we have seen that the human body after it gets started is quite as much a physical apparatus as a chemical laboratory, and the harmonious working of all its parts is to a considerable extent a matter of mechanics.
you will find that this is true for every disease or disturbance of the body. for instance; nervousness or headache from eyestrain. this strain may come through insufficient light or light wrongly entering the pupil of the eye. the nervousness may come because there is too much effort to adjust the lenses of the eyes by a constant pull on the tiny muscles. even that peculiar nervousness that many unwise men and women are suffering from which makes them take ruinous drugs, is due to a chemical disturbance of the nerve cells. all the drugs in the world will not help them—it only increases the chemical disturbance. these sufferers need the poison out of their system; not more put in.
and so it goes on throughout the whole system; some of the physical or chemical elements[46] are unevenly balanced or worn out for the time. in diseases due to a particular germ—like diphtheria or pneumonia—it is the disturbance of the chemical elements in the body which brings about the disease.
but we have finished with the chemistry and machinery of the body and now enter upon the wonderful and interesting part of life which deals with reproduction—the continuance of species. every living thing—flowers, fishes, animals, man—is reproduced by laws all having the same principles. the underlying facts in all these different forms of life are the same. there is absolutely no exception to the law of reproduction. every living thing is the result of the mating of the male element with that of the female.
we shall not have much to say about botany or zoology, you can read all about these sciences in your books. what i shall tell you in the rest of our chats are things which you do not get from your books or teachers.
it makes no difference what your religion is; what you have been taught to believe, how little or how much you already know about the laws of nature, you will all have to come to one conclusion as you get along in the world—that god, nature, or some great power controls and rules everything on this earth. you cannot avoid this conclusion after knowing certain[47] facts—positive facts which are to be seen everywhere in all their glory.
as you grow older and reach full manhood many of you will become scoffers at all religion; some of you will call yourselves atheists, others agnostics—one who does not know—more of you will have a blind faith in orthodox religion.
but if you have kept your brain power and moral health, and i shall show you how to do this, in the end you will all come to the right point—reverence and love for the great power which controls us all.
you cannot avoid this desired point in life; it will come in time. worry and impatience in your youthful days; self-questioning and a feeling that something is wrong with the world, will be your portion of man’s burden. you will see what looks like injustice, the apparent success of the evil-minded, the accumulation of wealth by the man of shady methods, and those who should be happy, miserable, and those who in your estimation should receive punishment, living in luxury, and highly esteemed.
but this vision will lose its distortion as you live on; you will then see matters in their true light. have you ever looked down through clear water and seen rocks, even fishes, appearing queer and out of shape? when you dive down to the bottom and open your eyes, how different the true outlines of these things look[48] to you. you first saw them through distorted rays; a false vision. it is just so with the truths of life: you have to dive down into your heart and mind to see their real shape and meaning.
i believe that every man is better for going through all the phases of doubt, irreligion, and becoming worldly wise; for when he does reach the point of seeing right he thinks right. this state causes him to be a true man to himself and to the power which controls him.
get all sides of a question and then think for yourself. and don’t forget that every question has four sides: the right, wrong, inside and outside. when you have decided, be true to your convictions and at the same time keep looking around and into yourself.
we can all see the marvels of nature around us, but we can never understand until we also see the things in us.
deep within ourselves lie our powers. getting them out is what brings success. these are the forces which every young man must study for himself. there are no rules we know that can be laid down for the governing or control of that thing we call conscience, soul, or whatever you care to call it. it is the vital principle—it is the power within us to do. it varies in all men, its force, direction and application directed rightly will bring man up[49] to marvelous deeds. no matter what your impulses are, if they are for good living and helping along the progress of man, go at them and win out. if they make for evil, or the working of injurious suggestion; go at them also, but to give them the count. put them down and out. the first victory will be a hard one; but as the pugilist gains confidence after winning his first fight, and then goes on easily winning, so you all can in this matter of fighting wrong impulses.
yes; it is this vital principle in us to do, that makes life worth fighting—that is, knocking out the bad. it is also from this wonderful source that comes the vital force in the seed of males and the eggs of females, which, when united, brings forth life—flowers or man. it is with the laws governing this uniting of the two sexes we shall now, in easily understood explanations and words, chat about.
