Free love; or, A philosophical demonstration of the non-exclusive nature of connubial love, also, a review of the exclusive feature of the Fowlers, Adin Ballou, H.C. Wright, and Andrew Jackson Davis on marriage [microform]

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FUEE LO^E

OR, A PHILOSOPHICAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE

NON-EXCLUSIVE NATUBI3

OF.'. ,',

CONNUBIAL LOVE,

A REVIEW OF THE EXCLUSIVE FEATURE OF THE FOWLERS,

ADIN BALLOU, H. C. WRIGHT, AND ANDREW

JACKSON DAVIS ON MARRIAGE.

BY AUSTIN KENT.

HOPKINTON. N. T.
.PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

1867.

tA

Entered according to Act of Congreas, in the year 1?57, by

AUSTIN KENT,

In the Clerk'a Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Southern District of Ohio.

CORRECTION.

48th page, 15 lines from bottom insert is l)et\^
vharity and not.

70th page, 7 line.i from top, for practical read/r
tionah

75th page, middle, for nominal read harmonial.

88th page, 2d line from bottom, insert icitli Mn j
I tween which and is.

136th page, 11 lines from top, for carelessly 1>.
causelessly.

Other less errors omitted.

t

P»REinA.OE.

We have meant to make the title of our book so
plain that no thoroughly conservative mind could
mistake — and so waste his money in purchasing it.
We have given much of the last twenty years of
our life and time to the world, ** without money and
without price ;" and if we should find it necessary,
or for any reason think it best to let our httle work
partly bear the expense of its own publication, we
wish no one to be deceived in getting it. We have
BO thought of any material remuneration for our
own labors. Reader, this is very radical ; — and we
confess to a choice not to be the first to wake any
who, with all the influences of the nineteenth century
about them, are yet soundly asleep upon the lap of
the past. We do not wish such to be too suddenly
brought into travailing pains for their own spiritual
and mental birth to the future — even though we
know these must sooner or later come. Some milder
and more gradual dose might be better as a first
stimulant. We took our pen mainly for the benefit
of reformers, and for those whom nature has given

iVTiM7iG

IV PREFACE.

some ability to be such. These are more than
welcome — we invite them to read us critically

The subject of Love and Marriage will ever be one
of vast importance to our race : we can hardly
conceive it possible to rate it too highly. Between
1837 and 1840 Theophilus R. Gates published a
series of radical tracts, called the ** Battle Axe.'*
This stirred the waters of orthodoxy. In these, he
inserted a letter from John H. Noyes, which de-
clares, that, in a state of heavenly holiness on earth,
*' Every dish is free to every guest." The context
put his meaning beyond question. All of this, then,
amounted to but little more than prophecy.

In 1849, Mr. Noyes came out with a full expo-
sition and defence of his principles in his *' Bible
Argument." This was an able, but small, work on
Free Love for all saved and redeemed humanity.

Not far from this time — we simply write the date
from memory — the Fowlers (L. N. and 0. S.) wrote
each a book on ** Marriage.'' They taught that love
was marriage, but confined it to dual order — to pairs.
On the whole, these last books were elevating in
their tendency among the mass of minds

In 1850, Henry James wrote to good effect in his
** Moralism and Christianity.'*

In J 852, Dr. Lazarus published '* Love vs. Mar-
riage." This book was of the Fourier cast ; and, for
the time, was ** written without gloves." It was a
most lovely and lovable book, but not so argumen-

PREFACE. y

tative as some which have succeeded it. It must
have put many minds into a right train of thought.

In 1853, Horace Greeley published, in the
** Tribune/* a part of a discussion between Henry
James, Stephen Pearl Andrews, and himself. The
whole came out afterwards in a tract, by Mr. An-
drews. This must have been deeply interesting to
minds on all sides of the questions.

In 1854, Henry C. Wright and Dr. Nichols
each published a fair sized book on *' Marriage."

The present year, we have Andrew Jackson Davis
on the same subject. We have long had the writings
of Fourier, Owen, and others on the Affections,

We consider all of these books most valuable.
None of them are superfluous. We think Mr.
Wright elevates connubial love as high as it can be
elevated in exclusive dual marriage. He teaches
that love is marriage, and sticks by nature, as he
understands it.

Dr. Nichols (his wife wrote a portion of the
book) takes nature for his guide, but denies its
exclusiveness. His book is very instructive ; and
favors the Free Love doctrine. Mr. Davis, in the
main, teaches the philosophy of marriage with great
clearness and beauty, but contends that connubial
love is monogamic in its highest manifestations.
Before closing our book, I intend to review this
exclusive phase in Mr. Wright and Mr. Davis, so I
will not add more here. Several of these last books

VI PREFACE.

liave seemed to come almost simultaneously. It has
multiplied the number of readers, on the subject of
which they treat, tenfold ; and yet it has, compara-
tively, but just begun to agitate the public mind. It
is now destined to be thoroughly discussed. The fire
IS already kindled which will bring to the judg-
ment the traditions, with the imperfect institutions,
of the past, and burn up the *' hay, wood, and stub-
ble" which are found in them. On the whole, I
am not sorry that these late authors took, in the
main, the several and diverse positions which they
did. We are in an age of active thought, and truth
is more deeply planted in the understandings and
hearts of men by this friendly opposition and
discussion. Truth is always safe in such discussions.
So far as we hold opinions not based in truth, these
may and will suffer a loss in such a mental refiner,
— but absolute truth never can. When we get an
article of great utility, we are apt to feel a sort of
wonder how we could so long do without it. So
I felt on reading most of these late works on
marriage. Yet probably the world was not prepared
for them before. I will add — to my mind, they all
seem to have come in about the right order.

We repeat — none of these are superfluous. The
isubject is not yet exhausted. We hold the pen to
add another book to the list, — and we promise the
reader, that ours shall not be superfluous. We do
cot promise that it shall be agreeable to his mental

PREFACE. tI!

taste, — unless his taste Las been harmoniously
adjusted to some of the most radical in the past.
We come in defence of Free Love. We do this,
because we are sure we find it in nature, in its most
exalted and harmonious manifestations.

On the subject of morals and marriage, there has
been a great advance in a short space of time. I
refer more specially to reformers. A little time ago,
'* Moses '' was the standard. Outward and legal
marriages were first, — love and harmony were
secondary. Then obedience to simple legal morality
was virtuous. Now all this has changed. Among all
of these writers, except Mr. Noyes and Mr. Gates,
nature is the standard. Nature is the Infallible and
Inspired Book ; and its normal promptings are the
law of virtue and of morals. Mr. Noyes defends
his positions both from nature, and the spiritual and
higher teachings of the New Testament. Here,
then, there is no controversy among these radical,
reformatory writers, as to what is the standard of
truth, or as to where the law of marriage is to be
found ; none as to the propriety of, or chastity in,
obeying these laws. These writers do differ as to
the proper reading of nature's laws. Fourier,
Owen, the Fowlers, James, Lazarus, Nichols,
Andrews, Wright, and Davis, agree that true love
is marriage. The Fowlers, Wright, and Davis
contend that connubial love, in its highest develop*
ment, is exclusively dual. Here the latter agree,

riH PREFACE.

though in other respects, of much less importance,
they differ widely. Fourier, Owen, Noyes, An-
drews, and Nichols, deny the evidence of the
exclusive nature of this love, and teach more or less
the modern doctrines of Free Love. These last
differ on other points among themselves.

I am happy to find the controversy so much
shortened in space — in extent of range. We all
teach that the laws of mind are our guide ; and
that these laws must be absolutely free. In this
sense, we all contend aUke for Free Love. We agree
that healthy affinities and attractions must reign
supreme. But Mr. Wright, and some others, tell us
that this healthy attraction will, and must, in its
nature, be always exclusive. I hear some, on the
other hand, say to Mr. Wright and his friends, —
** Hands and opinions off ! Allow us the freedom
to settle the nature of our own attractions. Admit-
ting you may know what is most healthy, elevating,
and pure for yourself — do not measure all men and
all women by your owrn affectional stature ! '* I say
to Mr. Wright, if you see a law of mind as mind —
or the highest law of mind as such, — it is not
impertinent for you to speak out that law. We
think we know and see some of the unalterable laws
of mind, and we claim the right to so far expose
and defend these laws. If others differ from us,
we not only leave them free to live their views of
truth, but we respect them in it. All of us, it is

PREFACE. IX

probable, are as yet comparatively in but the ** abbs *'
of mental Philosophy. I will never attempt to live
any law farther than I think I see it. Reader, we
are very near Mr. W.*s opposite. We believe that
though men differ much — very much, none, in
entire freedom, and uninfluenced in the past and
present by other minds or institutions in the bond-
age of the past or present, — would ever be
absolutely exclusive in any of the manifestations of
connubial love. This is our position, and our
extreme — if it be an extreme. We all agree in the
positive nature and force of these laws of mind.
Some of us believe these laws can be demonstrated*
Mr. Wright finds this connubial love to be ** a law of
attraction superior to our wills, and which we have
no power to create or destroy." Again he says :
** Our souls, I believe, are substance, as truly as
are air, light, electricity, and magnetism. The
same law of creation governs souls that governs all
other material bodies." Mr. Davis fully harmonizes
with all of this. I am most thankful for all of
this agreement to shorten the labor of future
discussions.

The Book of the Law, and the power and binding
nature of the law, is equally settled. I here record
my gratitude to all of those writers who have done
much to elevate marriage over the power of my-
thology and legal bondage, though they are our
opponents as to the main doctrine of our book. They

X' PREFACE.

have each written up to the mental and moral
elevation of their own understandings. We shall
write our highest perceptions of truth. The devel-
oping mind of the future will better understand all of
us; and better see our faults. They will do us all
iustice. For though, ** round and round we go,
truth will at last come uppermost.'' Witli the
fullest and most entire assurance, I commit my
radical book to present and coming humanity.

Austin Kent.
Hopkintoii,

St. Lawrence Co. N. Y,

CONTENTS,

Preface ill

CHAPTER I.
Introduction 13

CHAPTER n.
Definition of Words and Phrases. — Statement of our

Position — The Argument Commenced 19

CHAPTER III.
The Argument Continued 28

CHAPTER IV.
The Fowlers — The Argument from Analogy 34

CHAPTER V.
Mr. Ballou — An Explanation — Part of his Reply in my
Rejoinder 41

CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Ballou Continued — His Book 58

CHAPTER VII.
Mr. Henry C. Wright — A Review — " What is Marriage ? " 74

CHAPTER VIII.
Review of Mr. Wright continued 98

CHAPTER IX.
Andrew Jackson Davis — General Remarks— Quotations

from his Book 109

Appendix , 135

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

As mucli as our age professes to be in favor of
free discussion, we find a large class, even among
partial reformers, who can hardly look at and read
dispassionately, — or have any patience with an argu-
ment in favor of freedom in love, from a harrowing:
fear of the real or imaginary consequences of the
immediate possible success and spread of such views.
Some of these, though of "little faith,** are honest
hearted in these fears. Such minds will say to us
— " If it were true that freedom in love, and the
modern principles of Free Love, would one day in
the future of human progression be safe, and be the
order of sexual harmony, is it wise to promulgate
these sentiments now, when the race is yet so
awfully perverted, and often make even truth a
' ' Saviour of death ? ' ' These taay add, — * ' admitting
entire freedom, and a ' variety ' is consistant with
a perfect state of Society, do not men yet Deed
restraining in some things which in themselves
would be right ? Did not the learned and wise Paul
Bee some things in the 'third heavens' of the
2 13

A 4 FREE LOVE.

future glory of tne church on earth, which he did
not consider it ^ expedient/ or * lawful for him to
utter ? ' And did not a greater than Paul withhold
even from his well beloved disciples, that which he
well knew they could not as yet bear ?" We may
furthur be reminded of the case of our modern In-
spired writer, A. J. Davis, in still postponing his re-
ply to the question, " What and Where is God ! " in
view of the present state of the public mind.

Reader, we admit, understand, and appreciate this
respectable weight of testimony. Nature and th«
Bible both reveal truth little by little, and hold a
** veil " over the rest for the time. Nothing can be
plainer than this fact. But, in reply, we will pre-
sent another phase of the subject, equally plain and
undeniable. Jesus, Paul, and every Reformer be-
fore and since their day, have taught truths in ad-
vance of their respective ages. Such truths have
always more or less been used to promote bad ends.
We think no sudden and great change, which, on
the whole, was of much utility, ever came in our
world, without bringing with it its immediate pres-
ent evils for a time. This is often true of scientific
as well as moral changes. An increase of suffering
is often the first effect of important and useful in-
ventions. I will refer to the first effect upon th«
poor on the introduction of factories and sewing
machines. Society is of very large dimensions, and
complex in its parts, and it is not an easy matter

INTRODUCTION. i'S

to re-adjust it after a great change. This is true of
every phase of it. In my opinion, man can never be
freed, mentally ancf^morally, without an increase of
immediate suffering. Yet man never can be saved
without such freedom. All must learn more or less
by experience, — and, in this experience, be *'made
perfect through suffering." It is naturally impos-
sible for a child to develop into entire manhood or
womanhood, without freedom. They must be
trusted to go alone, and **at their own cost."
Abolishing the law of imprisonment for debt, in our
state, caused more or less immediate embarassment
to both the rich and the poor. It has now greatly
benefited all classes. It also removed a hinderence
to the development of mind in moral honesty.
That "the law makes nothing perfect" — is a truth
found any where, or -in any Book. Many of the
books to which we have alluded in our Preface —
even such as simply teach that love is marriage, —
we believe, will not at first serve to lessen human
suffering, in their love relations, but add to it. If
we are correct in this — we only state it as our opin-
ion— the same may be more true of ours. We
flatter no man. Yet all of these books, with ours,
will only hasten a crisis, through which the world
must pass. There is no affectional salvation — no
real or perfect manhood, this side of it. The most
inveterate and deepest seated disease of civilization
must be probed. The lance will be painful. The

16 FREE LOVE.

whole body will feel the shock. But it must come ! !
I have not one doubt but that it will end in greater
health to the Patient. It will promote real purity
and chastity — and so an increase of peace, and a
more perfect harmony. Woman can never rise to
her entire womanhood without it.

The question as to the time when a higher truth
shall be published, is one of expediency. It is
important, but not of the first importance. Honest
and good men may differ in relation to it. The
most true friends of Free Love have differed here.
We should seek to be guided by a wise and holy
expediency. But no mind is prepared to judge
correctly upon it, till he is at least thoroughly awake
to a true sense of the terrible and wide -spread
bondage and suffering in our present state of society.
Its wrongs are as high as heaven and as deep as hell.
Whoever sees this, will feel the need of some radical
change for the better. The real conservative would
never change. The Reformer alone must look,
judge, and act. I was born through a long line of
orthodox ancestry of New England Congregational-
ism; and trained, ** in the way I should go,'' to an
orthodox religion ; and was once in the orthodox
ministry. It has taken me a long time to lay off
the unreal of the past. Long after I became estab-
lished in my present views of Free Love, I could
sympathize with Mr. Greeley and Mr. Ballon, in a
dread to see these principles spread among the

INTRODUCTION. if

masses. But since I have laid off many of my con-
servative views, my faith in humanity has greatly
increased. My confidence in the power and safety
of truth has alike increased.

We add further — the friends of Free Love are not
alone responsible for the general spread of the more
radical phases of these principles. The history of
the past plainly shows that our opponents would
never let us alone. Mr. Noyes was not allowed to
rest in peace, in the retirement of his own private or
select friends, and his own society. So it has ever
been with myself. But so far from regretting the
influence which has been brought to bear upon us,
we are, at least, most grateful to a kind and wise
Providence for in this way freeing us from the
lingering remains of what we now believe was a
false conservatism.

But, reader, the time has come when there is a
necessity for every phase of this question to be
thoroughly discussed. It is fairly up before the
public mind. All sides have been broached, and
more or less defended. Mind cannot be staid till it
is fully canvassed. Men do not now, as in the past,
follow simple instinct, or unenligTiferied passion or
love. They demand mental instruction, and they
will have it. They ask for something more than
surface teachers, and human opinions. They ask
for philosophy, and they will have it. " The sup-
ply will be equal to the demand." The true mind
2*

18 FREE LOVE.

desires to see every possible objection urged against
his most cherished positions. When these fail to
stand the ordeal of any amount of the most searching
criticism, he has no longer any confidence in, or
respect for them. However sure he may be that he
has the truth, he is more sure of the real power of
truthy and of its entire ability to sustain itself. Such
a mind knows, too, that truth is advanced by re-
pulsion as well as by attraction ; that every active
mind puts it forward, whether in love with, or in
opposition to it. If he stands in the latter relation
to it, he is a repelling power. We only mean, while
man is on the plane of haired — hatred will work
utility in his progress. As God lives, this must he
true. When will men more generally arrive at a
proper confidence in the power of truth, and of
God ? Till this subject — marriage — is thoroughly
handled on loth sides, man's faith can not be deeply
laid. Every effort of a true mind will lay the truth
more and more fully upon the eternal rock of ages
— nature. We always hail with pleasure the promise
of any able and fair writer to review and criticise
our most cherished faith. We never fail to buy
such books. If our opponents have like confidence
in truth, and feel as we do, that any agitation must
advance it, they will cordially welcome our effort,
and thank us for it, as we do them for theirs.

