Our most profound disgust is justly excited when we hear of laxity of morals in a clergyman. We naturally feel that one whose calling is to teach his… - John Harvey Kellogg

27. Disgust for simple food is one of the traits which a victim of this vice is sure to possess. He seems to loathe any food which is not rendered hot and stimulating with spices and other condiments, and cannot be induced to eat it. 28. The use of tobacco” is good presumptive evidence that a boy is also addicted to a practice still more filthy. Exceptions to this rule are very rare indeed, if they exist, which we somewhat doubt. The same influences which would lead a boy to the use of tobacco would also lead him to solitary vice, and each sin would serve to exaggerate the other.

Libidinous Blood.-In no other direction are the effects of heredity to be more distinctly traced than in the transmission of sensual propensities. The children of libertines are almost certain to be rakes and prostitutes. History affords numerous examples in illustration of this fact. The daughter of Augustus was as unchaste as her father, and her daughter was as immoral as herself. The sons of David showed evident traces of their father’s failing. Witness the incest of Amnon, and the voluptuousness of Solomon, who had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Solomon’s son was, likewise, a noted polygamist, of whom the record days, “He desired many wives.” His son’s son manifested the same propensity in taking as many wives as the debilitated state of his kingdom allowed to trace the origin of this libidinous propensity still further back. A glance at the geneology of David will show that he was descended from Judah through Pharex, who was the result of an incestuous union between Judah and his daughter-in-law. It is unreasonable to suppose that the abnormal passion which led David to commit the most heinous in of his life in his adultery with Bath-sheba and subsequently procuring the death of her husband, was really an hereditary propensity which had come down to him through his ancestors, and which under more favorable circumstances, was more fully developed in his sons ? The trait may have kept dormant by the active and simple habits of his earl years, but asserted itself in full force under the fostering influence of royal indleness and luxury. In accordance with the known laws of heredity, such a tendency would be the legitimate result of such a combination of circumstances. The influence of marital excesses, and especially sexual indulgence during pregnancy, in producing viscious tendencies in offspring, has been fully dwelt upon elsewhere in this work, and will be considered here, it being only necessary to call attention to the subject. Physiology shows conclusively that thousands of parents whose sons have become libertines and their daughters courtesans, have themselves implanted in their characters the propensity which led to their unchastity.

Perhaps we should add a word of two respecting this custom, which seems to be a still greater outrage against nature than that of polygamy, being the possession of a plurality of husbands by one woman. This practice is in vogue in several countries at the present time, being very common in Thibet, where it is not an unusual thing for a woman in marrying the eldest of a family of brothers to include in the contract all of the other brothers as well. Polyandry was also common among the ancient Medes. Indeed, the Medes practiced both polygamy and polyandry. A man was not considered respectable unless he had at least seven wives; neither were women considered worthy of general esteem unless they had as many as five husbands. In that country, the fact that a woman was already married was in no degree a barrier to subsequent marriages, even while the husband was living, and without the trouble of a divorce. Those who maintain the propriety o polygamy would do well to consider the historic facts respecting the opposite practice. There appear to be as good grounds for believing one to have a basis in the human constitution as the other.