John Harvey Kellogg

“ Why should the function of generation be regarded as something low and beastly, unfit to be spoken of by decent people on decent occasions? We can conceive of no answer except the worse than beastly use to which the function has been so generally put by man. There is nothing about the sexual organism which makes it less pure than the lungs or the stomach. "Unto the pure all things are pure," may have been written especially for our times, when there is such a vast amount of mock modesty; when so much pretense of virtue covers such a world of iniquity and vice. ”

“ One may die blameless who is the victim of some dire contagious malady which he could not avoid; even the poor, downcast misanthrope whose hopes are blighted and whose sorrows multiplied, may possibly be in some degree excused for wishing to end his misery with his life; but the wretched being who sheds his life-blood by the disgusting maneuvers of self-pollution—what can be said to extenuate his guilt? His is a double crime. Let him pass from the memory of his fellow-men. He will perish, overwhelmed with his own vileness. ”

“ If parents would stop a moment to consider the momentous responsibilities involved in the act of bringing into existence a human being; if they would reflect that the qualities imparted to the new being will affect its character to all eternity; if they would recall the fact that they are about to produce a mirror in which will be reflected their own characters divested of all the flimsy fabrics which deceive their fellow-men, revealing even the secret imaginings of their hearts,—there would surely be far less of sin, disease, and misery born into the world than at the preset day ”

“ If children are born, neither father nor mother is fit to act the part of a parent to them. The father, by reason of his age, is fitful, uncertain, and childish; to-day too lenient, to-morrow too exacting. The mother is pettish, childish, indulgent, impatient, and as unskilled in government as unfit for motherhood. In the midst of all this misrule, the child grows up undisciplined, uncultivated, unsubdued; a misery to his parents, a disgrace to his friends, a dishonor to himself. ”

“ All of these incentives are selfish, and invariably narrow the character and belittle life when made the chief motives of action. But rather begin at the earliest possible moment to instill into the mind a love for right, and truth, and purity, and virtue, and an abhorrence for their contraries; then will he have a worthy principle by which to square his life; then will he be safe from the assaults of passion, of vice, of lust. A mind so trained stands upon an eminence from which all evil men and devils combined cannot displace it so long as it adheres to its noble principles. ”

“ Why should so vile a crime as fornication be taken under legal protection more than stealing or the lowest forms of gambling? Is it not a lesser crime against human nature to rob a man of his money by theft or by deceit and trickery than to snatch from him at one fell swoop his health, his virtue, and his peace of mind? Why not as well have laws to regulate burglary and assassination, allowing the perpetrators of those crimes to ply their chosen avocations with impunity under certain prescribed restrictions ”

“ A boy who gives himself up to the practice of secret vice at an early age, say as early as seven to ten years of age, is certain to make himself a wreck. Instead of having a healthy, vigorous body, with strong muscles and a hardy constitution, he will be weak, scrawny, sickly, always complaining, never well, and will never know anything about that joyous exuberance of life and animal spirits which the young antelope feels as it bounds over the plain, or the vigorous young colt as it frisks about its pasture, and which every youth ought to feel. ”

“ Let the boy who is still pure, who has never defiled himself with vice, firmly resolve that with the help of God he will maintain a pure and virtuous character. It is much easier to preserve purity than to get free from the taint of sin after having been once defiled. Let the boy who has already fallen into evil ways, who has been taught the vile practice the consequences of which we have endeavored to describe, and who is already in the downward road,—let him resolve now to break the chain of sin, to reform at once, and to renounce his evil practice forever. ”

“ Woman's Rights.—A woman does not, upon the performance of the marriage ceremony, surrender all her personal rights. The law recognizes this fact if her husband beats her, or in any way injures her by physical force, or even by neglect. Why may she not claim protection from other maltreatment as well? or, at least, why may she not refuse to lend herself to beastly lust? She remains the proprietor of her own body, though married; and who is so lost to all sense of justice, equity, and even morality, as to claim that she is under any moral obligation to allow her body to be abused? ”