In our age, active minds have little time to parley
with moral and mental cowards. We welcome the

DEFINITION OP WORDS AND PHRASES. 19

coming war — the "bloodless war/' which we have
long seen gathering. We shall pray for, work for,
and welcome the crisis, and glory in the assurance
that it will end in good.

CHAPTER II.

DEFINITION OF WORDS AND PHRASES STATEMENT OF

OUR POSITION THE ARGUMENT COMMENCED.

Before introducing the reader to our argumenta-
tive letters, we shall first define some of the more
important terms which we shall be likely to use,
and so make our exact moral whereabouts more
clearly understood. By connubial love, I mean a
normal development of the sexual attraction of our
nature, in all of its phases. By denying its exclu-
siveness, I deny that, in such a harmonious devel-
opment, it will be absolutely confined, in any form
of its manifestations, to one of the opposite sex.

When we write non-exclusive, we mean not
absolutely exclusive — no more. By promiscioua,
we sometimes mean no more than the opposite of
entire exclusiveness : the context will show when
it means more. We do not teach an entire non-ex-
clusiveness, or, what is the same, an absolute
promiscuity. To us, this is equally absurd with

$0 yREB LOVE.

entire exclusiveness. Yarious shades of preference
are natural and so proper. Different minds differ as
to their leanings towards entire exclusiveness, or its
opposite — absolute promiscuity. This is more or
less true on every plane of sexual or connubial
love. What we declare to be true of this love is
true of every other love. No man or woman is
absolutely promiscuous in their social or adhesive
attractions. Nor is any one absolutely dual and
exclusive. The reader will find the same law to
prevail, with various modifications, through all the
lower and all the higher loves. Benevolence, the
crowning faculty, and the personification of our
moral manhood, has its shades of variation. The
Great Teacher, though the highest pattern of
universal charity and benevolence, showed much
partiality, preference for the "brethren;** and he
had his "beloved disciple*' among the twelve of the
more choice of these. His moral teachings are very
emphatic, and often repeated, in enjoining this
special regard for our brethren. Paul bade us ** do
good to all men, but especially to the household of
faith.** In this, Jesus and Paul acted and taught in
harmony with the laws of mind. But enough, I am
understood. Truth impells us to regard all accord-
ing to their real value, and our ability to appreciate
it. The former would be a true estimate, the latter
is as near as we can practically reach it. Because
truth may require me to lay down my life for ono

DEFINITION OF WORDS AND PHRASES. 21

man, it may not for another. Of course, in choosing
a partner in marriage, we should not be governed in
our selection by an estimate of the real worth of
the person, but of his or her relative worth and
fitness for such a relation to us. I write thus full on
some of these points, to make clear what I consider
some of the true principles of mental philosophy,
and so to prepare the way for my mental argument.
I have been full, at the expense of some repetition, to
save the reader, if possible, from the misconceptions
which experience has shown me too often pursue
such an expose as this, on so radical a theme.

In what I have written, the reader will perceive
tliat I have not, and he may be assured that I shall
not, undertake to oppose the doctrine of a special
and *'ideal mate," when, and so far as it is not carried
to absolute and entire exclusiveness, in any phase
of its amative monopolies. In other words, and
more correctly, I shall only review and oppose the
entire, exclusive feature of the system of dual mating.

Further explanation : — In the main, I approve of
the ** spirit and nature'* of what Swedenborg, the
Fowlers, Wright, and others of their like, call
connubial love ; but I deny that such disinterested-
ness, such purity, such oneness of soul, such moral
elevation and chastity in sexual love, is exclusive, or
confined to one. When these men write directly of
pure and elevating love, in opposition to impurity
and a predominance of self in love, or "lust," I

22 FREE LOVE.

Jiarmonize with them. When they say ttat such
iove as they have described, cannot seek a variety,
in entire health, I deny it. When they write upon
fthe nature and spirit of lust and its effects, I har-
monize with them. But when they say that all
attraction towards a variety, is of such a nature, I
deny it. I think I must be understood by all who
have carefully read their books. This, too, is very
important to a clear understanding. I positivly
deny that these writers are my opponents, as to what
really constitutes a pure and elevating love and
attraction, or an impure and debasing one. We all
admit that man may lust after one or many. I insist
tliat he may love one and many. I write to prove
my last position, and to disprove its opposite.

Our first and main argument will be presented in
tbree letters, the substance of which were written
in 1853, and published in the fall and winter of
1854-5, in the "Practical Christian.'' We shall
^mit nothing in these letters which we consider
essential to our present purpose.

the argument.
Friend Ballou : —

I thankfully accept your hospitality in allowing
me a place in your paper, to express my dissent from
your views on the subject of Free Love, and to record
my reasons for that dissent.

Free Love and Marriage are fast becoming (he
question of the age. All classes will soon see tbia
feet, whatever view they mav take of it in other

THE ARGUMENT. %^

respects. It has been about the last to ask, and will
perhaps be the last to receive, a full and fair hearing.
It will have it soon in the Press and in the Lecture -
room. Since I suggested, (last fall,) the propriety
of a discussion with yourself, it has been brought
before the public, and called forth more attention
than for years previous. I refer mainly to the two
books written — one by Mr. Wright, and the other
by Dr. Nichols and his wife — which have been
extensively advertised, and more generally read than
anything before this. I might add, the introduction
and agitation of it through some few spiritual medi-
ums. Mr. Wright and Dr. Nichols harmonize on
many points ; on others they are diametrically
opposed. I am glad to find that some few letters
which I wrote last fall (with the intention of send-
ing them sooner to your paper) are confined entirely
to this main difference, and as appropriate as I
could now write. It will be remembered, those
books were not then published. I am glad of the
delay in my letters, as many more minds will be
prepared for them. I will take the liberty especially
to ask those who have read those books, to read my
letters ; I have many years since taken my position,
and I really believe I can demonstrate its truth. I
wish to come to the vital question, and make my
exposition and discussion as short as possible and do
the subject justice. I have no health, ability, or
desire to hold a long controversy, and yet I esteem
it a great privilege to record what seems essential,
and to commit myself to the age in defence of what
to me is the most absolute truth — and the most
elevated. I have such confidence in the power of
truth and such faith in the real good arising from
free discussion, that I prefer to do this in the im-

r

24 frep: love,

mediate presence of an opponent Ike mj friend
Ballon.

The question which I propose to discuss is — •
Does Sexual Chastity confine every man and every
woman to the ''pairing*' order, or to be exclusively
dual in the ultimates of love ? Does normal and
pure love require this ? Or, still more abridged, and
just as well understood as now explained — Should
marriage ahoays he exclusive and dual?'*

I take the negative of the last question as now
stated. Before proceeding to the argument, let me
remind the reader that I came first to my present
views of the subject from a careful study of the great
"fundamental doctrine '* of the Christ, as found in
the sum of all revealed commands. — In his love
doctrines — (See Matt. xxii. 37 — 40.) Secondly, I
found the same in studying the laws of the mind and
the nature of love, as read in the mind. My own
choice seems to incline me to make the last first, and
the first last ; so I will first argue from the mind.
In the argument, I intend to show, to a mental and
moral demonstration, that normal and truthful love
cannot be exclusive or dual. I shall then draw tlie
inference as one self-evident, that the ultimates of
love should harmonize with, and fairly represent
their source. That the outward manifestations of
love should truly represent its inward life and attrac-
tions. By normal and truthful love, I mean, when
the mind is perfectly balanced, and the mental in
freedom of wisdom controls the affeetional — or at
least the affeetional is properly balanced by and
harmonizes with the mental. I trust this careful-
ness in explanation will save much misunderstanding
and much repetition in the future.

I say, then, in reasoning from the laws of mind.

THE ARGUMENT. 25^^

I cannot find truth at the bottom of the common
Marriage doctrine. For convenience, let me speak
as if personal — as I develop in my sentiments and
faculties, I find myself possessed of love — an attrac-
tion to and affinity for other persons. I find the
nature and intensity of this love or affinity to de-
pend upon two thing's — two persons — myself and
the object loved. I am, in the sense in which I am '
speaking, comparatively a fixed fact in always loving
and having an affinity for certain attributes of other
human beings. I love mentality. Some minds
more than others, because their mentality is more
in harmony with the particular development of
mine — but I can love no one mind exclusively. For
every other person shares in a degree in the same
faculties. If I love mind, to love one mind exclu-
sively from another is impossible. All mind is
more or less alike. As minds vary, my love may
vary. Absolute, exclusive love, in this case, if it were
possible, would be a natural, more properly an
unnatural, Msehood. Truth, or the nature of the
mind requires me to love every like attribute of mind
with like lovey and the intensity should be governed
by the size of the attribute, and my ability to appre-
ciate it. This would be truth for me.

I love morality, spirituality and religion — here too
the same law prevails. I am bound to be impartial
in my love up to my ability. Truthfulness, as well
as the nature of the mind, forbids that I should
concentrate entirely and exclusively upon any one
moralist, spiritualist, or religionist. Nature did not
make me sectarian. At least I cannot be when I
am finished and perfected. Again I say here, I can-
not love all alike — all are not alike — nor can I per-
fectly appreciate all. Yet 1 cannot love with a rational,
3

26 FREE LOVE.

truthful love the same moral or religious attrihule,
found in the same quantity, more in one than, in another.
It would be unnatural and fiilse. I have adhesive-
ness, so I love all persons socially — all, male and
female — but here I cannot love all alike, and yet I
must from necessity love all like attributes alike.
Truth requires impartiality. I cannot be exclusive,
since all have like social attributes.

I have araativeness, so I love woman — possibly
I may love her, in this sense, exclusively from man;
she is possessed of something different from man
mentally, spiritually and physically. But I cannot
love any one woman exclusively from any other
woman. I love all women as such — not alike in
mental, spiritual or physical sexuality ; far from it ;
nor can 1 be exclusive and concentrate my affections,
except I do violence, first to my reason, and then to
my affections. My love may vary towards different
women, as they vary in their mental, spiritual,
religious, social and physical womanhood, and as I
have more or less ability to appreciate them, or as
they are more or less in harmony with either or all
these points with my own particular taste ; but I
cannot love one in the many exclusively from her
sisters. My ojpjponents harmonize with me^ in precept
at least, in relation to all these manfestations of love,
except the physical. They will commend this gen-
eral and universal state of the affections, and condemn
partiality and exclusiveness. But when the whole
man develops into harmony with itself, and with
every other man and every other woman — when
the same universal law is allowed to prevail through
all the affections, they are shocked with the impro-
priety ; and yet it is as unnatural to exclusively
concentrate the love of the physical as it is that of

THE ARGUMENT. 27

any other part of the mind. In this our attractions
vary, but I insist, it is a natural impossibility to
make them exclusive. We must first annihilate or
uncreate what God has created. In this sen.se man
is attracted to woman as such, and the same of wo-
man to man. This love for the physical of the
opposite sex, and attraction to it, is alike universal
in its nature with every other love. As all my pre-
vious arguments to sustain the necessary univer-
sality of love, apply equally here, I will not repeat
them. There are laws to govern mind, as absolute
as those to govern matter. The forest tree can be
bent by some material cause ; so can the affections,
by a power of mind or will ; but the crooked tree,
or the contracted and warped affections, are excep-
tional and less harmonious. I find no marriage in
nature, as the law of marriage has ever been taught
us. I do find the marriage of man to woman. " They
twain make one flesh,*' says Nature, in all her
teaching on this subject. The Good Book, in its
higher meaning, responds to Nature's lessons. JSTo
truth can be more clearly taught. Without this
oneness, this union, either man or woman is but a
fraction — a most unnatural fraction. This must
always be true — in the next world as well as in this —
unless we are to be partially annihilated to fit us for
an entrance there. This to us is the extreme of
folly. So our reason in this harmonizes with the
Revelations of Swedenborg and the Spirits.

I agree with Mr. Ballou and others, that without
marriage, the material union of the sexes is more or
less adulterous; that conjugal, or, as Swedenborg
would write it, **conjugial love," is essential to the
purity of such relations. I accept of the latter's
description of this love, of its nature, but I deny

FREE LOVE.

that such love is confined to the one — or necessarilj
exclusive. I believe a well developed man may and
should love woman in general, so far as she is the
woman of creation, and upright and lovely, (and he
could not truthfully love the one without this,) more
purely, more justly, more disinterestedly and more
conjugally than the most devoted dual lover often
feels. I accept of the Love Doctrines of marriage
from my inmost soul, having known, and knowing
them, but I deny that they are exclusive.

CHAPTER III.

the argument continued.

Friend Ballou :

I proceed in my reasoning from the nature of
the mind. I may^and am required to love a man
**as myself," with the same kind of love. I may
love another man more or less than myself, in
degree, according to what he is. If he is on tbo
whole not so good a man, I should not love
him as much ; for I am not required to be partial
either way. Nature hioios no false humility or
false modestyy hut only truth. If he is better than
myself, and I have the ability to know and appre-
ciate goodness beyond my absolute goodness, then
I may, and normal and well-developed mind requires
and prompts me to, love and regard him better than
myself. Tliis is possible and natural ; it is truth.
Any state but this is so far falsehood. But if I

THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED. 29

have not the ability to know and measure his good-
ness, beyond my own goodness, then 1 can not love
him better than myself. My standard of love, in
either or any case, is never absolute truth for ano-
ther, but simply obeying the command of nature
to me. Another should vary in accordance with his
ability, God does not require any two men to love
Him alike in degree. Each is to love with his whole
heart, and mind, etc. That is, up to this capacity.
The same law prevails as to my love for woman;
and more. I should not only love her as myself, but
differently y perhaps exclusively from myself ; and if
I may not, as a general rule, love her better pr more
than myself, I have a greater ability to be useful to
her than to myself, and in this I promote my own
greatest felicity. I may love some one man more
than any other man, but I should not, I can not love
him exclusively from every other man : so of woman. I
may love some one man religiously or socially more
than any other man in the same sense : so of woman.
It is naturally possible, (but perhaps never a truth
as a fact in Providence,) for me to love some one
man more, mentally, religiously and socially, than
any other man, hut never to love any of these parts
exclusively from the same parts in other men : so
of woman. We some times, as a fact, love some one
woman mentally or socially, or amatively, more than
any other woman in the same sense ; and were it
ever a fact, as it can be conceived naturally possible
to be, for us to love one woman in all these parti-
culars more than any other, it would be unnatural
and impossible to love such a person exclusively
from her sisters, — from others of her sex. We can
not do it in either or all of these phases of love.
Then where in nature is exclusive marriage ? No-
3*

10 FREE LOVE.

where ! I think I am understood here, and invite
the closest scrutiny. All of these loves for man or
woman, and in man and woman, may be in a very
perverted and impure state ; or they may all be the
most pure and chaste. My religious love may be
religious selfishness and sectarianism. My sexual
love may be the greater love for sexual self, or what
is the same thing, lust. My affinities, from the
highest to the lowest, may be all adultery in some
of its definitions, But the form or order of their
manifestations does not necessarily indicate their
purity or impurity. Normal love is pure and chaste
in its origin, in its living action, and as much so in
all its ultimates. And the ultimates of love should
correctl}^ represent their cause. If love cannot be
exclusive in the mind, it should not be held to be in
its manifestations — in its consummations. The out-
going or ultimates of love should image forth its
interior life. The reader will observe that in these
letters, thus far, I have aimed to prove —

1 . IMiat our lore for others cannot he exclusive on
any one point towards any one person.

2. I draw the inference, as a self-evident propo-
sition, and as one which I believe is universally
admitted, — that the manifestation of love should be
a true image of itself. This will be the case, when
nature is left entirely and absolutely free.