if i explain to you that the yellow or grey dust coming from flowers is the male seed, and that by wind, insects or birds it is deposited in the female flower’s womb to grow into little flowers, you certainly do not see anything to laugh at; nothing wrong to talk about, nothing in the wonderful arrangement of nature to sniggle over or to go behind the house or barn and whisper to other boys. certainly not. neither will you, when you understand[50] all those marvelous laws which enabled your good mother to give you life.
i want you all to take a hammer-lock upon this fact—the holiest, most wonderful and everlasting laws of nature will bring you to a state of reverence and pure thoughts when you see them from the inside; as you shall, as every boy and girl ought to see them.
it is your birthright to know yourself and the living brothers and sisters around you; to realize that a mother dog with her little puppies has gone through dog troubles and pain to be able to give birth to her babies and to nurse them just as your mother did for you. that you owe to the mother dog the same kind words you always owe your mother and sister will be plain to you.
everything during the course of reproduction—and this is the only way the world is kept alive—suffers pain, trouble, but in the end gains happiness. we are bound, if we are true boys and men, to remember this fact and act accordingly. you can no more bruise a flower in the spring without killing some little life than you can kick a mother dog without running the risk of killing her unborn puppies.
both of these mothers, flower and dog, are going to bring forth new lives from the same great cause; the union of the male seed and the female’s eggs.
[51]
all life comes from an egg. this is the first law of nature. every form of female has a method of protecting her eggs so as to bring them ready to receive the life germs of the male. some flowers bury their ovaries—the organ that makes the eggs—in the ground. some form of water flowers show us how careful we boys and men should be to protect our powers from being wasted. these flowers protect and keep their seed by closing their sacks—corollas—under the water until the time comes for them to act as fathers. if they kept their seed sacks above the water the wind would carry it away and then they would have none to place in the female flower when she was ready to receive it; or the egg, which is the same thing. then this female flower would be childless, and soon we should be without the beautiful flowers.
it is on account of this care of the life-giving germ that all nature, including intelligent and strong men, is able to keep the world populated and growing better. for in spite of apparent signs of the non-improvement of the men and women to-day, in reality we are getting to be better men and women. and a plain understanding of life such as i am chatting to you about, is one of the good signs; for in your mother’s and father’s days these important matters were left for them to pick up at[52] hazard and often from the wrong sources. but it will not be so with you; knowing the truth you will all be able to live right, go to your little wife a healthy man, strong in body, clean morals and conscience and not suffer the horrible self-accusation later on in life when seeing your son or daughter a cripple, helpless or incompetent. no, i believe that many of these awful conditions will cease to be; for they can be entirely wiped out if you heed and act upon what i tell you.
boys and young men have not had the seriousness of this matter fully explained, and through their ignorance have wasted life-energy, ruined themselves and finally become broken down in morals and bodily health, been sent to insane asylums, or died in hospitals from diseases caught through evil habits.
ignorance has caused them to be fathers of weak boys, sometimes idiots, and of daughters who followed the unmoral life of their father.
now it may sound funny to you, but the truth is, that if the boys in the past had really known as much as the chipmunks, we should have very few asylums for the insane or hospitals for the horrible diseases. to be sure, the chipmunk’s habits of right living so as to have only healthy and sane children, is due to instinct; but we have the same instinct; let us see that it is not suppressed by ignorance on[53] the one hand and the upheaval of evil thoughts and acts on the other.
of course there are many diseases which are not due to wasting of life’s energy or vicious habits, but more than one-half of the degeneracy and insanity in our land is due to these awful mistakes.
we do not have crazy foxes or idiotic colts; we seldom have any wild animal born unfit to live. yet the method of reproduction, the mating of the male with the female, is just the same as with man. the great difference is that animals mate when in perfect condition. neither the lion, eagle, nor the rose, has wasted or poisoned the vital fluid or dust by bad habits, or lost their power by ruinous indulgence.
all these facts are a wonderful and plain lesson to us; and when we think it over carefully and recognize all it means, the question rises: why have we done as we have been doing all these long years of supposed intelligence? because your parents and grandparents were not allowed to know the truth.