“ If, then, means are employed with a view to prevent conception immediately after the accomplishment of the act, or at any subsequent time, if successful, it would be by destroying the delicate product of the conception which had already occurred, and which, as before observed, is as truly a distinct individual as it can ever become—certainly as independent as at any time previous to birth.
Is it immoral to take human life? Is it a sin to kill a child? Is it a crime to strangle an infant at birth? Is it a murderous act to destroy a half-formed human being in its mother's womb? ”

“ The thoughts mold the brain, as certainly as the brain molds the thoughts. Rapidly down the current of sensuality is swept the individual who yields his imagination to the contemplation of lascivious themes. Before he knows his danger, he finds himself deep in the mire of concupiscence. He may preserve a fair exterior; but deception cannot cleanse the slime from his putrid soul. How many a church-member carries under a garb of piety a soul filled with abominations, no human scrutiny can tell. ”

“ Providence is not to blame; nor is climate, weather, overwork, overstudy, or any other even seemingly plausible cause, to be blamed. Their own sins have sunk them in mental, moral, and physical perdition. Such a victim literally dies by his own hand, a veritable suicide. Appalling thought! It is a grand thing to die for one's principles, a martyr to his love of right and truth. ”

“ None have been overdrawn; much has been omitted for the sake of delicacy which the exposure of the whole truth would have required us to present. We sincerely hope that these examples may be a warning to those who have never marred their purity of character by an unchaste act. To those who may have already sinned in this manner let the words come with double force and meaning. Do you value life, health, beauty, honor, virtue, purity? Then for the sake of all these, abandon the evil practice at once. Do not hesitate for a moment to decide, and do not turn back after deciding to reform. ”

“ Self-Murderers.—Of all the vices to which human beings are addicted, no other so rapidly undermines the constitution and so certainly makes a complete wreck of an individual as this, especially when the habit is begun at an early age. It wastes the most precious part of the blood, uses up the vital forces, and finally leaves the poor victim a most utterly ruined and loathsome object. If a boy should be deprived of both hands and feet and should lose his eyesight, he would still be infinitely better off than the boy who for years gives himself up to the gratification of lust in secret vice. ”

“ For the beginning of a new life, select the most favorable time, which will be when the bodily health is at its height; when the mind is free from care and anxiety; when the heart is joyous, cheerful, and filled with hope, love, high aspirations, pure and beautiful thoughts. If, as one writer says, it is the duty of every human pair engaging in the reproductive act to bring into existence the most perfect specimen of the race of which they are capable, then it becomes a monstrous crime to enter into relations which may produce a contrary result. ”

“ What must have been the condition of a nation that could tolerate such a spectacle as its monarch riding through the streets of its metropolis in a state of nudity, drawn by women in the same condition? Such a deed did Heliogabalus in Rome.
In the thirteenth century, virtue was almost as scarce in France as in ancient Greece. Nobles held as mistresses all the young girls of their domains. About every fifth person was a bastard. Just before the Revolution, chastity was such a rarity that a woman was actually obliged to apologize for being virtuous! ”

“ Boys the Hope of the World.—A nation's most valuable property is its boys. A nation which has poor, weakly, vicious boys will have still weaker, more vicious and untrustworthy men. A country with noble, virtuous, vigorous boys, is equally sure of having noble, pious, brave, and energetic men. Whatever debases, contaminates, or in any way injures the boys of a country, saps and undermines the very foundation of the nation's strength and greatness. Save the boys from vice and crime, give them good training, physically, mentally, and morally, and the prosperity of the nation is assured. ”

“ The thoughts that are implanted in the mind in youth will stick there through life, in spite of all efforts to dislodge them. Hundreds of men who have been thus injured when young, but have by some providence escaped a life of vice and shame, look back with most intense regret to the early days of childhood, and earnestly wish that the pictures then made in the mind by bad books might be effaced. Evil impressions thus formed often torture minds during a whole lifetime. In the most inopportune moments they will intrude themselves. ”

“ The clock doubtless contains thousands of delicate wheels and springs, and is constructed with all the skill imaginable; and yet the structure of the human body is infinitely more delicate. The clock has no intelligence; but a human being can hear, see, feel, taste, touch, and think. The clock does only what its maker designed to have it do, and can do nothing else. The human machine is a living mechanism ”