Does the fact of experience ^ or the consciousness
of the mind sustain our position ? Many desire to
receive this exclusive love, and the lowest of the
race, who regard love in any proper way, are the
most tenacious in this desire. Such persons are
nearly equally jealous of all the love of a mate —
religious and mental as well as sexual. But these
persons are not as ready to return this exclusive

THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED. 81

love. Many of these neither see the necessity nor
feel the propriety of confining their affections, except
as they find it enjoined and enforced in the law of
marriage, and in the public sentiment which marriage
has created. With these the demand is unjust,
and selfish, and proves them in a state of disease
of the affections ; at least they are unbalanced and
inharmonious. Many others — the number is more
than is generally supposed — ask no exclusive love.
They desire none. These, in the average, have a
more elevated phrenological development than the first
class named. I leave room in this statement for the
many exceptions. Some of these last would suffer as
much with a mate who should be disposed to bestow
all her life on him, as the man of the opposite desire
would with one w^ho withheld it. Let elevated hu-
manity judge which is the more noble and truthful
state of mind. I add, man is conscious of the same
ability to be attracted to the opposite sex in general,
as much in physical amativeness, as in the menUil
and spiritual. He has the power in a great degree
to concentrate all the affections. So he has the
power, in nearly or quite the same degree, to confine
or direct all. If he be well balanced or well disci-
plined, he may suspend, indefinitely, all amative
desire or attraction towards any woman — his own
wife not excepted. This is possible for some minds,
placed in almost any conceivable circumstances, and
without all the safeguards of the Shakers. But all
this is not normal, or natural. It is not truthful or
commendable. I repeat ; in a normal state of the
affections, we are conscious of their universality j and
not of i\i^\x entire exclusivcness in any one particular.
Our ability to control, confine or suspend their
inward or outward action towards the many, or the

32 FREE LOVE.

one, does not stifle, or silence the voice of this
consciousness.

I most respectfully invite the friends of exclusive
marriage, who believe that the mind is God's Book,
and that its healthy attractions are his laws, to
carefully observe the main arguments in the two
preceding letters, and to bear with what may seem
to them, too much repitition. My proposition stands
in the gap between all contending parties. It is the
main hinge on which this great question turns. I
am not touching the doctrine of expediency for dis-
eased man, or giving any counsel concerning him.
The latter is an after and side question. I aim to go
back of all disease, or "misdirection,*' and forward
to the full health of progression and final manhood.
It is not a question of lust, but of Love — of normal
attraction. It is of vast importance, and cannot be
longer evaded. I will not detain the reader, by
going too much into side issues. I must be full here,
even at the expense of some repetition. I must leave
no possible chance for misconception. It will only
protract the discussion, which is sure to come ; and
I have suffered too much from misconception already.

We shall, then, press the inquiry upon the mind of
the candid reader. Is love on any one point abso-
lutely exclusive ? Is it so in amativeness ? Is it
more so in amativeness than in adhesiveness ? — or in
any diflferent sense ? If our opponent says yes, and
^he must ; will he give us fiilly and clearly his phil-

THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED. 33

osophy — his mind argument ? We have said no, and
we believe we have demonstrated our reply. We
court honest and manly criticism ; no other. We
aver that we are not seeking personal victory, — but
truth. — We do not know how to argue with any
man to prove that two and two make four ; we place
it before the man. of figures, and we think he cannot
help seeing it. So, we believe, we have placed the
laws of the mind, before the reader's mental vision,
and we think he cannot help seeing them. We think
he cannot help seeing, that minds alike will at-
tract ALIKE ; — and that 50 far as minds are alikcy
they will attract alike. That this must be true of
mind as mind, and so true of all its parts. (We have
not argued in the preceding letters, by the analogy,
that because one faculty of the brain was non-exclu.
sive, so another must be. We left that for a cominar
letter.) So, as all minds are more or less alike, —
and as each faculty in one mind is some hke the
same faculty in another mind, there can be no en-
tire exclusiveness: — and as each and every man, and
each and every woman, are more like every other
man and every other woman, than they are unlike
them, a general attraction, union, and love, must
be the rule, in a healthy state of the race. ** Repul-
sion''(or hatred) is a negative; — it represents
less attraction. It is a lesser power in mind — is
the exception, — and follows the same law with love,
as to its non-exclusiA^eness.

34 FREE LOVE.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FOWLERS THE ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY.

Should the Marriage of the sexes be exclusive and
dual?

So far as I know, the Fowlers, of New York, have
done more, for the last fifteen years, to support ex-
clusive and dual marria^ey than any or all writers in
the same time. They profess to find it in the mind,
as they read the science of phrenology. That
science is now popular, and they are among its first
expounders. There is no way that I can better
communicate my own views, so far as I wish todoi^
connected with this science, than by giving their
views, and presenting my own in contrast. Let me
premise. If phrenology teaches exclusive and
dual marriage, it is safe. The friends of Free Love
will find themselves in an unequal warfare. Such
of my readers as are any way solicitous for morals,
and harmonize with the Fowlers, and the present
laws of civilization, may rest in the most perfect
safety. The writer of these letters will surrender
when he finds that the true readings of phrenology
are against him. By this statement he implies no
present doubt on the subject.

The Fowlers divide the human mind into about
forty faculties. They subdivide these into as many
more. "Amativeness,*' or sexual love, they divide
into the "upper and lower,'* or the "spiritual,
mental, and physical.'* They do and do not exclu-
pWely marry the spiritual and mental of amativeness.
Mr. 0. S. Fowler, in his work on "Love and

ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY. 36

Parentage/* very plainly, to my mind, teaches the
entire concentration of all sexual life or love on one,
in perpetuity and without interruption or deviation
through natural life. Again, he and his brother do
not teach this. They do not marry, or exclusively
cofifine the '* spiritual and mental ** of sexual love —
of amativeness. In their delineations of character,
they always speak of love for woman in general,
with a sort of approbation ; and they never pass a
great man, in whom this sentiment is prominent,
without noticing it to his credit. So of all other
Phrenological writers. In this, these men harmonize
exactly with the oge, and with all good writers on man.
They are most " orthodox/' Mr. Wright, in his
late work on Marriage, leaves out so much of sexual
love from the exclusive yoke. He says, ** the at-
traction of men and women to each other, as such,
has its privileges, and its fixed, just laws to govern
it.'' This general regard for woman, as such, is
sexual, and doubtless what Mr. 0. S. Fowler calls the
spiritual and mental of amativeness. This, then, I
think, civilization doQ3 not intend to marry in her
exclusive dual bonds. The feelings of many hus-
bands and wives among us are much disturbed by
this general freedom in a partner, and with such, if
liberty is taken, it causes jealousies and complain-
ings, but public opinion, instead of condemning such
freedom as licentious, where it is not carried too
far, or beyond a common degree of spiritual and
mental amativeness, takes the side of liberty, and
condemns the complaining party. The lattfer are
considered narrow minded and selfish. It^is plain,
then, that the Fowlers, — society in general, — ^and
even the Shakers, allow more or less freedom to a
portion of amativeness, None of these attempt to

3^ FREE LOVE.

entirely confine or suppress the general plane and
actions of its higher manifestations. Even the Head
Shaker must have his spiritual female mate. Now
for the contrast. I do not separate the faculties,
and free a part, and confine a part. I do not separate
the sentiment — amativeness — and free a part and
confine a part. I free the whole. The whole man
and the whole woman. I demand more plain and
philosophical reasons for such an inconsistency. I
deny that there are any rational and substantial rea-
sons for this to govern a normal mind. Society does not
exclusively marry the greater part of its sexual love.
I would not so marry any part of it. Civilization
has advanced one step from certain heathen nations
who consider it a crime for their women to be exposed
to the general gaze, and freed a portion of this part
of the brain. I and my Free Love brethren, would
free the remainder, and we are as sure that we shall
be approved by the future, as we are that civilization
is justified in her advances thus far. I repeat the
contrast in various forms to get the consistency, or
inconsistency, before the mind of the reader. To
me this comparison is the strongest of arguments.
The Fowlers, and our dual marriage friends, do not
marry in their exclusiveness any one of these forty
faculties of the mind. They do marry in this man-
ner, one-third of one of the forty, and no more. All
this general freedom to them is chaste and ]pure. I
do not thus marry that fractional part of one. Rea-
der, mark the contrast,Cnd the astounding oflPense.
We are told that the effect of freedom, in all the
former, is good and elevating, while in the latter it
is most injurious and debasing. What but depravity
ever first taught such distinctions and such philoso-
phy? '* To the pure all things are pure.'* The

ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY. 37

freedom of the entire man is pure and elevating. To
the impure all things are impure and debasing. To
such all freedom is evil so far as they are impure.
A pure and holy emotion is pure and holy, whether
it concentrates on one object, or many. An impure
emotion, or passion, is impure, whether in confine-
ment or freedom. All free ninety -nine ^^arU of the
human hraln, I moke it one hundredj and leave the
man a wiit. I am told that ninety-nine parts of the
affections can choose a variety in purity, and with
propriety, but that the very fact of this hundreth
part so choosing, is proof positive, in the nature of
the case, that it is impure and lustful. I deny this
out and out, in the name of all consistency, and
common sense. I admit that those who are attracted
by lust to the one, may be the more so to the many
-—but those who have attained to connubial love to
the one, may attain to and possess it to more.
There is nothing in the nature of this, more than in
all other loves, which is exclusive. But Mr. Fowler
supposes he has found this very marriage in the
brain. He calls it "love of one only." ''Duality
in Marriage." I positively deny that there is any
such faculty in the human brain. There may be a
sentiment in the lower part of the brain, designed
to concentrate and intensify all the lower sentiments,
but not one anything like his readings, or deserving
the name which he gives it ; nothing can be more
unnatural and unphilosophical. Mr. Fowler locates
this supposed sentiment by the side of amativeness,
and appoints it to hold an entire and exclusive con-
trol over the lower part, or ** physical," of amative-
ness, and no more. He never gives it any other
office. He could not do this consistently without
changing its name, and all his past remarks upon it.
4

38 FREE LOVE.

Even in the strongest concentrated loves between
persons of the same sex — ^as between David and
Jonathan, ** whose love passed thao of woman*' —
or between two females, he never refers to this sen-
timent, but places such concentrated loves, if their
love is so strong that its rupture ends in death to
one of the parties, under the head of adhesiveness.
The bare statement of this sufficiently shows its
absurdity. Never was science more plainly brought
down to meet the prejudices of a still undeveloped
age. If adhesiveness can be so concentrated without
the aid of a particular sentiment for that end, ama-
tiveness can be more so, as there is one more faculty
in its formation and concentration.

Mr. Fowler never makes any allusion to his ex-
clusive marrying sentiments, except connected with
amativeness — then it must be sexual, and a part of
amativeness. This he does not intend to teach.

Again, my objection to this exclusive mar-
riage doctrine, whether it be found in Mr.
Fowler's readings of Phrenology, or in the moral
teachings of the Practical Christian, is, that it gives
a lower law — the lowest of this lower law, admit-
ting the existence of such a law — absolute and entire
control over a higher law. All will tell us, Mr. F.
and the P. C. not excepted, that the higher senti-
ments of the brain should be uppermost, control the
entire man, and that all lower sentiments should
harmonize with the higher. This doctrine makes
the lower, on this point, govern, and requires the
higher to harmonize with it. Here is one of our
main objections to it. If there is an exclusive
tendency (I do not admit it) in the lower senti-
ments, the higher all prompt to universality — and the
more, as they are more fully developed. I admit, there

ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY. 3t

is strictly no lower law, when every lower sentiment
of the brain really harmonizes with the higher.
They are sanctified by them, and are most exalted.
But this is just in proportion as they are submissive
to, and governed by, the higher. When they assume
to reign over the higher, they become debased. We
and our opponents agree in one thmg — that man in
the past, either from his fall or "misdirection," or
from his yet youthful and undeveloped state — has
been governed by his lower sentiments and propen-
sities ; and we are agreed in general, that this should
not, and will not, always be so. Exclusive dual
marriage is a great improvement, from the entire
absence of all real marriage. So it is, on the whole,
from a state of polygamy. So is American slavery
a better state of society, than a worse, which has
existed in the past, when there was no motive — not
even a selfish one, as in slavery — for the stronger
to protect the weaker ; and so stronger tribes and
nations, would destroy and completely exterminate
other weaker tribes and nations. But none of these
states of society are in harmony with man's higher
sentiments. We may leave all unwept for a better
—not for a worse. To go below exclusive marriage
is worse ; to go above such marriage is better. So
it is better to emancipate the slave, where the peo-
ple will not fall back to a worse state of society.
The Jews had a sort of slavery, — but I think their
extermination of the Canaanites was worse. So we
in a little more slow, and possibly on the whole, in
a more mild way, exterminate the Indians, or
original Americans. I expect to see the race rise
above both Slavery and Marriao-e as it now exists.

Reader, you now have my argument from analogy.

40 FREE LOVE.

I argue, that as every other faculty of the brain —
and two-thirds of the one under discussion, — is non-
exclusive ; the presumpsion is that the other third is
non-exclusive also. And I confess I cannot see it
possible for any mind to reply directly to this by
sound argument, and without sophistry or evasive-
ness. I believe any mind might as well deny and
attempt to disprove a truth in mathematics. Under
the circumstances, it justly rests upon the friends of
exclusive marriage, to prove their exception, or give
it up — we demand this of them. Age will not
longer protect any Institution.

Again, — should or should not the higher senti-
ments control the whole man, in each and every act,
in harmony with their non-exclusive laws ? — Are
not the physical rights of amativeness, as well as
the social, mental, and spiritual, of real utility? Are
not the former a real good — a valuable power ? And
so should not this be as such, at the command of
our higher manhood — Justice and Benevolence ?
My questions are fully and plainly put, with the
desire that the enlightened reader may understand
their import. No real or imaginary fears of evil,
which it may be tliought will follow these principles,
will be a fair reply to them. The slave-holder is
full of these, and of such arguments, in defense of
his social system. Will the friends of exclusive
marriage, ape the former in his fears, and in his
replies ? So far many of them have done this — and

AN EPXLANATION. 41

ONLY this. In this, we hope for a reform among
reformers. We hope for something better ; for a
more fair, condid, direct and rational reply — or none.

CHAPTER V.

MR. BALLOU AN EXPLANATION — PART OF HIS REPLY

IN MY REJOINDER.

In my discussion with Mr. Ballon, 1 was to write
a series of letters in defense of Free Love. Mr. Bal-
lou was to reply, — I to rejoin, — and he was to follow
and close. I wrote five letters, (the last two on the
Bible — not here inserted). Mr. B. replied, as was
expected. I rejoined at some length in four letters.
Mr. B. replied to my first rejoinder, and then in a
closing letter.

I have no thought of giving any thing like a full
view of that discussion, on either side. But as I
wish to review Mr. Ballou, as well as some others,
I will simply insert that part of my rejoinder which
contains the substance of his main argument on the
mind, against my letters on the mind. I will then
look into Mr. B.'s Book — " Christian Socialism,'' —
and see what we can find there directly related to
our proposition.

In justice to Mr. Ballou, I would remark — He
4*

42 FREE LOVE.

professed to understand me, in my first two letters,
to reason from "analogy,'' and replied accord-
ingly, to destroy that analogy. I did intend to
reason from analogy in my third, so I accepted his
imderstanding* of me, — ^adopted the analogy, and
replied to it as mine. I shall insert but a portion
of my second and third letters in rejoinder.

Mr. Ballou's argument against mine, begins,
*• Sexual love, as involving sexual coition, is radically
an instinctive animal appetite. Man has it in com-*
mon with the whole animal kingdom. — It is not of
the nature of Benevolence, or Friendship, or any
other truly spiritual love. As an animal propensity,
it craves mainly its own gratification, just like the
propensity for food, sleep, etc. It does not go abroad
seeking opportunities to confer blessings on friend
or foe. This propensity, then, is primarily and
essentially animal. It has its use and place. With-
in its own proper limits it may be gratified innocent-
ly. Allowed to break bounds, it becomes criminal
and pestilent. This is the truth of the case. Is it
so with the spiritual loves ? with love to God, to
virtue, and our neighbor ? Not at all. Away, then,
with all false analogies ; arguments founded on such
analogies are utterly flillacious and worthless."