the pollen-dust of flowers is, as i have said, the seed of the male flower, just as full of life-giving energy as is the seed being produced in you—and which you must protect and save for future power and reproduction. that is, when married to be able to be the[54] father of strong, healthy children. the bible distinctly calls your attention to this matter, and lays down the law.
life is a long foot race; a constant struggle to reach the tape. now if you knew that you had this race to run and to win, would you be so foolish as to dissipate your strength, to lose sleep, to run long distances until you were completely exhausted just before you were to start on the real race? of course not; yet when a young man exhausts his energies and powers by wrong living and when tired out enters upon his life’s race—marriage and fatherhood—he comes to the tape wasted, exhausted and way behind the man who has trained properly. as a rule he will not finish the race—just be one of those “also ran.” he will leave weaklings on the path, poor unfortunate children who suffer all their lives because their father was unfit—unfit to be a father at any time. i realize these are harsh and strong words, but they tell you the truth, and i warned you that you would hear the truth.
i believe with a very strong belief that you boys to-day will be in a position to give the world better men and women than the world has ever known. you are being shown how to make yourselves fit to bring this about.
every day i hear the cry: “oh! doctor[55] howard, if i only had known these things when i was a youth! what a different man i would be to-day!” i have had men tell me that they would willingly have cut an arm off for such knowledge as you boys are getting, and considered the fee cheap at that.
we will now leave the flowers and their forms of reproduction and get right into things that every boy sees, yet had not had a thorough understanding of what relations they bear to his life and those dear to him.
to repeat: all life comes from an egg. you know how the eggs of fishes look as well as the fact that the shad roe you eat is a mass of eggs. the male shad is called the buck shad or the milt shad. the milt is the semen of the male shad. it is a milky-white substance. the little life-giving germs are hidden in this milk-like fluid. they are so small that it takes a powerful microscope to see them.
the eggs of the female cannot produce life unless the life germs of the male pass into them. this is true of all animals, including man. every form of living thing has a different method of doing this, but the principle is the same for all. let us first take the fishes.
springtime is the season for all life to bring forth its kind. in the spring the fishes swim to their spawning or breeding places. they seek warm and generally still waters. the[56] shad, for instance, swims up rivers until it finds the proper place. by this time the eggs are ready to be expelled from her ovaries, the sacks in which they have been forming all winter. as she lies still in the warm waters these eggs drop out in large quantities. then she swims away, gradually making her trip down to the sea. at the same time that her eggs are ready to be deposited in the waters the male shad is filled with milt-fish semen. he is strong, vigorous, and never having wasted any of this seed he is able to give full life to the waiting eggs. he slowly swims over the floating eggs and the semen in him pours out. once over the eggs each little life-germ wiggles through the outer lining of an egg and meets the true egg. at once these two, the female and male germ, are the beginning of a little fish. it takes some time, of course, for even the little fish to burst from its covering, for the growth from the two germ cells into a completely-formed, though tiny fish, occupies many days. but just as soon as it is ready to swim, out it comes.
the way the different kinds of fish protect their young until they can care for themselves, is an interesting study, but you can read all about such matters in your zoologies.
in breeding, or propagating, fish at the hatcheries, the eggs are squeezed out of the[57] female and immediately after this has been done the milt from the male is squeezed out over them. this is never done except when both female and male fish are ready to deposit their eggs and sperm. by this method the little fish can be kept in confined waters, arranged according to their ages, and when old enough, be sent to replace fished-out streams.
it is wonderful that with all the hundreds of different kinds of fishes in the ocean and rivers, the seed of the male will enter only the eggs of its own kind. it is the same throughout all life on the world; like can only reproduce like. if it were not so, we should have a sorry mess of mixtures and all life would die out.
when we leave the fishes and come to the higher scales of life, we see the same method of development from the union of the female and male elements—the egg vitalized by the male seed. but there is a difference in the methods of protecting the growing life in the egg. the fish simply drops her eggs and leaves them for the warm water to hatch. the birds deposit them in a ready-made nest and keep them warm by their own bodies.
the “frog spittle” you see on ponds and along the banks of streams is the mass of eggs and sperm from the male and female frogs. the bullfrog does not, like the male fish, throw[58] his life germs over the eggs of his mate after she has deposited them in the water. this is done before she lets them leave her body. the frog’s method of vitalizing the eggs is that of all the higher animals.
