Jr. James Weir

“ What was more natural than his making the sun the greatest god in his system of theogony? Man recognized in him the source of all life, and, when he arrived at an age when he could use abstract ideation in formulating his religion, he deified the life-giving function as he noticed it in himself; he began to worship the generative principle. Solar worship and its direct descendant, phallic worship, at one time or another were the religions of almost every race on the face of the globe. Solar worship, owing to its material quality, has long since been abandoned by civilized man ”

“ Many a man hugs his delusions closely to his heart, indulges them only in the secret recesses of his soul, and, their sole owner and acquaintance, carries them with him to his grave.
Any man who has a retentive memory, and one capable of minute analysis, can look back in his life and recall moments when his insane personality got the better of his will, and ran riot in forbidden pathways. He may not have committed an insane act; yet the thought, the impulse, the delusion was there and only outside influences kept it from breaking forth. ”

“ I will venture to assert, so true is the fact that insanity is the product of civilization, that, if it were not for the combating influences of social laws, assisted not a little by scientific medical aid, all North America could not contain the vast and enormous army that would constitute the civilized world’s array of lunatics. ”

“ It is a well-established fact that luxury brings debauchery, and that debauchery occasions degeneration. All nations that have, heretofore, reached the zenith of their prosperity, have been engulfed, at some time or other, in the maelstrom of luxurious habits, and have fallen under the lethal influence of a degeneration occasioned solely by debauchery; for the luxury and debauchery [200] of one class brought increased poverty on, as well as excess in, other classes, and poverty and excess are prominent factors in the production of degeneration, as we shall see further on in this paper. ”

“ It may be the result of a momentary and sudden loss of mental equipoise, or the final and fatal ending of a premeditated desire carried through days, weeks, months, and even years.
We see a man, blessed with everything that makes life enjoyable, genial, gay, with a ready smile and kindly word for everyone, suddenly, in a moment, pass forever out into the unknown—self-killed, a victim of his own creation. We stand amazed! ”

“ Indeed, among primitive peoples, those who do not practice this cult are so few in number that they have, practically, no weight whatever in a discussion of this subject. Moreover, those primitive peoples who do not worship the generative principle, either directly or indirectly, are without any religion whatsoever, and are the very lowest of all mankind in point of intelligence. I have only to cite the Tierra del Fuegians, the Bushmen, the Australians, and the Akka or Ticki-Ticki, the Pygmies of Central Africa, to prove the truthfulness of this assertion. ”

“ We have seen that the pronounced advocates and chief promoters of equal rights are probably viragints—individuals who plainly show that they are psychically abnormal; furthermore, we have seen that the abnormality is occasioned by degeneration, either acquired or inherent, in the individual. Now let us see, if the right of female suffrage were allowed, what effect it would produce on the present environment of the woman of to-day, and, if any, what effect this changed environment would have on the psychical habitudes of the woman of the future. ”

“ Many who are wealthy are too proud to mix with the rest, and repair thither in closed chariots, followed by a considerable train of slaves. The greater number seat themselves on the sacred pavement, with a cord twisted about their heads—and there is always a crowd there, coming and going; the women being divided by ropes into long lanes, down which strangers pass to make their choice. A woman who [65] has once taken her place here cannot return home until a stranger has thrown into her lap a silver coin, and has led her away with him beyond the limits of the sacred inclosure. ”

“ This shows how near indeed the healthy mind ever hovers on the borderlands of insanity.
Man stands so close to the portals of insanity that he can look through the gateway, when he takes an introspective view of his psychical being, and can see the phantoms and mental ghosts of his insane personality. ”

“ Circumcision, now eminently a religious ceremony, was, unquestionably, a sexual fetich and a phallic rite, which has been handed down from antiquity, when all the world were phallic worshipers! The very pillars set up by the patriarchs in commemoration of certain events were but rude images of the phallus, while not a few of the mysteries of the Holy of Holies itself were but vestiges of Chaldean and Egyptian genital worship! ”

“ The question whether the world is growing better or worse is often debated, and can be answered affirmatively on both sides. Better, because superstition, bigotry, and dogmatism have given way, to a great extent, to the tolerance and freedom of higher civilization and purer ethics in normal, healthy man; worse, because crime (and I mean by crime all anti-social acts) has greatly increased on account of the pernicious influence of degeneration. ”

“ Now let us turn our attention to the evidences of luxury and debauchery, and the consequent evidences of degeneration, which obtrude themselves on all sides. The reckless extravagance of the nobility of the Old World is well known. Vice and licentiousness even penetrate to royal households, and princes of the blood pose as roués and debauchees. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, degeneration in the wealthy classes of society generally makes itself evident by the appearance of psycho-sexual disorders. ”

“ But let us return to primitive peoples, from whose customs and beliefs we can learn what our own ancestors must have believed before the besom of civilization swept aside the crudities of savagery.
The Khonds of India are phallic worshipers, and, in the practice of their religion, Priapus saves many a girl who would be, otherwise, offered up on the bloody altars of their divinities. The pregnant woman is sacred, hence, religious prostitution is exceedingly prevalent. ”

“ And, before beginning the discussion of this subject, I beg to remind the reader that a priest of Priapus regarded his sistrum as being just as sacred as a Catholic priest now considers any vessel or robe used in the service of mass, and that the priests of Brahma look on the Lingam with as much reverence and awe as did the Levites on the Ark of the [43] Covenant and the Holy of Holies. Phallic worship is a religion, the oldest abstract religion in existence. Fundamentally the Creator—the Life Giver—is the phallic worshiper’s god. Is he very far wrong in all that is absolutely essential? ”