We agree with Mr. Ballou that when this propen-
sity '-'breaks bounds,'' it is very evil — but not more
so than higher propensities and sentiments. But let
us keep to the point. What are its hoimds? We
have proved them non-exclusive, and we are now to
answer Mr. Ballou's arofuments ao-ainst us. What
are these arguments? This coitionary propensity,
he tells us, is ''radically an animal appetite," the

AN EXPLANATION. 43

same as in all animals, or " in common with other
animals." As such it " craves mainly its own
gratification/' like the desire for food, etc. It does
not go abroad seeking to perform deeds of charity
and kindness. Still it may be allowed a narrow
sphere of action ** innocently,'* and safely, — not so
with the higher sentiments. The reader can judge
whether I have done him justice in this abridgment.
I may mistake his meaning. I hope, for the honor
of humanity, that I do mistake it. For if this, as I
read it, is considered "innocent" in dual marriage,
we have fairly come to the main stone which too
often paves the hell of misdirected minds in our
exclusive marriages. Is it considered innocent
for married pairs to acton this matter, '^ mainly^*
from the cravings of, and to satisfy, mere animal and
fleshly gratification ? This may be proper for a
beast, for aught I know, but is it for a man ? Reader,
I may not understand Mr. Ballou ; but if he does
not mean just this — what can be the force of this
argument? He certainly seems to excommunicate
this part of the brain from the rest in a most won-
derful manner. He "puts it away" "with a ven-
geance." If I understand him, I should call such
a state of the sexual aflfections, lust — not love.
What is man ? Are not the higher sentiments so to
control the whole, as to humanize them, and raise
all parts practically above the beast? Is not the
man to sanctify the animal, in every fibre of his na-
ture, and in every act of that nature ? So we read
humanity — so we read the man. Nothing short of
this is man. Is any part of the man to be set apart
from — so put away from, — the real man, or whole
man, and placed under laws inharmonious with his
leading manhood ? So long as this is done, this

.44 FREE LOVE.

part will remain an enemy to, and often successfully
reio'n over the best interests of that hio:her man-
hood. There is one partially redeeming suggestion
in Mr. Baliou's argument. He compares the desire
for coition with the desire for food, sleep, etc. Its
comparison with that for food is in part truthful, and
with that for sleep is, at least, very innocent. But
let us attend to the consistency or inconsistency
with himself and the good Book which he rever-
ences, in this comparison, while he so degrades it.
The Book enjoins upon man — not the beast — " to eat
and drink to God's glory. *' •" Whether therefore ye
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory
of God.** This command is to the man, to control
all his propensities and their uses, in harmony with
Charity and the Higher Law. But where is Mr.
Baliou's consistency with himself? If Mr. B. will
admit the same non -exclusive action, as being the
law of the mind, and so proper in this propensity
that he allows in alimentiveness and every other
lower propensity, I will at once lay down my pen ;
or seek an opponent. That moment we are one.
Mr. Ballou knows this.

If he will allow Benevolence and Justice to con-
trol, and call to their aid the eMire use of this
faculty, as he does allow them to control, and so call
to their aid every other faculty of the man, every
other sentiment and propensity of the man, I can
write no more, we are one. This would be an entire
surrender to the whole meaning of all my previous
arguments. I would rejoice over his conversion.
But no ; he does not mean this. Then what does
he mean ? What ! Let him throw no random shot,s
at this with a mere fowling piece ; but make himself
consistent with himself, and it possible with any

AN EXPLANATION. 46

rational and pliilosophical interpretation of the
mind.

But coitronary desire, when it "breaks bounds/*
is " criminal and pestilent, which is not the case
with the spiritual loves." So argues our friend, and
seems virtually to chailange a reply. It shall be
coming. It is more true of the spiritual love. There
' is no faculty or part of a faculty in God's creation of
jmind, that works evil in a strictly healthy stale,
and within its own proper bounds. Sexual love
does not, in or out of legal marriage. In an un-
healthy state, and out of these bounds, all sentiments,
and all propensities work more or less evil — and are
more or less ** criminal and pestilent.'' The higher
sentiments have power in man to be more so than the
lower. So says nature. So says experience. So
says the Good Book. My friend asks, "Is it so with
the spiritual?" Most certainly. Nothing can be
more true. All the human blood shed upon heathen
altars, to appease the wrath of imaginary gods, has
been controlled by these faculties in both a diseased
state, and widely out of their true bounds. All
religious wars have been largely supplied from this
spiritual fountain of man's mind. This has been the
foundation of the Inquisition and all kindred institu-
tions. The Catholics believed it to be their business
to defend religion in this way. In this the religious
faculties were shockingly diseased, and were quite
out of their proper bounds, even if they had been
in health. So in all Protestant persecutions. All
of these were often as truly acting from the spiritual
or religious faculties of the mind, ia their professed
zeal for morals and religion, as is the lustful husband
acting from amativeness, when gratifying himself
at the expense of another, under tho cloak of connu-

46 FREE LOVE.

bial love. These spiritual whoredoms, we say, are
as truly the fruits of diseased spiritualism, as are
the oft repeated sexual rapes, in or out of dual mar-
riage, the results of diseased amativeness. These
religious men believed they were acting from love
to virtue and the neighbor, and they were doing so
in about the same sense, and in no other, that these
sexual "criminal and pestilent" acts are from real
connubial love. I am understood an t challenge a
reply. Because one sentiment of the mind is differ-
ent in its nature from, and perhaps vastly higher
than another, it does not follow that such sentiments
are not alike non-exclusive. I have ** shown that
coitionary sexual love '' is equally non-exclusive in
its nature, as " piety, benevolence and friendship,"
and that all of these loves are pure and chaste in a
healthy and normal state, and that in an abnormal
and perverted state, all are " criminal and pestilent."
Who will assume to pronounce God's works in na-
ture, or the fruits of his cleansing grace, " common
and unclean ? "

Mr. Ballou " contends that all coitionary sexual,
love, out of true dual wedlock, is, per se, adulterous."
I believe he has not argued directly to prove this
proposition. He has argued against analogies which
he supposed were designed to disprove it. We
should like to read an argument upon the nature of
the mind — for the mind is God's Book — directly/ to
prove that all such acts were adultery. That an act
that would be pure and chaste in dual order, and
which act, out of that order, would be impure and
unchaste. Can he not make plain the nature of the
change which such act would undergo in this
change of circumstances ? Will Mr. Ballou give us
a specimen of his mental logic, in an argument to

AN EXPLANATION. 47

prove tliat all deviation from the dual order is, per se,
adulterous? We wait for it.

If a man varies from one, or dual marriage, while
his one mate lives to her exclusive pledge, bis act is,
per se, adulterous. But if she commit adultery, then
he may get a divorce from her and seek another.
jHe may now innocently embrace another in purity.
|If this one proves untrue, *' he may proceed as before
j — all in chastity" — and so on indefinitely. He
jreally enjoys a variety through the infidelity of his
irepeated selections. But his motives are good, and
Iso his act, in its change, is not adultery, per se.
I This is civilization, and the extreme doctrine of dual
imarriage. Mr. Greeley, and perhaps Mr. Ballou,
! would bolt from this to them apparent looseness in
morals, were it not for their great reverence for the
Christ. In civilization, death — and many of these
jare the slow murders of lust — has and does often
jfree men to a great amount of variety in amativeness ;
jbut this, too, is not, per se, adultery. Though it be
I the tenth wife, it is dual wedlock still. But if a man
j but thrice in a lifetime idtimate his love, and does
I this in harmony with the Higher Law of Free Love,
jhe is, per se, an adulterer. This is a monster of
I inconsistency. And we have a right to look for its
i retraction, or its overwhelming proof, if such a
thing were possible. In such a case the proof
should come from a source which cannot mislead or
be misunderstood, to command respect. If Mr.
Ballou does not admit that the motive sanctifies the
act in this succession of wives, by what law does
he justify these as pure, and condemn a less variety
under the head of Free Love ? We press this call.
He has multiplied his statements that the coitionary
act is only lawful and pure in dual marriage, but he

48 FREE LOVE.

has not attempted to give any proof of tliis except by
separating amativeness from the man, and degrading
it to the animal. This manner of handling it, if it
were proper, proves nothing as to the order of its
manifestations, as to duality or promiscuity.

In the following we come more fully to Mr. Ballou's
reply to ours, No. two. " Mr. Kent continues to con-
found things and terms which ought to be discrimina-
ted, as radically dissimilar. I cannot consent to it. He
makes no distinction between veneration and benev-
olence. He talks of loving a person's mentality,
spirituality, and morality just as if tiiis were loving
the individual being.'* Really, reader, Mr. Ballou
is too profound for me here. I did suppose that
loving all the parts or attributes of a being was loving
the individual being. But let us attend to him.
" But, admiring, venerating and delighting in these
is wholly different from loving the individual being,
in the sense of the second commandment." The
idea is good and truthful after all. It amounts to
this, Benevolence or Charity not like any other
faculty in the human brain, as to the object or motive
of its desire or love ; and that the second command
refers directly to this as being the highest moral
sentiment of the man. All good and truthful. We
have not hinted one word to the contrary. There
are no two sentiments of the brain that are alike iu
this sense. They are every one unlike another.

Again. — "Other loves [than benevolence] are
more or less limited and exclusive" — he names
*' Alimentiveness, Acquisitiveness," etc., etc. I
deny the truth of this, in the sense in which I have
argued for the non-exclusiveness of amativeness.
In that sense they are non-exclusive. Benevolence
is the feeling of mercy and goodness towards every

AN EXPLANATION. 49

>bject which is capable of receiving such goodness,
and being benefited by it. It is exclusive to such
:objects or to such being, So alimentiveness gives
a taste for suitable food, no more. In a healthy state
(suitable food is the object it desires and takes pleasure
lin. It may vary its amount of delight in these
jvarious articles ; but it can never delight in the
rtaste of one article, in exclusion from, or more or less
■than in another article, which is exactly like the fii-st ;
nor can the eater be benefited by the one and
injured by the other. This is impossible. The
rSame course of reasoning holds good towards every
jlother faculty. So I forbear. I pronounce his
[statement untrue, if he means it in the sense in
jwhich I have argued the opposite iu all my letters.

We come now to the argument in Mr. Bailouts
reply to our letter on the Fowlers. He states that
[** Amativeness in man has two radical character-
listic manifestations, — a sensual and a spiritual."
I That the *' sensual manifestation is rightful and
jinnocent only in true dual marriage;'' *'but that its
imental and spiritual manifestation, besides having
one sacred connubial center, has various legitimate
concentric spheres.'* To prove the above proposi-
tion, viz : That sensual Amativeness is not " co-
extensive with its spiritual," and that the former
manifestation can be '* rightful and innocent only in
dual marriage,'' he proceeds, as in a former letter,
to divorce a fractional part of amativeness, and to
put it on the plane with the animal. I give his
words : ** Amativeness, as to its lower develop-
ments and sensual manifestations, is properly an
animal propensity. Man has it in common with all
the lower animals. Amativeness, in its highest
5

SQi FREE LOVE.

developments and manifestations, is proper to man
as a spiritual and moral intelligence. The animals
are incapable of spiritual amativeness. The more
animal-humans are capable of it only in a low
degree, and many have scarcely a conception of it,
much less a decent appreciation. It is plain, then,
that sensual amativeness exists and ultimates itself
without spiritual amativeness, as in beasts and very
sensual humans.'* Really, if these statements are
true, some persons, who are in the form of men. are
not, correctly speaking, men. Either they were
never finished, or they have become so diseased
that their manhood is dead and gone. Nothing but
the beast-man remains to animate the material form.
The breath of God, which was to stamp his image,
is gone. But what has this essence of lust to do
with the doctrines of Free Love ? Must we come
to this for our analogies and arguments ? Shall in-
humans and beasts be summoned upon the stand to
settle the higher law of progressed and healthy
humanity ? We are convinced that Mr. Ballou is
serious in this kind of analogy, and we submit to
follow. Such reasoning as this has been so far his
first and main argument. We have replied to it
part, when found in a former letter. We will e
deavor to do it justice here. First, then, we consent,
for the sake of the argument, to the putting awa}'' of
sensual amativeness. (To do which we believe to
be a natural impossibility ; and if it were possible, in
man, it would be ' adultery, per se/) What does Mr.
Ballou gain in this argument ? He separates the
lower of amativeness from, the higher, and puts it
under laws inharmonious with the higher, because
the former is animal. If this were proper, it might
in part destroy my argument from analogy, but it

I

AN EXPLANATION. 51

ould prove nothing against my doctrine, and
iiothing in favor of his. Let us see where his
malogy, in comparing man on this point with the
)east, will carry him. However distasteful this may
)e to us, or to the more refined feelings of the
*eader, it seems to be necessary, and so we hope it
nay prove profitable. We consent then, Mr. BaUou,
;o go with you into the field of animal life. We are
i^ound to look into the nature and order of the love
relations of animal ; to look into the laws of their
,toarriage. We find here, if we take the whole
1 ["ange, that variety is the rule of love, and at the
; baost a partial duality is the exception. God has so
, jbreated, and we will not arraign his wisdom. Rea-
, ler, we are now in the presence of beasts and birds,
—•life that walks, and life that flies. There is no
iidultery here. If any man think evil, the evil is in
himself. These, God's creatures, are right. We find
imativeness an upper and leading faculty, all right
'or beasts. So its action is right for beasts. Not
50 in man. In him it is behind and below in
pie brain, and so should not lead and control.
Then is the analogy we are pursuing truth-
■ul ? We think not. But we are pledged to
bllow it to the bottom of our friend's argument. We
3ress the inquiry, then, upon our friend. Are the
ove ultimations of animals generally exclusive and
lual ? We expect a catagorical reply and its proo'*.
3ur opponent, we hope, will be consistent with his
mimal analogies. Again, are these ultimations of
ove or passion less elevated and less proper, when
hej are in the order of variety, and so in harmony
mth what seems to be the rule of their natures,
ihan when they manifest themselves in a partially,
md perhaps sometimes entirely in an exclusively

62 FREE LOVE.

dual order, and so in harmony with what seems t
be at least the law of exception, even among animals
Our friend has insisted on taking us to the animal t
settle the laws for man — and we now wish to hay
full justice done to his arguments, so we urge thesj
questions upon him. If we draw any inference
from the animal analogy, it is that man will com pre
hend all orders, or every variety of order, unless h
has outgrown the exceptional law of animals. ^
a fact, man in his nature does comprehend the entii
natures of all below him. So says science. Hi
analogy, carried out, if it were truthful, would favc
our views vastly more than his. But we have n(
felt the need of such aid. It is the love relations q
man which we wish to elevate and harmonize, an
we think this should be settled solely by the laws o
man's mind. Any truthful appeal to the analogy
the law of animal creation, can never favor exclusiv
dual marriage, but its opposite. We pledge ou
selves to sustain this proposition when it is furthe
called for. I return now to say to the reader, th^
this whole argument of two radical and diveri^
manifestations of amativeness in man, is unphilc
sophical and absurd. If such a separation wei;
possible, it would leave the man in a perverted an*
abnormal state. But it is not true that any ma
ever ultimates love entirely disconnected with ii
spiritual element. I will demonstrate this statemeni
If God had made this possible — the race in h<
propagations might so retrograde as to become beasts,
or something like them, and so on still lower. In
this case there would be an absolute law of
retrogression, instead of a law of progression in
man. The offspring of such coition could not be*
human ; as like will beget its like. Does the reader

tsTi

AX EXPLANATION. 53

ask for more ? We are most glad to know, for the
hopes of humanity, that such a separation of a
faculty, or of the faculties, is impossible, and so the
idea is most absurd. We proceed in our quotations :
'' Sexual coition is the natural, universal, uniform
and inevitable ultimate of sensul amativeness."
**But how is it with spiritual amativeness ? It may
descend into, blend with, and santify sensual Ama-
tiveness as in the case of the true dual marriage.
But sexual coition is not its own proper and inevi-
table ultimate." We wait almost impatiently for
proof that this spiritual love may not sanctify the
non-exclusive manifestations of this sexual love. In
every reply Mr. Ballou assumes the only point to be
proved on his part. We tell the reader that this
higher lore will more fully sanctify the lower, when
the lower acts behind and in harmony with the laws
of the higher, and we argue directly to prove it.
We let the lower strengthen the higher, and receive
its blessing by its absolute submission to the laws
of the higher, and not the higher come down to
bless the flesh, by submissionn and conformity to the
lower law, or to the supposed lower law. We now
come to deny our brother's main proposition in the
quotation. We contend that coition is a natural
ultimate of spiritual love. That the leading attribute
of conjugal love, in a healthy state, is spiritual ;
that it is non-exclusive, and that it is naturally
coitionary in its ultimates. Sensual love is some-
times and in some cases partially satisfied by various
little love manifestations short of coition. It often
is comparatively so, without any material manifesta-
tions. It is in youth. So spiritual love is often
comparatively satisfied without the act of coition.
But no sexual love in any of its phases can be full
6*

64 FREE LOVE.

and complete without its coitionary ultimate. Witb
out this it never attains to its hight, perfection ani
entireness. Mr. Ballou represents the spiritual at
descending to bless and sanctify the sensual in duall
marriage. Will he deny that the spiritual love is atl
home in, and is a leading attribute in the conjugal ?l
Will he deny that spiritual love is its very essencol
and inner hfe ? His language plainly conveys thisl
idea ; that it is not. This is a vital point. We j
hope our friend and the reader will bear with the!
closeness with which we pursue this subject, if \t\
does occupy some space. We have meant to so J
write our proposition for this discussion that we and
our opponent should be obliged to grapple with the
very heart of the whole controversy, with the age,
and with reformers, touching this subject of sub-
jects— marriage. We must not pass it superficially.
We certainly understand our opponent to deny the
vital and essential relations of spiritual amative-
ness, in constituting the leading substance of coition-
ary and so connubial love. I think he does not
harmonize on this with the Fowlers ; with Sweden-
borg he does not, and many others of his dual order,
but much nearer with the Shakers. I^o matter.
What is truth ? With us, connubiality is not
synonymous with sensuality. We promise thfe
reader that when we are converted to this doctrine,
we shall join the Shakers, at once, on this subject.
But in the name of humanity, we protest against the
whole of it. Coition, for its most material object —
the procreation of offspring — should be, in its
leading substance and features, spiritual. As man
is a unit, and as he is more spiritual than animal or
sensual, so in his act to beget his like, it should be
more spiritual than sensual. I speak of the true

AN EXPLANATION. 66

man, and I still insist on the analogy, that the lower
man should keep behind, and harmonize with, the
higher. If Mr. Ballou still insists that my human
analogy is false ; can he not give us a better substi-
tute in disproving it than his analogy of man and
animals in common ? We have read his replies with
our utmost care, and read them asrain and ap-ain,
and we affirm that there is not one word of direct
argument to prove the impropriety of a variety in
connubial love. He repeats the statements of his
belief that coitionary love should only be in true dual
marriage ; and tries to destroy my analogy by intro-
ducing another. But were I to admit the force of
his animal analogy, and every word of real argu-
ment in his letters, even then he has not taken the
first step to prove his proposition, and his exclusively
dual order. Where is the proof of his *' adultery,
]per se,''' in a variety in love ultimates? Not a line
can I find. In behalf of the friends of Free Love,
whose doctrine and practice he has formerly declared
to be the foulest of the foul, and adultery by itself,
I ask him to prove his position in season for a reply
before this discussion closes. In view of his past
relations to this subject, and of his present position,
as an opponent of Frfee Love, it is not enough that
he satisfy himself in simply replying to my argu-
ments. The discussion was proposed as a mutual
ajQfair, between friends, to promote the cause of truth,
each of us believing, as I trust, that truth would be
elicited by it, whether our opinions were all saved
or not. By proof I mean more especially direct
argument from the laws of mind, not mere inferences
from history. I have not ti'oubled the reader with
the foul history of dual marriage, as a presumptive
argument for the trial of Free Love.