when the eggs in the female are ripe for the male seed they lie inside her near their outlet. the bullfrog introduces his seed directly into her body at the spot where the eggs are waiting to receive it. a short time after this takes place the eggs are cast upon the waters and left for the sun to develop the little pollywogs, or tadpoles. when ready, those tiny fellows with their funny tails swim out and remain in large groups until their tails drop off and hind legs have grown.
if you have ever tried to stir up a large lot of “frog spittle” you have noticed how difficult it is to break up. this is another wonderful provision of nature to protect her living and growing things. the greenish mass you see is a mucilage-like substance made to hold the eggs together. the real eggs are those tiny black spots. if it were not for this sticky material, the wind and waves would break up the whole mass and leave the eggs to be washed away and chilled. in other words, not one would send out a little pollywog, the wiggling frog bodies would be chilled to death. so remember that when you try to break up a[59] lot of frog spittle you are really killing thousands of little pollywogs—frogs to be.
the same method of breeding takes place among the turtles and snakes. only here the eggs are not cast off directly after receiving the male seed. they stay in the female, as they do in the birds and hens, until they have received a protecting cover. these reptiles have not reached the scale of the birds and hens; they are between the frog and the bird. as we have seen, the frog has the mucilage-like substance holding together the eggs; the hens and the birds the hard shell protecting each egg; the turtle and his like have a soft shell.
the turtle, alligator, and those of the same kind of reptiles do not sit on their eggs. the female makes a kind of a nest in the sand or dry mud, lays the eggs, covers them over with sand and leaves the sun to do the rest. there are, however, many differences in the manner of hatching, the way the eggs are protected, and how the little ones are left to shift for themselves. but the manner of starting each different form of life is always the same.
in the bird, as in all live creatures of the female sex, are what we call ovaries, from the latin word ovum, meaning egg. these ovaries are situated in the body in the region we call the groin. these ovaries are little sacks which[60] have the power of creating eggs. as breeding time comes, these eggs drop out from the ovaries and remain for a short time just outside the sacks, but still in the bird’s body.
now the birds commence to mate, which is really nothing but the powerful instinct to reproduce their kind. the male bird is ready to be a father. he becomes vigorous, proud and strutting. his plumage is shining brilliant and he tries to show himself off before the females, who soon pick out their mates. the birds of the turkey or partridge type, dance, fight and sing in order to attract the attention of the females.
as soon as mating takes place, off the couples go to build their nests, both working together early and late to make a warm place for the little ones to be hatched.
the mating has taken place, the eggs of the female have become vitalized. the life germs have worked their way into the interior of the eggs; the eggs now commence to take on a protective covering; the shell. this soon grows to a hard shell. the eggs now being safely protected they drop out into the nest, and when all have been laid, the mother, and at times, the father bird, sit upon them until the little ones are hatched.
if the female bird was kept in a cage and away from the male bird, the eggs would come[61] just the same. but no amount of sitting upon them or putting them in an incubator would bring forth the young. the reason you all readily understand; the eggs have not been vitalized, given the sperm, by the male bird. so if you want to breed chickens you must always have a cock in the yard.
all breeders of chickens first examine the eggs they are to put under a hen or in an incubator. by the light of a candle in a dark room you can see a tiny spot in the egg if it has been vitalized. this spot is the germinal spot—the evidence of the male element. such an egg will hatch; one without such a spot will simply rot.
when we reach the higher scale in animal life, where the dog, horse, lion, belong, we have reached that point where all reproduction takes place in the same manner as in man. i am referring now to details only, for as i have told you, the principles of reproduction are the same for everything that lives.
all through nature, if you carefully think over the strict laws governing the continuation of life, you will be struck with wonder and reverence; not curiosity nor evil thoughts.
at first it may sound a little harsh to have me tell you that you were developed from a single cell in your mother’s womb which had been vitalized by the seed of your father.[62] but such is the undeniable truth, and it is the truth concerning ourselves that i want you to understand.
of course we are different from the mere animals in having a something in us that they do not apparently possess. this “something” may be called a soul, the essence of a great will, the evidence of god. but it makes no matter what you have been taught to call it—it is there; and some day you will recognize it.