“ Thomas Paine gave evidences of a lack of mental equipoise. We find scattered throughout his works the most brilliant, irrefutable, and logical truths side by side with the most inane, illogical, and stolid crudities. Among other men of genius who showed signs of degeneration we may include Alexander Stevens, Joel Hart, Adams, Train, Breckenridge, Webster, Blaine, Van Buren, Houston, Grant, Hawthorne, Bartholow, Walt Whitman. We must not confound genius and talent—the two are widely different. Genius is essentially original and spontaneous, while talent is to some extent acquired. ”

“ Who fails to remember certain times in his life when he has had an almost overpowering desire to cry out in church, or to laugh on some sad or solemn occasion; or, having a razor in his hand, has had an impulse, sudden and intense, to draw it across his throat ”

“ His psychical being became active and inquiring, to satisfy which he created a system of gods which was founded on natural phenomena. At first, the gods of primitive man were, probably, few in number, and the chief god of all was the sun. Man early recognized the sun’s importance in the economy of nature; this beautiful star, rising in the east in the morning, marching through the heavens during the day, and sinking behind the western horizon in the evening, must have been, to the awakening soul of man, a source [40] of endless conjecture and debate. ”

“ The Kikuyu have a very elaborate system of theogony, in which all of the phenomena of nature with which they are acquainted are deified. A goat is invariably sacrificed to the sun when they set out on a journey, and its blood is carried along and sprinkled on the paths and bridges in order to appease the spirits of the forest and the river. ”

“ The simple right to vote carries with it no immediate danger, the danger comes afterward; probably many years after the establishment of female suffrage, [198] when woman, owing to her increased degeneration, gives free rein to her atavistic tendencies, and hurries ever backward toward the savage state of her barbarian ancestors. I see, in the establishment of equal rights, the first step toward that abyss of immoral horrors so repugnant to our cultivated ethical tastes—the matriarchate. Sunk as low as this, civilized man will sink still lower—to the communal kachims of the Aleutian Islanders. ”

“ We see, finally, that religious feeling is based, primarily and fundamentally, on one of the chief laws of nature—self-protection. The evolution and growth of Ethics demonstrate this beyond peradventure.
It is not at all probable that man in the beginning, just after his evolution from his ape-like ancestor, had, at first, any belief whatever in supernatural agencies. In his struggle for existence, all of his powers were directed toward the procurement of his food and the preservation of life; the pithecoid man was only a degree higher than the beasts in the scale of animal life. ”

“ Effemination and viraginity are more prevalent in the Old World than in the United States. The civilization and settlement of the United States are, comparatively speaking, new. The people are, as yet, a young, strong, and vigorous nation. Years of luxury and debauchery have not yet brought the penalty of enervation and neurasthenia to the masses, though in certain [133] circles of society, it is becoming painfully evident that that penalty is being even now exacted. ”

“ Some day—and I greatly fear that day is not very far distant—some professional anarchist (for there are professional anarchists as well as professional thieves) will consider the time ripe for rebellion, and, raising the fraudulent cry of “Labor against Capital!” instead of his legitimate cry of “Rapine! Murder! Booty!” will lead this army of degenerates, composed of anarchists, nihilists, sexual perverts, and congenital criminals, against society. And who will bear the brunt of this savage irruption? The ultra-rich? ”

“ I have demonstrated, in the three instances of history just cited, that degeneration has invariably followed luxury, and that a social and political cataclysm has been, invariably, the result of this degeneration. That certain classes of the Old World, and of the New World, also, are living in inordinate luxury ”

“ Young boys and girls are exceedingly impressionable at, or just before, puberty, and are apt to embrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist declares that “men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of God after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts, seven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old.” [92]
The Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore requires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to its would-be communicants at, or before, the age of puberty. ”

“ Again the answer must necessarily be—degeneration.
The long and continued intercourse of the sexes in the ball-room, where the women are dressed so décolleté that they excite sensuality in the men, very frequently without the men being conscious of the fact, must necessarily exert a deleterious effect on the nervous system.
Contact of the sexes in the dance is only pleasurable because of that contact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and denied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim that no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. ”

“ The History of Life written upon the rocky frame-work of this gray and hoary old world, declares that man’s physical being is but the result of the laws of evolution. He did not spring into being, like the sea-born Venus, a creature of physical grace, and strength, and beauty ”

“ Even in this enlightened age men are accustomed to consider insanity rather from its psychical standpoint than from its physical aspect. They do not take into consideration the fact that insanity is due to a physical lesion, and that its vagaries are but the symptoms of brain disease or brain deformity. The inhabitants of the borderlands are invested with a certain shadowy mystery which separates them from the rest of mankind, and which makes them appear to us as denizens of another psychical world than ours. ”

“ The curious habit these people have of scraping a little bone dust from the skull of a dead ancestor and then eating it with their food, thus, as they think, transmitting from the dead to the living the qualities of the former, is close kin to, and, in my opinion, is probably derived from, a worship of the generative principle. ”

“ Suffrage in its entirety, that suffrage which will give them a share in the government, is not desired by them; they do not belong to the class of viragints, unsexed individuals, whose main object is the establishment of a matriarchate.
Woman is a creature of the emotions, of impulses, of sentiment, and of feeling; in her the logical faculty is subordinate. She is influenced by the object immediately in view, and does not hesitate to form a judgment which is based on no other grounds save those of intuition. ”