56 FREE LOVE.

Because all of the higher and spiritual faculties
are more or less non-exclusive, and in that sense
universal in their nature, it does not follow as a
practical fact that they should ultimate themselves
to the same extent. This is naturally impossible. I
love all the human brotherhood, non-exclusively, as
I have used this latter word in this discussion, yet I
pass multitudes with a bare recognition. I carry out
no particular acts of kindness, or *' special and kind
attentions.'* It is not necessary or called for. So
a man may love woman as such, with a true
universal, or non-exclusive connubial love, and
it be impossible and undesirable to so universally
consummate this love ; while absolute exclusiveness
would be unnatural in either case — in any of the
loves. There are mental laws and circumstances
which should harmoniously settle each man*s ac-
tual and more intimate associates, in his acts of
social enjoyment, or acts of charitable utility. And
yet he is not absolutely exclusive in any or all of
these faculties. The well-developed mind is never
universal or absolutely exclusive as to his associates
in relation to the human brotherhood — or in any of
the social or love relation. These remarks have had
reference to some part of Mr. Bailouts reply, which
I thought it not necessary to quote.

By the better laws of civihzation, with woman in
general, I may bow the knee before God in social
prayer in freedom ; I may enjoy mental repasts with
her in freedom. Benevolence may give to her the
fruits of acquisitiveness in freedom; charity and
justice may call to their aid all the power and utility
in destructiveness and combativeness for the protec-
tion and defense of all women in freedom ; I may
gratuitously supply the wants of inhabit! veness and

AN EPXLANATION. 67

alimentiveness in her in freedom ; I may give tlie ad-
hesive kiss to all in freedom ; I may supply any child
from my paternal fount in freedom : I may supply
my own paternal desire by the caressing or adoption
of any child in freedom. What may we not do and
enjoy innocently in freedom, by the laws of the
Fowlers, Mr. Ballou and civilization? Every thing
except a fractional part of a sentiment called ama-
tiveness, all else is non-exclusive, or absolutely free
in a healthy state, or under the control of the higher
man. For every other freedom is allowed to be
health, and health is allowed to be freedom. For
every other absolute exclusiveness is considered a
disease. For this fraction of the brain, anything but
entire exclusiveness is disease, per se. This fraction
is cut off from its other and higher half, and held in
bonds as a criminal. *'It has been a criminal.**
Well, why not put the whole man in bonds ? Every
faculty, and every part of a faculty, has been wo-
fully criminal. Why not rush back to slavery and
the dark ages for our laws of safety ? ** All men,
except those who govern the rest, are, per se, dan-
gerous in freedom !'* It requires strong proof to
sustain such monstrous inconsistency. The past, with
her pall of blackness still hanging over her, cannot
prove it. The future will laugh at it with pity and
astonishment.

58 TREK LOVB.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. BALLOU CONTINUED. HIS BOOK.

Mr. Ballou asks, in our discussion, what " need "
there is of Free Love, — ^and what " good *' will come
of it ? Even admitting my mind argument, of the
non-exclusive nature of the connubial attraction,
he virtually asks what utility will come of such free^
dom. Others, who read us, will ask the same question.
'We reply — the normal action of every faculty and
-every law of mind, is always of utility. A similar
-"need*' exits, and a similar "good*' will follow the
.freeing of this, which results from the free action
■ of every other faculty. Such freedom is always
. strengthenings refining ^ and elevating. It is so, and
-will be so on this, in its temperate, healthy, and free
•action. The diseased action of any faculty may
bring untold evil. One man, or one woman, may
ilive alone — a hermit. So one man and one wo-
man may live in entire isolation from all other
society ; but such dual hermitage is not natural. It
more or less starves all the human faculties. That
state of mind which, from choice, selects such a
situation, is sickly and contracted. No man and
woman can progress, and elevate themselves, as
easily, and as fully, in such disconnection from all
i others. A varietv in the action of every feature of

MR. BALLOU. 69

connubial love, is refining and elevating. Love
always elevates and refines. Of course, a variety in
this should be governed by the most exalted wis-
dom. So should the action, and the variety in
adhesiveness. When, and so far as, the latter is not,
it dissipates and debases. Each faculty has its
proper laws, and its ^'natural restraints y'^ but not to
absolute exclusiveness. Some minds, in a healthy
state, require more society than others. I will be
understood, if I have to write " line upon line —
precept upon precept." We insist that, as our
philosophy deals alike with every faculty, and is in
harmony with itself, while that of our opponents
does not — and is not, — it is for those who make the
exceptloriy to prove their exception. And we urge —
we entreat the friends of exclusive marriage, to
deal less with uncertain consequences^ and more
with God's eternal laws of order," as read in the
philosophy of mind. We here say — once, and we
hope, for all, — we do not consider mere inferences
from history, especially any history which we can
obtain, as direct argument, or as sufficient to meet
and refute the settled or sure princples of mind.

One more allusion to the discussion, and we pass
to Mr. Bailouts book. We record a noticable coin-
cidence. While Mr. B. was laboring to destroy our
analogy between the human faculties, by comparing
the act of coition in man " with animals in com-
mon,*' his friend Hewitt was arguing in his (Mr.

60 FREE LOVE.

Hewitt's) paper, in opposition to certain supposed or
real Free Love defenders, — that because animals
were promiscuous, it was no evidence that man
should be. Not one word does Mr. H. write directly
to prove his own dual order. (On what grounds
shall this always be taken for granted ?) A Lady
steps in here, and intimates, if man was like the
animals, there would be no good objection to a
"variety.'' Our unknown fair one, (she does not
favor us with her name) writes, — "Remove the
restraints of reason and conscience imposed by love,
and there is no reason why animal passion should
not claim a variety." To us this is an entire nega-
tion of Mr. Ballou's analogy, — and yet he becomes her
very ready endorser. (See P. Christian, Dec. 30,
1854.) So does Mr. Wright. Where shall we find
our opponents in relation to this animal argument?
We hope their whereabouts will be better settled on
so important a point, before we have occasion to
print another edition of our book. It will so much
shorten our labor. We did not allude to the animal^
except in reply to Mr. Ballou. We did not consider
it necessary in a discussion about man. Still it was
not improper. We ask our opponents then what
position the animal is to hold in the future of this
controversy. We choose at present io follow. It is
not fair that the same opponent should hang on to
these opposite horns at the same time, or change as
seeming necessity requires.

MR. BALLOU. ^I

Reader, in making the use wliich I have of tlie
discussion, — I have taken the utmost care not to do
Mr. Ballou any injustice, and if, in any thing, or in
any statement, he thinks I am incoorrect, I ask
him to point it out to me, and I will explain or I'c-
tract, as the truth may require. Though "\ve are
wide apart as professed reformers, I am still his
personal friend, and I suppose him to be a friend to
me. We both deal sharply with what we conceive
to be the errors and faults of our friends. Mr.
Ballou had felt it to be his duty, as a leader and re-
former, (I consider him a law reformer), to arraign
and condemn all Free Love doctrines and practices.
This became more frequent and severe, in his paper.
I could and did sympathise with him in part, in re-
lation to some of the evils connected with Free Love,
as with dual marriage, in the present undeveloped
and perverted state of the race. But he made no
exception. He seemed to feel himJelf called in
conscience to do what he could to exterminate it, as
a whole, and in all of its parts. I visited him. We
spent hours in friendly, but in private discussion.
I asked hini, if ever he gave the subject a full and
fair hearing in his paper, as he had before this
given ever}^ other question of great interest, — to
discuss it with me. When he thought the time had
come, and was at leasure to do so, he accepted my
friendly challenge, and the discussion followed.

I fully admit there are many evils now connected
6

a FREE LOVE.

with Free Love. Injustice is sometimes done under
its cloak. But I believe its friends will *• learn wis-
dom by the things which they suffer," and rise to a
greater and better harmony. I know some have so
riseii. So far, the various efforts at community
have caused great suffering and loss of property.
Perhaps some half a million has been expended, and
some over twenty societies failed, during the last
twenty years. And yet we think the effort has been
worth all it has cost. Free Love has not done as bad,
or been more a failure. Community and Free Love,
are both aUve and in good health in some places.
The real good in both will be saved, and rise. The
chaff should be blown away by the winnowing of
Providence. So let it be. We were some disap-
pointed in Mr. Ballou on the subject of our discus-
sion, after all, but it was not his fault. He had
always been a frank and open spoken man on all
subjects which he met.

But to his book. We did not allude to Mr. Ballou,
when speaking in our prefece of refiyrm writers on
marriage. We considered him, on this subject, and
many others, more nearly allied to the past. In most
of his writings he stereotypes to the teachings of
an age, almost two thousand years ago, and seldom
to the higher law and more spiritual truths of that.
Still farther back, he ** builds tabernacles to Moses
and Ellas,'* as well as to *' Christ." This he does
to the law phase of Christ's teachings. For Christ

MR. BALLOU. 6$

"was made unaer the law/* and spoke under it, and
in parables. He wore the ** veil/* as did Moses, to still
hide from the many the higher glories of the com-
ing gospel. He still preached law to the " lawless
and disobedient.** (I presume Mr. Ballou will con-
sider the above as a compliment to him. And it
real y stand so in the eyes of the majority.) But
we shall proceed to our views of his case, and his
course. He talks much in his book of going
back to "fundamental principles.** The real import
of this, to us, is simply his opinion as to the main
truths of the Bible. To me, he seems wholly in-
capable of going below and above all opinions, to
the absolute laws of mind ; incapable of going back
of all revealed religion, to the Author of it ; of sim-
ply reading nature in nature's book. He has been
called **' the logician.** He is comparativly logical
in discussing theology, so called, but never upon
the deep principles of philosophy. He is superficial,
and never at home, in the latter. On turning to the
pages of his book (see 361) on which he records
his objections to Free Love, I was disappointed. I
had forgotten that, after so fully denouncing our
views, he did not even write the first sentence of
argument to disprove them from the laws of mind.
If such is there, we have failed to see it. Such as
it is, I will give it a passing notice. And yet, I
should not, in my present book, if it had emanated
from an author of less note.

64 FREE LOVE.

Mr. Ballou, 1, Gives his objections to Polygamy,
in which we are happy to agree with him.

** 2, Promiscuity of intimate sexual communion is
revolting and degrading to pure minded loves. It
is unnatural. It comes from perverted amativeness,
despotism, artificial education, sophistication, or
arbitrary custom.*' * * * By *' promiscuity,**
Mr. B. means the least deviation from entire exclu-
siveness. More of the .same sort follows our quota-
tion. We simply reply to it all, there is not absolutely
and necessarily one word of truth in it. Lust is
** revolting** always **toa pure minded Lover; — **
Love never. We give assertion for assertion.

" 3, Sexual promiscuity inevitably tends to moral
and social disorder. It sophisticates, perverts and
demoralizes its practitioners. It stimulates and con-
firms the lust of variety.** * * * *

We are not required to do more than to pro-
nounce all this false. Mr. Ballou always and every-
where takes the whole point of difference between
him and the friends of Free Love for granted.
Namely : That the attraction for a variety is lust :
** The lust of variety.'* Before this, he has taken
his position, and pronounced every such act of
variety "adultry, per se.'' Here, in the presence
of his book, I again challenge him or his friends, to
show the first line of his, of direct argument of any
kind, to prove his position ; or to show one sentence
where it is not taken for granted. He begs the

MR. BALLOU. ^

entire question. In view of his position in the age
as a professed reformer, and of his long and repeated
denunciation of our principles on this subject, we
have a right to ask and expect more.

He has written what he, and perhaps some of his
friends, may consider argument. In justice to him,
the reader should know that he has abundantly ap-
pealed to the feelings and instincts of men. To
what we shall call, to a greater or less extent, un^
developed, sicMy, and perverted mind. He becomes
sponsor for this, and pronounces it pure. **The
natural instincts of true love are against it,'* — against
non-exclusiveness, or our freedom. He asserts that
this "instinct is not selfish, but implanted by God
to ensure moral and social order." We tell him
that a morbid sickly state of mind knows no abso-
lute "purity,** or an entirely normal development of
"love.** We admit that the undeveloped "instincts"
of a misguided amativeness, are sometimes against
our views. We find men on this, as he finds them
on war, and resistance of evil ; and he echoes back
to us on this all of their old arguments to him, in
defence of war, or an injurious resistance. They
tell him, the " instincts *' of man are against him, —
or are in favor of resisting to the death, when neces-
sary, an intruding enemy. That this instinct
of self-preservation, is "unselfish, and from God,"
and shows his will as to the true manner of keeping
order." This injurious resistance is more often re-
6*

I'

Q^ FREE LOVE.

sorted to in defence of Mr. B.'s exclusive " instinct'
in marriage, than any where else. We congratula
him in this case — the marriage question — on find-
ing himself with the majority, and entirely on the
2'>opular side.

But to his book — " amativeness, like all the pas-
sional appetites, has no inherent self-government."
True. * * * ''safety lies in subordinating am-
ativeness strictly to reason and the moral senti-
ments." True, it always is in a strictly healthy
mind ; — in a perfect development of connubial love.
Look at Mr. B.*s consistency ! He truthfully com-
pares amativeness to all the other "passional
appetites." His "reason and moral sentiments,"
put every other "passion and appetite " w^zcfer non-
exclusive laws ; — and he would consider the man as
void of both " reason and moral sentiments," who
should think of doing otherwise. Then he places
amativeness, or a part of it, under entire exclusive
law. Reader, look at the depth and logic in this 1
It is " simply contemptible." An appeal to sickly
instinct is not sufficient to justify so irrational a
position. Eeason and a healthy instinct repudiates it
all.

Mr. Ballon goes on at some length, to give his
views of the terrible consequences, which, he thinks
must follow the spread of Free Love. As to this,
we know more about it than our friend. He ex-
communicates his sexual slaves, who rebel under

MR. BALLOU. OT

the marriage yoke.''* We have long since freed
ours from that yoke. We know something of the
society of our modern anti-exclusive Jamaica's. *ff
Again — " 4, Sexual promiscuity must degrade and
oppress woman.'' Reader, in the book, there is
nearly two pages, following the above proposition,
of his sort of argument. Having settled it in his
own mind that all deviation from dual order is the
promptings of lust, he goes on to describe and dis-
cuss the sure consequences of an entire reign of
lust. Admitting his premises, his conclusions are
safe. If any reader has his book, he can turn to it.
(It is aside from the first intention of our book to
give all of these secondary, but still important
questions, a full place. Others have written upon
them better than we could do, and we must refer
the reader to them. We do not desire to supercede
any other publication which has gone before us.
We refer the reader to a Tract, containing a dis-
cussion between "Stephen P. Andrews, Henry
James, and Horace Greeley," and published by Mr.
Andrews ; and to letters since published in the
Tribune, and Mr. Andrew's reply in Nichols' Jour-
nal. Nowhere else can both sides be found better
handled. I ought to add — Mr. Nichols' book on
Marriage, replies at some length to such conserva-
tive objections as we find in Mr. Ballou's book. I

* I simply refer to an act of his society in dismissing a
member.