it is the great power back of us, in us, ahead of us. it is the something we can feel, but not see nor demonstrate. as you study over what i tell you it will be plain that, while we can and should understand the laws of nature, this power, the actual power itself must be studied in our hearts.
but no man has done justice to this great will, or to god, or to himself, who has avoided trying to understand those laws which are indubitably for our benefit and future progress. one of the plain duties which the law points out to us, is that of so regulating our lives that we can give health and moral strength to those who come after us. and this can never be done unless we know and obey those laws which we have plainly set before us.
before going further into the facts of reproduction, let us see how strict nature is in some of her laws controlling this process.[63] remember what i said about the marvelous fact that fishes do not inter-breed; that is, that the seed from a male salmon will not enter the eggs of a female bass, nor that of a “shiner” into a sunfish. nature will not allow such a mixing of things. a dog cannot impregnate a cat, only a dog. so you see that nature has so arranged matters that in spite of the running wild of all kinds of animals and species, each egg is so chemically adjusted that only the male seed made for its particular eggs can vitalize them.
“but,” you say, “i saw at the circus a half tiger and a half lion, he rode a horse.”
true, but you have so long been accustomed to think that the lion and tiger were different species of animals that it did not enter your minds that in reality they were the same. both belong to the cat tribe—felines. circus men call all these animals, lion, tiger, cougar, leopard, etc., “big cats.”
in their natural state even these animals of the same species will not inbreed; there is a social class among them; and while man forced the lion to mate with the tiger, it was a forced marriage and presumably a disagreeable one. we have too many lion and tiger marriages in our own society.
from all this we should derive a lesson.
nature will not, however, give in altogether[64] to man’s foolish acts; for even when we cross the species we get a thing that cannot reproduce. the strict laws here step in and say: “so far shalt thou go, but no farther.”
the mule is an example of what i mean. the mule is the result of breeding the ass to a mare. it is hybrid; it cannot reproduce its kind. so in order to have mules we must always use an ass and mare. the mule cannot reproduce its kind because it is a born eunuch. that is, it has no seed to give life to eggs.
now in some respects the mule is more useful to man than the horse. again we see that the laws controlling our lives are often adjusted to our desires when these desires are for our benefit. so we can breed from a mare and stallion ass; but cannot go any farther with the species. it is about the same with the inbreeding of zebras and horses, although this has not yet been carried far enough to determine what the outcome will be. but don’t forget this fact: ass and horse, zebra and horse are all the same species—equines.
you have seen how birds and hens lay their eggs in a nest, and how, if they have received the male germ, the eggs bring forth their young. in the higher forms of animals—those who nurse their young—exactly the same process takes place but under different details. in these higher animals, the dog, for[65] instance, we have the ovaries making the eggs just as in the birds. at certain intervals in the year these eggs slip from the ovaries into a nest lying just down beneath the two ovaries—one on each side of the female dog. this nest we call the uterus—or, in ordinary terms, the womb. when these eggs slide into their nest they produce an inflammation of the parts; also a peculiar odor. this is another wonderful law of nature, for without these conditions life would soon cease to exist. the inflammation gives the female dog—bitch is the proper name—a longing to be a mother. it is nothing impure in her, nothing to be ashamed of, but a condition to be proud of and to cause reverence in those of pure minds. the odor is to tell the male that now he must do his share in keeping dogs on the earth.
so they mate.
when each little egg is vitalized by the dog’s sperm, they remain in the womb—the bitch’s nest—for nine weeks, growing day by day until they are ready to come into the world.
then did you ever see such a beautiful sight as the watchful and happy mother? never, if you have all the real feelings of the genuine boy. there must arise that in you which we all feel but cannot explain. kind words come to you as you watch the happy dog mother; gentle strokes as she cuddles[66] to warm her little babies. and yet there are boys who have so little understood the beauty and wonder of all this act of reproduction that they sniggle and make sport of the desires of the innocent want-to-be-mother dog.
exactly the same details happen throughout all the animal kingdom. the larger the animal, the longer it takes for the little one to grow and develop in the mother’s womb. this is the only difference, except that in the larger animals we find one or two babies the general rule. you see these big babies require so much milk that the mother could not supply enough for many hungry mouths, so she gives birth to only that number she can well nourish and care for.
