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ness they may be." It follows, then, that these parties were not truly married. This is practical "free love"--the two separate, in order to find their ideal companions. On the next page you say: "If either wishes separation, there is no longer true marriage in the heart. Where there is true marriage, universal experience testifies that it longs for an endless perpetuity; and the very existence of this desire demonstrates to me the fact, that nature designed the union to be perpetual. The want is natural, and Nature creates no want for which she does not create a supply."

From this it seems that the test of True Marriage is based wholly upon experiment, like every other species of "Knowledge." Legalized marriages may seem perfectly right to undeveloped minds. Or, the supposed truly united may discover something repugnant in each other, after living together thirty or forty years. If this repugnance amounts to repulsion, then they are no longer truly married. Who shall determine the Law, according to which a man and a woman may settle the question of inherent relationship, or the contrary, independent of all impulse and false inclinations to which every person is more or less liable in this rudimental state of development? In your next book on this glorious theme, Henry, give the world some practical principle, some certain test, independent of endless experiment, to establish this question. The happiness and elevation of the sexes demand it; offspring can not be radically improved until the right persons enter the marriage relation.

Henry C. Wright is, emphatically, a monogamist-believes faithfully and manfully in ONE ONLY AND TRUE MARRIAGE for ETERNITY. But the subject is taking hold of minds in every stage of development; the discussion will be merged into the "Woman's Rights" question, and then will come the most desperate struggle between heart and head-between Love and Law! Dr. T. L. Nichols (in his Journal of May 13, 1854) who

declares himself an advocate for human reform in every department of life, gives the following on the book in question:

"With some of his positions, we heartily coincide; from others we are compelled to dissent. We agree that the true marriage is the union of mutual love, which no human law has the right to regulate or control. We assert the supreme right of woman over her own person, and especially over the function of maternity-the right to choose the father of her child.' But we do not find in our observation or experience, that every real love is eternal, or exclusive of other loves. We do not believe in an indissoluble monogamy, as the invariable law of our race; nor that the production of offspring is the sole object of the ultimatum of love.

"Mr. Wright will find, that however this theory may seem. to sentimental dreamers, it can not be imposed on humanity as a law. Whoever has loved, and ceased to love, has had personal experience to contradict the eternity of love; whoever has loved two persons at the same time has a demonstration of at least one exception to the monogamic theory. The world is full of such exceptions. We doubt if there is a man or woman living, really capable of a passionate love, in whom it has been confined, during a whole life, to a single object.

"On this theory of indissoluble monogamy, every present love proves the falsity of all past ones. Infidelity is impossible. So long as a man loves one woman, he can not love another; but when he has ceased to love one, he is free to love another; or, rather, he was mistaken in supposing he loved the first. If a true love is, in its nature, eternal, then all the loves that end were false; if true love is exclusive, there can be but one true; with two loves, both are false.

"The letters in this book are supposed to be written by a model couple, whose names are ERNEST and NINA. They are united in a marriage of eternal and exclusive love. If Ernest

feels any attraction for any other woman, that proves, not only that he is no longer Nina's husband, but that he never was. If either Ernest or Nina love any other, they are quite free to do so, as the very fact proves that they do not belong to each other. What free-love theory is freer than this? As divorce is simply the cessation of love, and as a true love can not cease, there is no possible divorce; a new love seems to set aside the old, but really proves that the old did not exist. Such are the absurdities of people who adopt theories instead of observing facts.

"The theory that the ultimation of love has for its sole object the production of offspring, seems to us as baseless and absurd as the other. Mr. Wright does not feel sure on this point, but urges it yet with some pertinacity. He asserts that the strongest and most energetic men have been remarkable for continence. This is true neither of individuals nor races. The most intellectual and advanced nations are not those most remarkable for this virtue; and if you take the most remarkable men of any country, city, or village, you will not, upon proper investigation, find them the most chaste. There is scarcely a man of great genius, in any department, whose reputation in this respect is as good as our moralists would have it; and though temperance in this respect is conducive to health, it may be reasonably doubted whether persons of either sex are not injured by total abstinence. Otherwise, monks and nuns should be the most remarkable people in the world; and old bachelors and old maids strikingly superior to the married."

By presenting both sides of the matrimonial controversy, we may elicit inquiry, which is now universally necessary. It is evident that the polygamic theory (or many-marriage) in this stage of human experience, will meet more nearly the current wants, but not the needs, of mankind. But in a more advanced state, the monogamic (or one-marriage) philosophy of conjugal

love will become popular; for each heart seeks its own counterpart, not in the many, but in ONE. As the subject now stands, the discovery of this corresponding Self is unfortunately experimental; and this, in my perception, is the grand defect of H. C. Wright's last Book.

Therefore, it is my purpose to introduce a series of discourses, in order to secure true marriages-congenial and absolutely homogeneous unions of soul-by an application of the laws of temperamental harmony. There is, I am sure, no really cultivated man or refined woman, but would readily respond to the majority of Henry's propositions. The consecration of man to woman, and of woman to man, equally, for each other's elevation and happiness-for the reproduction and perfection of their offspring, and therefore for the ultimate harmonization of the race is a glorious doctrine, very beautifully presented by the author just reviewed. I am certain that hundreds of women will, in their inmost souls, thank him for his noble defence of their hidden spiritual natures; of their wants, their conjugal attractions, their qualifications to bless, and to curse not less, the brotherhood of man. It is only with the concurrence of noble-minded women that manly Reformers can hope to influence the world toward PRACTICAL PEACE AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

LECTURE XI.

CONCERNING THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION AND MARRIAGE.

ATTRACTION is that law which associates and consociates, which joins and conjoins, atoms with life, life with organization, organization with intelligence. Therefore, this attraction is the love-law of all organization; the same in the physical world as in the spiritual. The perpetual flux and reflux of unparticled matter throughout the domain of Nature, the ceaseless combination and decomposition of atomic substances, indicate the immutable activity and philosophical beauty of this Principle. A fly's wing and a whirling orb, a curling vine and. a comet in space, come from the action of the same law. The coming together of atoms conjugally-elected-that is, according to their inherent relations and essential affinities-makes the organal phenomena of field and forest, of sea and sky.

In this connection, I feel impressed to state a new proposition -viz.: Particles of matter are associated according to their shape, their size, and their temperament. Now Shape is intellectually determinable by the Law of progressive refinement; and Temperament, by the volume and disposition of inherent vitality. One shape and temperament of atoms, for example, will be attracted only to granite; another to quartz; another to limestone; another to iron, or silver, or copper, or gold; another, perhaps, to buckwheat; another to the formation of rye or oats; another to fish, or birds; another to animals; another to the human form; another to the sun; another to

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