IP FREE LOVE.

iwoula meet them with pleasure, in any paper open
<to me. But I am set against making my present
work too long. I confess it to be a book of " one
idea.*' But it is a central, a pivotal, idea — and
the one on which the main hinge of civilization
hangs.

Mr. Ballon does not diiSfer as much from us as at
first sight it would appear, in view of our contra-
dictions of him. He, in every line, is in truth,
writinof of diseased amativeness : — of what Mr.
Davis calls "Extremeism.'' He does not seem to
me to have the most distant conception of what I
call entire health. He always, or nearly always^
degrades amativeness. We confess, in the past, it
has degraded itself. Still we write of a healthy
mind : — of a healthy attraction. We write of love,
not lust. Love is healthy, and is under the control
of the wisdom of reason, and the moral sentiments ;
and not under " carnality." The reign of sexual
selfishness, we do not call a healthy connubial love.
We deprecate the morbid and irregular action of any
faculty. Such fruits are often terrible. Too ter-
rible for human pen to describe. Mr. Ballou and
ourselves agree that as a matter of fact, amativeness,
as well as all other sentiments, have been, and still
are, more or less diseased. He leaves no room, ex*
cept through law, — the law of exclusive marriage —
for its coming health. If it were here our first
object to discuss the way of salvation for so sickly a

MR. BALLOU. 9i

race, we, most certainly, should propose to mix a
little gospel freedom with our remedies. He insists
that any deviation from absolute exclusiveness will
increase the malady. And, like the Physician, who
should advise to the gratification of the craving of
a dispeptic stomach for its cure, he insists upon
compliance with what to us are the immoral
cravings of a worse than dispeptic " instinct,"
as a means to its desired health. Perhaps even
lie does not mean all this. He may have little
hope of a coming cure ; and so labors more to
stay its further encroachments. In one point of
view he is consistent with himself. Though a non-
resistant, he believes in confining criminals, — ^dan-
gerous criminals. He finds amativeness to be such
a criminal. So it is at least wise to confine it to the
exclusive marriage yoke. I must confess to no little
sympathy with him in this, when, and so far as it is
thus ungovernable and dangerously criminal. I am
not disposed to quarrel with the past for her sexual
discipline. Not in the main, with the shakers. It
is even possible, that Jesus was right in favoring, —
in speaking favorably of a man's making himself a
literal " Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake,"
or the sake of purity, peace, and happiness. This,
was truly an unnatural remedy, to meet a very bad
and perhaps really an unnatural disease ; — and pos-
sibly better than the entire reign of lust. Perhaps
better than to commit, and be hung for rape. This

70 FREE LOVE.

was literally removing, an ''offending" member.
I say then, in view of the terrible diseases of the
past, I will not judge the sufferer too harshly, for
her equally terrible remedies, though they may seem
to me unnatural and unphilosophical. They could
not do as we can do. I will respect Jesus in living
a practical life, like the sect of Esses of his day, —
and not marrying in any form ; — if, on the whole, he
considered it wise and best so to do. His life
lacked a wholeness andentirenessin development and
experience. But perhaps it was the best he could
then do. So we judge not the past. My great
objection to Mr. Ballou is, that he does not leave
room in his marriage teachings for man's progres-
sion and "restoration ;*' for all which is really his
present and coming health. Even if the exclusive
dual instinct in the marriages of civilization has,
on the whole, been the best for the plane of civiliza-
tion— of this we are not sure, and so do not judge,
that instinct is not adapted to, or suitable for the har-
mony of the future. It will fall before it. So, if Mr.
Ballou still feels it to be his duty to represent the
** Moses '* of this age, and make laws, and write for
the confinement of the "animal*' — man, I would
fain persuade him to leave room in his faith, and in
his propositions, for me and my friends, to write in
defence of freedom for the God-man. God bless the
Moses of each a^e. But a double blessinor will ever
attend the Christ — and the Christs of each as-o.

MR. BALLOF. ff

Ishmael should not war against Isaac, — nor should
Isaac be unjust to Ishmael ; — even though the one
does represent bondage, and the other freedom.

In short, Mr. B., on the subject of exclusive
marriage, writes as we might suppose any good con-
servative mind would have done, during the past
few hundred years. I suppose he, as well as we,
consider it safe to follow "fundamental principles,"
or the " eternal laws of order," over all consequences.
We wish to call him back to the original — so far as
man is concerned — source of, and to the search for,
these laws. We say, then, if he will once more
take his pen, and attempt either or all of the fol-
lowing things : — 1st, To reply to my mind argu-
ment— of the non-exclusive nature of the attraction
of each and every part of the human brain, (as I
have made my meaning understood on that propo-
sition) ; or 2nd, If he should admit my first propo-
sition, show the higher or lower law in mind, which
should confine any part of it over its normal attrac-
tion ; or 3d, Give the mind law which proves his
position — that all variety is, '^per se, more or less
adulterous.'* I say, if Mr. B. will do either, or all
of the above, I will meet him to reply, or to sur-
render. Till then, I respectfully take leave of him.
It is high time the friends of exclusive marriage
were put directly upon the defence of their own
system. Though their possession has been long,
it has never been entirely "peaceable," but under

72 FREE LOVE.

repeated protests. In every past age, it has been
more or less " in law." As a friend of Free Love,
we summon our opponents before the higher court of
mental philosophy.

The reader will bear with a little illustration of the
general tone and style of the conservative mind in
civilization towards the rising Free Love. It comes
in my '^Liberator,'* and is so short, and so much to
the point, I cannot resist the temptation to copy it.

" LIBERTY A UNIVERSAL CURSE."

Hear the language of the Richmond Enquirer : —
" Crime, f^imine, ignorance, anarchy, infidelity, and
revolution, stare the reader in the face on every page
of universal liberty. A single season of want in Ire-
land and Scotland will exhibit more human suffering
than a Mrs. Stowe could glean from the annals of
slavery through all time and through all countries.
The South owes it to herself to throw free society on
the defensive. Slave society is co-extensive with man
in time and space. It must be natural, or man must
be an unnatural being. It is recognized and author-
ized by the Bible, and was ordained of God. Free
society is a little experiment, a departure from nature,
that claims no Divine authority, and very little of
human authority.

** We put the question to all abolitionists : What
have been the results of this little experiment ? It
is you who should defend yourselves — not us.
Human experience, and practice, and divine author-
ity are on our side. You must make out a strong
case, in order to justify the injustice of such author-
ities. Instead of southern men beinof called out to

MR. BALLOU. 73

lecture in defence of slavery, northern men should
be invoked to defend their institutions."

Re.'illy, the application is so plain, that it hardly
needs any aid from us. The reader can only sub-
stitute/r^<? love in the place of "universal liberty;**
civilization for "south;'* love for "society;** the
marriage institution for " slave society ;*' free loveites
for "abolitionists,** etc. Please read our extract
again with the above substitutions, and we promise
\t will make a perfect fit for nearly every con-
servative writer against Free Love.

But we are among the impertinent and meddle-
some "abolitionists'* free loveites ; and deny all
exclusive titles to sex. We have returned, in our
book, the demand upon civilization, and called upon
her to defend herself against the coming light and
rights of Free Love. Her age is admitted, but her
character for peace and purity has not been the best,
and she must and will make room for a larger " ex-
periment** in sexual freedom.
7

74 FREE LOVE.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. HKNRY C. WRIGHT A REVIEW* " WHAT IS

MARRIAGE?"

I SHALL quote very little of Mr. Wright's reply to
the above question. It is not necessary. I repeat,
my book is not designed to be a substitute for any
which has preceded it. I take it for granted that
my readers have read these several books. Those
who have not, will not, of course, find my reference
to them of as much interest. Still, they will not
be lost to such. I cannot too strongly urge my
readers to read these books on Marriage, if they
have not. None can afford to do without them.
There is too much real value in them ; and of that
sort which is generally most needed. Mr. Wright's
book was written to elevate love and marriage, and
«o to elevate the offspring of marriage. It was
written for, and suited to, diseased and undevel-
oped humanity ; and nothing is more needed.
Comparatively, it was nobly executed. Mr. Wright
does seem to reach, to some extent, the true
features of connubial love. He reaches what I will
call the first germ, or the childhood of marriage.
This is much in advance of the large class for whom
he wrote ; and perhaps all they could bear. With

* See part II. Letter 2, of his book.

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. TS

nearly every feature of his love -marriage, except its
exclusiveness, I can harmoinze. But in most every
line, he seems to suppose this exclusive feature to
be inseparable from the very nature of such love.
He does not see that his real connubial love can be
enlarged till it bursts its exclusive shell, and so be
enhanced, purified and ennobled. He says, virtually,
"Here unto have we come,'* and then like all con-
servatives in the past, he adds his " no farther shalt
thou go.** Yet we have no doubt his book will do
more to spread the principles of free love, than any
other book written, except that of Dr. Nichols and
wife. Perhaps we ought also to except Mr. Davis,
though the latter is alike exclusive in his nominal
marriage. The reader will understand, that these
men are not responsible for this opinion of ours.
They, Mr. Wright and Mr. Davis, have certainly
done what they could to confine marriage to pairs.
But they elevate love and free it from law. Their
exceptional doctrines will prove weak. We know
something of the eflfect of such free and elevating
truths as those books contain.

But, "What is marriage ? " Mr. Wright's " defi-
nition of wife,*' is, "the incarnation of God to her
husband. The great Invisible and Intangible made
visible and tangible in the deepest and most intense
and potent living relation. I speak calmly, knowing
the full import of the words I use. No phrase so

76 FREE LOVE.

fully expresses what thou art to me as this : Th©
incarnation of God."

The reader should know that Mr. Wright con-
veys his sentiments in a series of letters, representing
a male and a female — a man and his wife — com*
municatinof each to the other his and her views and
feelings as to the marriage relation.

The language of the above quotation is very
strong, but I have no controversy with what I
believe to be its meaning.

" Worship is a necessity of my being. I must
worship sometlvng; so must every man and every
woman. My soul cannot stoop to worship times
and places, stations and titles. I see no God in
them. They are all the works of men's hands. But
I worship thee, without one shrinking doubt as to
my right to do so, or as to whether God will accept
this devotion to the embodiment of my highest con-
ception of his attributes, as being paid to him.**

All this is very strong ; but I only object to it
from its exclusive concentration of worship upon
one. Let such a soul enlarge till it knows and
enjoys a more expansive w^orship. I should not
have supposed so large a soul as Mr. Wright's could
have penned so narrow and confined a sphere of
worship. However, it is only carrying the worship
which nearly all christians have concentrated upon
the head of Jesus, into exclusive and dual marriagfe,

" In thee, God is manifest in the flesh.'* Brother

i

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 77

Wright, we worship many Christs and many wo-
men ; — ^all Saviours and all women ; and we do not
dispute that all real women are Saviours, and are
Gods ** manifest in the flesh/' So are real men.
Then do not confine an enlarged soul — one that has
outgrown the shackels of sectarianism and exclu-
fiiveness, to worship one individual object, and upon
one individual altar, to the exclusion of all others.
But we are thankful for even this progress from the
past. Man, in a low and undeveloped state, has al-
ways held low views of woman, and of the objects
of her creation, as made for the gr^ification of his
lower nature. The change is refreshing. Man has
held woman below himself. Even the wise Paul —
wise for his day, — tells us ** the woman was made
for the man, not the man for the woman.'* Nothing
can be more false to nature than the last clause,
which we have emphasized. We almost wonder
that such a mind could not sooner break from such
debasing traditions. But such views are passing
away. Woman is becoming man's equal — verily
his object of worship. If the conservative reader is
offended with my friend and myself on this, can he
not pardon something for the ultra effects of reac-
tion. The man has always been worshiped more
or less by the woman, and he has loved to have
it so. I differ from Mr. Wright in that. I would
not worship one woman in exclusion from all others.
And I confess to finding it agreeable to receive
7*

78 ? FREK LOVB.

worship from more than one. Nor do I desire
to receive this worship from even the one, in ex-
clusion from all other men. The expansion of
heart and mind, which would lead the woman of
my preference to love and worship other men,
equally deserving with myself, with the same kind
of love and worship, only endears her to me. I'or
they, too, are a part of me, they are my brethren,
and " all flesh is one flesh.'' My benevolence and
adhesiveness are the greater, and the higher, and so
control and baptise in their fount my entire con-
nubial love. I do not allow even here the higher
sentiments to be absorbed in, and controlled by, the
lowest of the lower. Mr. Wright, deepen and en-
large the spirit of your theology in human brother-
hood. To me, this exclusive spirit and worship is
insipid and childish. In connubial manhood, truth,
even in a mate, is both desirable and lovely ; and
truth is just. Justice can never be absolutely ex-
clusive.

More from Mr. Wright- ** A masculine soul

and a feminine soul in marriage, are absorbed each
into the other. The essence of each enters into the
other ; permeates, fills and thrills it, leaving to nei-
ther a separate existence. Thought responds to
thought, will to will, heart to heart. * * * *
The entrance of two souls, each into the other, thus
making of two one perfect being — this is marriage,
as my heart defines it. * * * * I cannot feel

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 7^

that I have an existence apart from thee. Without
thee I can do nothing. I am nothing. In thee I
lire, move, and have my being. To dwell in thee in
to dwell in love, in God. I have no hopes, no long-
ings, no aspirations, no life, apart from thee.*'

Really, a woman is the whole saviour of mr
friend's theology for a man — and a man is the
whole saviour for a woman. More : — She is thi*
whole of society, to her husband, which he can
possibly desire or receive. Each is entirely *' ab-
sorbed '* by the other. But we think we under-
stand Mr. Wright, through these long expression*
of love, and we do not like to clip his wings of
connubial affection. We are entirely in love with
the real substance of the union here described. We
only wish to enlarge it. We would not care if —
oh how glorious it would be — if, in the progress of
the race, the time should come, when all men feel to
all women, and all women feel to all men, like this.
This would be heaven, verily. Methinks I should
like to live in such a day. No, I am not yet pure
and expanded in soul enough for that. But, surely,
love would then " work no evil to his neighbor,'' or
to his neighbor's wife. I promised not to quot«?
much from this chapter, as it was not directly con-
nected with our difference. But its real meaning
was too rich. I could not pass it. Yet I tell th«
reader the book is full of more like it, and as good.
I rejoice to know that when men attain to such

CO FREE LOVE

views as this book contains, they will not stop here.
When man has really advanced to such love as this
for the one, he will go on till he reaches it to the
many ; and the harmony and consequent happiness
will be just so much greater. Then, "every old man
I meet will be my father, — every old woman, my
mother ; every young man I meet will be my bro-
ther, and every young woman will be my sister — if
need be, my wife. All children will love me, and I
will love and embrace them. They will be mine."
How glorious that day ! A day so long prayed for
by all the pious of earth. In this heaven, there
will be no exclusive marriage, or giving in mar-
riiige. But we shall all be as the real and higher
angels. We say, let that day come ! let it come !
though it should over turn and over turn, — purify
and sanctify, — sift and burn, in a preceding judg-
ment, and bury in one common grave of the past,
all sectarinism and all exclusive marriage, and land
our race in one ocean of love and union ! Let all
jealously and hate go to its own place ! All this
will do no harm, but untold good. We confess to
some little dread — (for others, not for ourselves,
we think we have Hved passed it) — of the coming
storm on this subject, when, and as we know our
prayers, and the prayer of Mr. Wright, for the
spirit of his prayer is like ours, it will be answered.
We do not dread, but glory in the moral calm which
will succeed it. Then will the *• will of God be

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. t%

done upon earth, as it is done in heaven/* We shall
be as the angels. We have no doubt but exclusive
marriage prevails to some extent, in the lower
spheres. But we do not call these angels of heaven.
" The husband is the ideal actualized. No other
man is like him, or ever can be. He is stronger,
nobler, truer, more tender, more perfectly adapted to
the wife's delicate intuitions than any or all other
men.'* ** Nobler, truer.'* Should marriage make a
fool of a woman ? Shall she believe what may be
a falsehood ? This is contending for perpetuity of
a disease, which is now altogether too prevalent.
But if every word of Mr. Wright's statement was
true, it does not prove his entire exclusive feature in
marriage. There is no evidence of the absolute
trutli of most of it. This entire monopoly of sex-
ual love over all other loves, is untruthful and
sickly. Mr. Wright, in his book, truthfully defines
connubial love to be sexual love, and yet he every
where seems to give this lower faculty power to
monopolize and control all above it. He exalts it
at the expense of all above it. In a truthful bar-
mony, it should be below other loves, and never act
at the expense of any. Instead of harmonizing this
with other loves in the bi^ain, each in their true or-
der, he attempts, virtually, in all his writings on the
subject, to concentrate all other loves in this. To us
this is abnormal, and we never call such a state of
mind healthy, or the true connubial love. It is but

82 PRKK LOVE.

fractionally so. Mr. Wright, in this way, lowers
manhood and womanhood. Still, as he marries th«
faculties of the mind, though it bo unnatural mar-
riage, placing the lower above the higher, it is much
better, and in advance of the past.

