refrain from having children, unless they see a reason
able prospect of giving them suitable nurture and educa
tion. Every man may, and every woman should, have the
right to decide whether he will have children. We have
no right to inflict a curse upon an individual or society.
But how is pregnancy to be prevented ? There is one
way, that is natural, simple, and effectual. It is to re
frain from the sexual act. It is easily done by most
women, and by many men. I know that it is unnatural,
and unhealthy. We can not violate any law of nature
with impunity. But it is done by thousands. The
whole priesthood and religious orders of monks and nuns
in the Roman Catholic church, are under a religious
vow of perpetual chastity. Physiologically, it is unnatu
ral. But I am not speaking of what is right, only of a
choice between two evils.
But there are men who can not refrain, and women