“ The marriage of paupers, to beget pauper children and foist them upon the community for support, is an outrage against society. We believe it is not improper to speak out plainly upon this subject, and in no uncertain tone, notwithstanding the popular prejudice which cries, "Hush, be quiet; don't interfere with individual rights, don't disturb the peace of society," whenever anything is said which has a bearing on a regard for propriety in matters relating to one of the most ancient, the most sacred, and the most abused of all divinely appointed human institutions. ”

“ Oh that we had the power to reach each one of these unfortunate youth before it is too late, and to utter in their ears such warnings, to portray before them such pictures of the sure results of a course of sin, that they might be turned back to the paths of chastity and virtue before they have become such mental, moral, and physical wrecks as we every day encounter in the walks of life. But not one in a thousand can be reached when they have gone so far in sin. ”

“ But you still defend your horrible deed by saying, 'Well, if there be, as you say, this mere animal life, equivalent at the most to simple vitality, there is no mind, no soul destroyed, and therefore, there is no crime committed.' Just so surely as one would destroy and root out of existence all the fowl in the world by destroying all the eggs in existence, so certain is it that you do by your act destroy the animal man in the egg, and the soul which animates it. When is the period that intelligence comes to the infant? ”

“ How rare to find a face which shows no trace of sensuality! One turns with sadness from the thought that human "forms divine" have sunk so low. The standard of virtue is trailing in the dust. Men laugh at vice, and sneer at purity. ”

“ Those lascivious day-dreams and amorous reveries, in which young people—and especially the idle and the voluptuous, and the sedentary and the nervous—are exceedingly apt to indulge, are often the sources of general debility, effeminacy, disordered functions, premature disease, and even premature death, without the actual exercise of the genital organs! Indeed, this unchastity of thought—this adultery of the mind—is the beginning of immeasurable evil to the human family. ”

“ Thus marvelous is the analogy between the reproductive organs and their functions in plants and animals. Through this one vital process we may trace a close relation between all the forms of life, from the humblest plant, or even the mere specks of life which form the green scum upon a stagnant pool, to man, the masterpiece of creation, the highest of all animated creatures. In all the realm of Nature there can be found no more remarkable evidences of the infinite skill and wisdom of the Creator of all things.
In many instances the action of plants seems almost to be prompted by intelligence. ”

“ A few more years of sin, and his rescue would have been impossible; both mind and body would have been sunk so deep in the mire of concupiscence that none but Almighty power could have saved him from utter destruction. Thousands of boys and young men are to-day standing on the slippery brink of that awful precipice from which but very few are snatched away. Soon they will plunge headlong over into the abyss of debasement and corruption from whence they will never escape. ”

“ A man that lives on pork, fine-flour bread, rich pies and cakes, and condiments, drinks tea and coffee and uses tobacco, might as well try to fly as to be chaste in thought. He will accomplish wonders if he remains physically chaste; but to be mentally virtuous would be impossible for him without a miracle of grace.
One whose thoughts have been so long trained in the filthy ruts of vice that they run there automatically, and naturally gravitate downward—such a one must exercise especial care to secure the most simple, pure, and unstimulating diet. ”

“ Life Force.—To every thinking mind the question often recurs, What makes the fragrant flower so different from the dead soil from which it grows? the trilling bird, so vastly superior to the inert atmosphere in which it flies? What subtle power paints the rose, and tunes the merry songster's voice? To explain this mystery, philosophers of olden time supposed the existence of a certain peculiar force which is called life, or vital force, or vitality. ”

“ I despise myself; I hate myself; I often feel inclined to kill myself. My mind is always full of abominable images; my thoughts run away with me and I cannot help myself." The tears ran down his face in streams as he told me of his slavery. He solemnly affirmed that he had never performed the act of self-pollution but once in his life: and yet for years he had been a constant sufferer from nocturnal emissions until his manhood was nearly lost, evidently the result of the mental onanism which he had practiced without imagining the possibility of harm. ”