We nearly harmonize with Mr. Wright in th«
** perpetuity of love,*' except that we go further,
and would not, in any way, hint that it was possible
for death to make any change with it. Perhaps we
do not differ much with him in his exception, — that
an unequal development after marriage might end,
at least, in a (partial) divorce. We believe this
often comes, in marriage entered into on some of the
lower planes. Mr. Davis believes in nature's divorce,
as well as in nature's marriage. Mr. Wright rep»
resents the husband as saying to his mate, " Thou
eans't not continue to love me if I become unlov-
able." This is good philosophy. No more can a
normal mind help loving all which is to it lovable.

We come now to the direct issue between us and
Mr. Wright. In the question which he puts : —

**IS EXCLUSIVENKSS A FIXED LaW OF MaRRIAGE ? "

We have said no — Mr. W. says yes. ( See Letter
lY. page 125.)

"VARIETY IN LOVE, OR POLIGAMY,"

**ISrina,'* (the name of Mr. W.'s ideal lady re*
spondent,) "it is settled between us that our onenese

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 69

will be eternal, if our present desires and vrants are
truly answered ; also, that the perpetuity of our
oneness depends on our knowledge of and fidelity
to the natural laws by which marriage is desio-ned to
be regulated. The question arises — " Is exclusive-
ness a fixed law of mind ? I ask not should either
marry after the death of the other.'' This loosnesa
in relation to a surviving partner, after the death of
his or her mate, is entirely inconsistent with his
whole defence of exclusive marriage. By his phil-
osophy, any such marriage could be nothing but
adultery. It is not necessarily a crime to die before
one's mate — and so love, which we both contend is
naturally eternal, cannot be sundered by death.
But to numberless inconsistencies is every man
driven, who engages in the defence of error.

*^But can woman be the wife of more than one
man ? and can the relation of husband be truly sus-
tained to more than one woman, at the same time ?
To this my heart and my head give a negative an-
svrer. Keason and affection assure me that polygamy
is unnatural, and therefore wrong."

We shall make no entire defence of polygamy.
On the whole, it is more unnatural than exclusive
dual marriage. It is all one sided and unjust. Ex-
clusive dual marriage aims to monopolize the entire
heart of one. Polygamy does the same by more than
one — perhaps many. Of course I cannot approve
of the exclusive and monopolizing phase of it.

84 FREE LOVB

When there are more females than males, so fur ae
provision for these is concerned, it is better than
our present civilization. But mixing up polygamy
with "a variety in love," as Mr. W. has done, is very
illogical and improper. It does not belong with the
latter. We believe Mr. Wright knows this, but w«
leave it with the reader to judge of the motives
which prompted to this course.

*'What says the heart? Is there a husband
whose love is concentrated on one woman as a wife,
who can willingly allow another man to be to his
wife w^hat he is ? He loves her — her alone — above
all others, and he earnestly desires that she should
return his aflPection.'*

Really, if he concentrates his love on her alone, at
her call, it is but just that she should do the same
by him. If he simply loves her above all others, it
is just that she should do the same by him. We
gay, let the friends of exclusive marriage be just,
w^iile they choose, and are in that order. When
they can endure it no longer, let them relax their
demand first. **Be just if the heavens fall," and
then they will not fall.

** The very fact that another can claim her interest
or win her affections, enough to make marriage
attractive, strikes a death-blow to a true lover's
peace. It is equally true of w^oman. Hence the
origin of that expression of feeling commonly called
jealousy."

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 86

Mr. W. here seems again to mix up polygamy
with the doctrine of a "variety/' We have (lis*
missed his polygamy.

If Mr. W. means, in the above, to teach, that the
exclusive feeling is hurt by a lack of exclusive feel-
ing in a mate, we admit it. But we still deny that
such an exclusive feeling is *'true love'* in its
fulness. It is fractional and abnormal; and its
action causes the "jealousies'* to which Mr. VV. is
disposed to be merciful. He should be. But a
normal action of Free Love never produces these
jealousies in normal and healthy minds. The
reader will permit me here to record a somewhat
singular, and yet not very uncommon anomaly. Mr,
Wriofht has lono* been accustomed to find himself in
a very lean minority on nearly every subject which
he introduces. I speak it to his credit. He has
seldom found men's feelings and instincts with his
own, and with what he considered to be the truth.
This has been true in his position on war and its
opposite — non-resistance, slavery, woman's rights,
and woman's sphere, sectarianism, etc. Here, on
exclusive marriage, in which the race are as corrupt
as on any other subject, his first and last, and his
only arguments are no arguments, but appeals to
the feelings and instincts, and even 'jealousies' of
men in general. Such appeals are not better here
than elsewhere. We should go back of "misdi-
rected" feeling to the laws of mind, to right up an
8

86 FREE LOVE.

already careening ship. Is this all that Mr. W. can
produce in defense of his dual marriages ? Is it
his best kind of proof? We were not required to
do more than by our counter testimony pronounce
it untrue, and pass it. We have and mean to follow
him, and reply to such as we find. On every other
subject, he pronounces men selfish and perverted.
Here he is disposed to tread with care over the com-
plainings of an unnatural demand, or to allow and
defend its morbid claim.

"Ifwe are true to ourselves and to each other,
neither can outgrow the other. I can never seek an
enlargement of soul that cannot be shared by thee.
The fixed object of our lives must be to perfect the
harmony between us.'*

All good, except a little savoring of law. But
this is good instruction for those for whom he wrote.
The well developed and healthy will do right spon-
taneously, from the right in them. With these, love
and harmony will always take care of themselves.
True love will live by its own inherent nature.

" In every step of my course, the wife of my soul
must stand by my side. I can desire no honor, no
station, no heaven apart from thee. If thou art
delayed I must be delayed with thee. We are one
in love, in will, in purpose, in destiny. Be it ours to
eternize this oneness. We will stand, go back, or
forvard, together.*'

Mr. Wright, probably, does not mean to " stand "

MR. IIENRT C. WRIGHT. 0f*

from progression, or to go back into evils. What a
glorious time it will be when the race — every man
and every woman — shall be deluged in such a spirit
of love and oneness, each to the other, and all to
all ; when every man shall love his neighbor as
himself, and his neighbor's wife as his own wife.

** With this fulness of satisfaction in thee, how
can I desire another as a wife ? There is no room
for another in my nature ; it finds in thee all I can
receive from any woman in marriage, and it repels
the thought of any other in this relation. The ex-
istence of the desire for a second person in the
marriage union, while the first one lives, proves that
the first relation has ceased, if it ever existed. It
seems to me that marriage-love is, in its very
essence, exclusive."

"While the first one lives.'* This looseness is
unpardonable. It destroys all force in much of his
previous argument. He has said that ** true love "
was in its nature "eternal," as well as monogamic ;
that death would not weaken it. He and we believe
that none of us will ever die in any sense which
affects love. Then why does he repeat such lan-
fiTia^e as the above. If Mr. W. has his true mate,
and by some accident he falls first, will he feel it
any more right for her to be joined to " another as
a husband ? " Will it appear any more " pure and
chaste" to him ? It is impossible for her to love
the last, or cease to love Mr. W. He is no less

88 FREE LOVE.

"loveable,** and has committed no offense. Mr.
Wright, give up the defense of exclusive monogamio
relation, or come up to the courage to be more
consistent, and manfully stand your ground.

When I adopt Mr. Wright's views, I tell the
reader, I will carry them out consistently. I will
never wink at adulteries with a second mate, after
the departure of the true and eternal mate.

I think Mr. Wright must have intended the first
part of our last quotation as an argument. The last
sentence but one is a mere statement of his opinion.
His closing inference has no relation to the argument.
His implied argument is a "fullness of satisfaction"
in the one ; **no room for another.'* We quote him,
farther :

'* Men and women have a nature that can be shared
by every other man and woman in the ties of friend-
ship, in perfect accordance with the law that binds
men and women together, as such. But in marriage,
this general tendency of each to the opposite sex,
concentrates itself in one, and therefore excludes all
others from the privileges and endearments of mar-
riage. The glory of marriage is its exclusiveness
The soul, conscious of refinement, purity and dig-
nity, will shrink from sharing the relation with moro^
than one.'*

Mr. Wright here frees every part of the mind,
except the connubial — which is a part of the sexual.
And yet, with all the importance which he attaches

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 89

to tliis subject, he is perfectly indefinite. In a
general manner, he states a distinction, but in no
way does he ever define the line of demarkation. No
other faculty should be concentrated. Connubial love
should always be on one, '' therefore it excludes all
others." It is impossible for Mr. Wright to define this
unreal, untrue, and indefinable distinction. But the
argument continues the same, a ** fulness,'* or "no
room'* for more. Eeally, we do not see the special
** glory ** in exclusiveness for such a reason. If this
is not intended to be the argument, then there is
none ; it is all mere testimony — mere opinion. He
always assumes the superior "refinement, purity,
and dignity *' of this exclusiveness. We will accept
of this when he has proved that it is in harmony
with the laws of mind. Its purity will then be
self-evident.

But let us attend to the argument; — "no room
for another.** When any thing is full it can contain
no more. In the same sense in which one object
fills any thing, it cannot hold more. This is not
bad philosophy. We believe in a law of mind, with
more or less power to control the action of mind ;
that is, in a degree of what we shall call " free
agency.*' That a man has some power to "keep *'
or give " the doors of his heart to her that lieth in
his bosom.'* We have said the man could not be in
a normal state, absolutely exclusive in his affections
on any thing ; and that if he could, it would be false.
8*

90 PRBE LOVE.

That if a man was in love with one woman, he would
love another woman who was like her, or so far ae
she was like the first. But we also said, a well
developed mind had more or less power to control
the action of his love or life, in confining, concen-
trating or diflfusing. We know of no man who
carries his belief, in this power, farther than we.
This, the reader must have observed in our main
argument, as we there stated it plainly. Perhaps
Mr. Wright denies the natural power in mind to
control, one way or the other, the concentrations of
love. We some thhik he does. If so, in this he ie
again inconsistent with himself, as he fully teaches
free agency, in its preservation or destruction. In
our last extract from him, and in all of them, h«
represents his male lover as having concentrated th«
entire life, action or flow of his connubial love on
one woman, and of having exclusively monopolized
her entire connubial soul. So he has a *' fulness of
satisfaction in'' her. So there is "no room for
another.** So he is spending all he has. and receiv-
ing all he can contain. Should we admit this stat«
entirely possible — admit the fact and the philosophy
' — there is no shadow of proof here that this is the
most healthy, normal, refined, purified and elevated
state of connubial love.

Mr. Wright's book is a real emanation from his
own soul. We believe him honest in his testimony,
«id do not dispute its correctness, only as we deny

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 91

\he entire distinction which he makes between that
sexual love which he allows between all men and all
women, and that which he confines to the one.
Sexual love is one. It has, like other loves, a variety
of manifestations, but all are governed by the same
law. In its higher manifestations, Mr. W. but par-
tially confines it, but partially concentrates it. In its
lower action, he entirely confines and concentrates it
This, reader, is all there is to his unde finable distinction.
Adhesiveness may be concentrated. It was so
between "David and Jonathan." Their lov«
"passed the love of woman," in general. The wri-
ter has know^n this concentration upon two of his
own sex. An inequality of subsequent development
has given us a natural divorce. We think, in an
improved state of society, there will be more adhe-
sive love, but less exclusive concentration. There
is no mystery about connubial love. It is s'mply
the development of sex to manhood and womanhood
in a true harmony with all of the loves above it. So it
must be of tremendous power, whether in concen-
tration, or a partial diffusion. If adhesiveness
between the same sex can be, sometimes, stronger
than death, what must be the power of love, when
another faculty, another strand of great strength is
added to the cord, as it is between those of opposite
«exes. Added to this, the entire power of the tre-
menduous and despotic institution of civilized mar-
riage, goes to concentrate and dualize the lore between

92 FREE LOVE.

the sexes. In civilization, all are shut up to this
exclusive dualism under pain of entire sexual star-
vation, or loss of caste and character. Law is
perpetually invoked to protect and enforce it. If
any of the fair sex, who are not allowed to institute
means to provide even for their own acknowledged
rights in her exclusive law marriages — and so fail
to obtain them — are at last impelled, from whatever
motives, to seek and partially obtain those rights out
of her order and her law, they are pursued by a
spirit of persecution which has more than the cru-
elties of direct murder in it. It lingeringly torments
without freeing its victim. Though these sometimes
soon find freedom in death. But we tell the friends
of exclusive marriage, the day of her damning in-
justice and cruelty is passing away. Mr. Wright
is not responsible for all this. He is in part,
as the reader will see by our further quota-
tions. He slanderously condemns all love out of
exclusive dual order, but does not hold any to the
forms of outward law. The day is not far distant
when the race will look back upon our law, in the
place of love, to marry and to keep together married
pairs, with as much wonder and contempt, as we
now look upon the past hanging of witches. The
requirement of obedience on the part of the woman
will then appear alike ridiculous and inhuman. They
will exclaim, " What ! keep men and women in love, in
married relations, by law ? *' They will read that this

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 93

was then (now) thought necessary for the protection
and safety of society 1 They will in their imperti-
nence, ask how could society be in fear of love ?
History will explain it all.

Before proceeding to further quotations, the reader
will bear with a further illustration of our last.

A man enters an orchard of delicious fruit. Some
particular tree attracts his attention above all others.
He enters beneath its boughs, and supplies his ali-
mentiveness to a surfeit, and from time to time
continues to do so. He continues to feel a ** ful-
ness," and has "no room*-* for more. He casts a
general and even appreciative look at other trees,
but he desires none of their fruit. In this state, his
stomach "repels'' the thought of eating from them.
Very likely ! But does this prove that he has a taste
— a lore for the fruit of that tree only ? And who
will assert that he acts wiser, and more in harmony
with even his nature, or health of his stomach, than
the man who, though he may have some preference
for some tree or trees of the orchard, more than for
all, still, to some extent, supplies his equally normal
appetite from several ?

"Much is said about a variety in love. It is said
that the passional nature of man needs a fuller satis-
faction than a single object can afford ; that some
men must suffer unless they live with more than
one woman as a wife. But the history of polygamy >
under whatever name, and by whatever and by whom-

"94 FREE LOVB.

•soever sanctioned, demonstrates that it is unnatural,
'isince its consequences are evil, and only evil. It
Tenders men imbecile, in body and soul, and tendi
to a disproportion of the sexes. Woman can never
attain nor keep her true position in a state of polyg-
amy. The only marriage which commends itself to
'the instinct, the reason and the heart is exclusive,
and therefore, this alone will elevate and purify mam
.and woman.'*

It is plain to us that Mr. Wright intends still te
-confound Free Love with Polygamy. This is gross
•glander of the former. Mr. Wright's marriage lies
between Free Love and polygamy. Free Love frees
;all women. Polygamy is exclusive marriage extend-
ed from one to many. We are sure that Mr. Wright
must see this. We write more for the benefit of
woman than for man, as we believe woman suffers
more than man, whether she be bound to the man in
^units, or by tens or by hundreds, as in the case of
'David and Solomon, and others. Polygamy is not
better than dual marriage, but worse, only wher«
there is a redundance of females. So far "its conse-
quences" are not entirely evil.

We have no particular sympathy for the plea for a
"variety," in our last quotation. At the best it is
«n unjust remedy for diseased and undeveloped mind.
"Such is not the argument of Free Love. But as
4}ad as we think this argument, we do not see how
^civilized marriages can, with sober face, oppose it.

MR. HENRY C. WRIGHT. 9f

Let us look at their system as it stands in opposition
to it. It may not be unprofitable. What then is the
fact as to present society ? In the marriage bed,
there are not less than thirty thousand females sa-
crificed annually in the United States, upon the altar
of Inst, or intemperate amativeness. (No enlight-
ened physician will dispute the entire truthfulness
of this statement. If any should, we covet the
privilege of discussing it with him, in any place
which can be opened to us.) Added to the above,
are a large class in our cities who go in the same
way — if possible worse, out of law — in spite of law-
While this is being enacted on one side, on the other
side, there are an equal number of both sexes, dying
annually of sexual starvation, from necessary ama-
tive fasting, and from the " solitary vice " which
eometimes follows such a life of entire and unnatural
abstinence. Many dare not take the step in mar-
•riage, knowing there is no reprieve — no mercy, if
it should prove unfortunate, short of death, or
adultery — so called — and consequent loss of charac-
ter. Such, at least, often delay long, and so there
are many in single fractional life, when they most
need their just rights in love. In this we refer more
to females. Males are vastly more addictc'd lo
"solitary vice." A physician who has just pub-
lished a book on the " Physiology of Marriage,"
testifies that this vice ia on the increase, and that it
Is worse for the race than " fornification."

96 FREE LOVE.

Civilization has never yet dreamed — aloud, at
least — of any thing like a successful remedy for all,
or for any of these evils, and yet she is in convul-
sions of fear, if any man proposes a radical change,
lest she should be plunged into something worse.
Our friend Ballou is always in this state of mind.
So is Mr. Greeley. We do not wonder at this. We
sympathise with them to some extent. We have
not referred to the real character of civilization, to
reproach her, for she is our mother. But we insist,
if she truly sees her disease, and knows of no
available remedy, she should be more lenient with
her children, who may think they have found, and
are determined to apply one. Still her very disease
creates her fear, but we cannot consult it. We have
sounded the thing till we are sure there is no saviour
in civilization for civilization. She has tried law
and bonds. We leave her to try it still. We shall
try gospel and freedom.

We respect the motives of some who oppose Free
Love. Still a very large class of those who make
the greatest opposition act from unworthy motives
— from an unwillingness to give up their household
gods. These prefer the law, as they are afraid to
trust their sexual interests in a state of absolute
freedom of woman. These are ** wiser than the
children of seemingly more li^^ht," and see and
know that the real principles of Free Love will
bring no gratification to their abnormal flesh. Wo-

MR. IIEKRY C. WRIGHT. JT

man will not then be compelled to meet and surfeit
the demand of lust, at the cost of life, as she now is.
We do not intend to fully discuss, or reply to all the
fears of the ill consequences of our views. We think
we say enough to help every enlightened reader out of
his fears. We give him the key. If that does not
suffice, we must again refer him to Messrs. Noys,
Andrews, and Nichols.

Reader, we did not take our pen with a first de-
sire to hasten the downfall of the institution of
exclusive marriage, even in its lowest and law phases,
much less in its highest spiritual developments. We
are not conscious of harboring any ill will towards
it. We have felt the power of its persecuting arm,
but we have long since out-rode its iron sway, and
thoroughly forgiven it. We judge co man for his
connubial order. We encroach upon no man*s mar-
riage rights, nor will we suffer another to judge, or
trespass upon our freedom. To our own master we
stand or fall. We go at our own cost, and we al-
low all others to do the same. We respect every
man in living to his clearest and highest light, be
that light more or less. We feel but little more
than sympathy for the many monsters of amative
perversion among our own sex. Wc wish them no
harm — but much good.

We did take the pen to illustrate and defend the
principles of freedom in love, in and for those who
choose it, and to weaken the despotic power and per-
secuting spirit of the marriage institution.

9Z FREE LOVE.

CAAPTER YIII.

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT CONTINUED.

We return to Mr. Wright's book. " The ideal of
love and marriage, in every young heart, is with one,
never with more than one. Social discord and wron<r
may introduce other notions, but I understand a
deep signification in the old story that for Adam
there was but one Eve created.*'

Whether the statement be true or false, that the
first development of any young mind towards con-
nubial love is to one, is comparatively of no im-
portance. The mind, in developing to any new
thought or feeling towards woman, may generally
be so enlarged, while it is on some person in whom
there is some thing to create, or call forth such
thoughts and feelings. Besides, by precept and ex-
ample, every person from his earliest thoughts of
marriage love, is made to understand that his only
chance of honorable participation, is with one, and
only one. However general his entire love may be,
he knows well, as he develops to the normal desires
and calls of manhood, that he must remain in his
fractional state, or more or less call in his scattering
and free loves, and Concentrate them on one. And
he certainly may as well do this, for if he long de-
lays, all corresponding loves, one after another,
will be leaving him from a like necessity on the part

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT. 99

of others. Exclusive marriage, by her process of
sexual draining, absorbs to itself almost the entire
love atmosphere, and so leaves all who from neces-
sity or otherwise remain out of her bonds, in a state
of double starvation. In this way she has had
power to compel compliance to her rule and order.

In our day, it is wiser for most men and women
to submit, or choose what to them may be the least
of two evils. But who, from all of these causes,
knows the power of mind over mind, in the dual-
izing and concentrations of love or the power of
habit in leading to it ? Mr. Wright would appreciate
the full force of all these influences if brought to
bear on his side of the controversy.

Mr. Wright is the last man whom we should have
supposed would have referred for his support, to
the mythological ** story *' of Adam and Eve. We
are glad of it. A little while ago, it was a first ar-
gument in the minds of nine-tenths of the sticklers
for dual marria^^e. Admitting this "story** taught
just what Mr. W. wishes to draw from it, it is going
back six thousand years for the testimony of men as
to marriage. What would any reformer think of a
man who should go back so far to settle the order
of society in other reepects ? Mr. W. would pro-
nounce such a man beside himself. He knows very
well what he would think, if I were to cite him
back to feudalism, back to savagism, for arguments
to defend any moral question ! Mr. W. so we think

100 FREE LOYE.

of you in this case ! Even this would be less than
halfway back to his supposed dual pair. Truth is
never so straightened for foreign aid.

But admitting every word of Genesis to be a
literal and truthful revelation from God, it does not
help the friends of exclusive marriage. Every ar-
gument which Mr. Wright could bring from it,
would be equally good in favor of an entire dual
hermitage. Adam was as fully shut up by that
dual Providence of his creation, to one woman so-
cially, adhesively, as he was connubially. So of
Eve to Adam. Each were shut up to one person.
How long will real reformers — for in some respects
Mr. W. is one — make it necessary for us to waste
ink, pen, and time, in reply to such shallow and so-
phistical inferences as this ? Can not so a^ed an
institution do better than referr us to its gray hairs
to command our respect ? We tell the reader that
Mr. Wright will never allude, in this manner, to
**Adam and Eve,*' in a public discussion with an
opponent of good common sense. He is too wise
and too shrewd to risk himself in such a position.

* * * "Is the marriage tie capable of exten-
sion ? If a man finds in half a dozen women equally
powerful attractions to marriage ; if each exercises
an equally deep, vitalising, elevating influence on his
life ; if the union with each one would be enough
to bless his life, were all the others exterminated,
then he has a right, if all equally desire it, to be the

f >

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT. 101-

husband of them all! Ba^/ what -does experience
prove in this matter ? The case is not even sappos-
able. It is absurd in the statement."

Mr. Wright here fairly puts the question. **l3
the marriage tie, (connubial love,) capable of exten-
sion V* But his reply to it here is superficial, and
to us it seems evasive. Again, we say, admitting
every word of his answer to his own question, it
does not prove anything in support of his exclusive
marriage. If true, it reveals an undeveloped state of
mind. Let those who covet a state of mind which
would be entirely satisfied with the one, **were all
the others exterminated," pray for it. We respect-
fully dissent from such a sentiment, and from such
an experience. We ask no alliance to one who is
capable of being so filled by and absorbed in us.
We leave with Mr. Wright the entire glory, chas-
tity and purity of such marriages. Our oppo-
nents need never be jealous of us. We have no
attractions towards so confined an atmosphere.

It is not true that a man may not feel an equally
stronff connubial recjard for more than one. It is
not uncommon for some of the most spiritually devel-
oped minds, to find it diflScult to select between two
or more. The idea is entirely possible in nature.
But the mandates of society must be obeyed — the
selection must be made. One may be received ; the
other must be cast oflf. Mr. Wright, to do justice
to his side of the subject, should give his philosoph-
9*

102 FREE LOVE.

ical leasonsfcr confiRii7g amativeness and not ad-
hesiveness, as both may and do generally have their
preferences.

" The sentiment of love finds satisfaction in one
object. The passional element, which borrows the
holy name of love, may crave a wider range. Whea
men say they need a variety, they say, in other
words, that in them, the passion has the ascendency
over the sentiment. The man in whom the need
exists, should not take the high social rank implied
by the desire for true marriage, but descend to that
level in creation wherein criminal passion makes no
distinction in its objects, and finds equal satisfaction
in them all. Men who advocate a "variety," know
that true, pure marriage-love cannot be felt to more
than one ; but they wish to find, in their various
attractions to woman, a sanction for what were other-
wise unqualified brutality.'*

Reader, I almost owe an apology for the above
extract. I thought it expedient. I have extolled
Mr. Wright's book as a whole. In a few words, I
will do justice to this phase of it. On coming to a
close, on this subject, Mr. Wright attempts to fill
up what has been wanting in sound, direct, and per-
tinent argument, by open-mouthed and foul slander
of his opponents. In the unlimited and universal
manner in which he has penned and left the above,
it becomes aggravated falsehood. He, at least, ought
to have ** known " this. If any reader, who knovrs

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT. 103

something of the amount of falsehood in it, can give
him even the apology of ignorance, he is bound in
charity to do so. We confess to finding it difficult for
us to do this. Again I say, I covet not that part of the
head or heart which can so ''descend to the level '*
of a lower manhood. His putting such slander into
the mouth of his ideal lady, is not very tasteful ;
(so it stands in his book.) We will not give what
would be a just retort, lest we seem to follow his
example. The reader of his book will find some
more like our last quotation, but we pass it. Had it
emanated from a lower mind, and been disconnected
with so much which was really good, I should not
have thought of noticing it. Such slander will
always injure the cause which it indirectly aims to
upbuild ; so we can afford to let it pass back to its
own side of the house.

If the only possible condition of connubial purity
and chastity is with one, and that the one eternal
mate, as Mr. W. teaches, the world is necessarily in
a deplorable condition, for it is naturally impossible
for any man or any woman to be sure of finding and
knowing that one, till far advanced in life. No per-
son can know their mate till, or any farther than,
they know themselves. A man cannot know his
own nature and power faster than it develops in
him. This, at the best, is only little by little ; or
gradually. Towards woman, he first develops to an
all-absorbing love for the feminine. This may be to

104 FREE LOVE.

some particular woman, in whom ihe feminine ele-
ment manifests itself most in accordance with his
ideal of woman. Perhaps his own spiritual and in-
tellectual powers are yet comparatively in embryo ;
80 these are secondary in their influence upon him.
He marries on this plane of his development, and
experiences great felicity and harmony. He feels
his cup comparatively full, and "no room for more."
So does his chosen one. In a little time, each begin
to come forth in the more important features of their
religious character. We will suppose this to be
between twenty-five and thirty. Here they are not
organized alike, and so, from necessity, they grow
apart : no fault of theirs. One is conservative, the
other reformatory. One looks religiously back, the
other forward. We say, this is no fault of theirs.
Again, from thirty to forty, each begins to really
know his or her intellectual power. Here too they
go apart. One has less, the other more : no fault of
theirs. They still love ; and perhaps have no less
love, but one's cup is not now full, and they have
not entire harmony. Perhaps one is now far from
the equal of the other. Each may suffer more or
less from this inequality. Neither complains of the
other. We write here what we have more than once
seen as an actual fact, and what we should have ex-
perienced in our person, if Providence had not in
the first instance saved us from the act of actual
marriage. Still we insist that marriage, in the case

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT. 106

described above, is not false, or against nature. Such
a marriage is, so far as it goes, in harmony with
nature, and is chaste, on its own plane. Yet such a
couple could not live eternally in a first relation,
each to the other. Nature leaves room for, as well
as works her changes in such cases of unequal
growth. She gives various degrees of divorce, but
not always absolute and entire. She also has her
degrees in marriage. And so far as any one keeps
in harmony with her varied promptings, all is well.
There need be, and there will be, no collisions.

Adhesiveness has her degrees of concentration,
and her like changes. We are sure Mr. W. cannot
fairly do away with the force of these suggestions.
Mr. Davis agrees with us, in the main, as to the
past.

I think Mr. Wright encourages sudden and vehe-
ment love attractions, by the power which he gives
it over the entire mental and moral manhood. He
represents its action as uncontrollable, and hardly
leaves room for the real power of our free agency.
But whatever maybe the amount of truth iti his
statements, I must caution the inexperienced mind
against an unnatural and sudden flow of abnormal
attraction. We often see this rush of amative ness,
in its reactions from the equally unnatural restraints
of law and bondage. I do not so much condemn as
deplore it. Though, under the circumstances, it is
not strange, its consequences are often very unfortu-

106 FREE LOVE.

nate. Some very strong love attractions are far
from being healthy. Reason should never fail to
guide wisely and safely the souPs ship of love. Let
me illustrate. A physician of the very first emi-
nence, related to me the following case which came
pnder his observation. "A man of refinement and
standing in society, suddenly found himself *in
love ' with a lady of equal refinement. The lady
reciprocated his attachment, and they were soon, as
is common in such cases, absorbed in this over-pow-
ering love.*' (Mr. Wright's book would most
certainly justify its extreme power.) ** The man
had a wife. But she was a real believer in the
doctrine of Move over law,' and in 'obeying the
latest connubial affinity.' She did not wish to hinder
the testing of her husband's latest love, if the thing
could be managed wisely in view of the tongues of
out-siders. The man moved with his law wife, and
his lady love to a place where they could manage
their love relations, unharmed by society around
them. In less than two months, this all-controlling
love began to relax. It reacted to indiflferenco,
coldness, and a slight disgust, on both sides. All
extreme regard ceased. Of course, they were new
in an awkward dilemma. But we must leave thorn
here." After relating, in substance, the above, the
Doctor said to me, *' What do you think of it ? " I
I said, ** I think it a case of partial disease of the
affections. It was an amative fever." " That is it,"

REVIEW OF MR. WRIGHT. 10*7

said he. *' It begins, comes to its crisis, and ends in
reaction, like disease. *'

When the system loses its equilibrium, when the
blood rushes unnaturally from one part of the body
to another, from head to heart, or from heart to head,
wo all consider it more or less disease. It is a real
derangement of the physical man. So when nearly
the whole life and action of our entire loves, social,
moral, and intellectual, concentrate upon the con-
nubial or amative, the affectional equilibrium is
lost. The mind is unbalanced, and is incapable of
judging or acting wisely. This is abnormal. Re-
vivals almost always partake of the same religious
disease, or abnormalism. We fully admit, that even
this, in religion, or in connubial love, is sometimes
better than stagnation — than moral and sexual
death. But life and love are much better than
either.

I have no doubt, but such cases of unbalanced
love, as I have related above, will vastly increase
for some years to come. The law bonds upon love
are to be taken off; and men are not yet sufficiently
developed, and wise in experience, to use their free-
dom without much wrong and suffering. But
liberty will work its own cure. We rejoice in the
assurance of a still larger amount of returning
health. Men and women are too deeply involved in
what Mr. Davis calls " extremism and inversionism,"
to regain their health, without a season of these

W8 FREE LOVE.

alternate chills and fever. These sudden and exci-
ted developments of love are called ** falling in
love." It often is *' falling in love.'' It is better,
in every step of our progress, to rise in love.

A leading feature in Mr. Wright and Mr. Ballou
is an expression of abhorrence of any deviation from
one in love; or of not receiving the entire love and
worship of the mate. This sort of, to us, sickly
sentiment, always occupies more space than any sort
of argument. While we have the most entire
respect for those who, for good reasons, live to their
exclusive bonds ; we have none for this narrow and
belittleing feeling which these writers so boastingly
hold in the fore-ground.

Mr. Wright urges the necessity of striving, by
careful cultivation, to perpetuate love. This is good
instruction to the undeveloped, for whom he wrote.
But those who are actually developed to their higher
plane of connubial love, have nothing to watch or
to strive for. Such love, in entire spontaneity, will
protect itself. All on that plane are beyond any
possible thought of jealousy, distrust, or fear, as to
the present integrity, or as to the future, of a mate.

Marriage makes one of two, and one of many.
So much so, that either fraction in the one will as
8oon be jealous of him or herself, as to have the
same feeling towards any other person in the unit,
** Perfect love casts out all fear ^' and restless anxi-^
eties. Each loves the other, through and through^

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. f/^

as him or herself. Yet in this state, each person
in the two, or in the many, lives his or her entire
individuality. No one is owned by or owns another.
Each is his and her own ; and each knows how to
live his individuality, so as not to harm another.
Dear reader, all of this is possible. Perhaps not
possible for children, but possible for real adults.
There is a lack of spontaneity in Mr. Wright*s love
marriages. So does each lose much in individuality.
But more of this when we come to Mr. Davis.

CHAPTER IX.

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS GENERAL REMARKS QUO-
TATIONS FROM HIS BOOK.

A. J. Davis, as a Clairvoyant Medium, is the
miracle of the age. We think him, in some sense,
justly entitled to the appellation of "head," as a
teacher of the Harmonial Philosophy. We say, as
a teacher, for, with Paul, we make a distinction be-
tween a teacher and a father, and we do not consider
him the laiter. The mass of spiritualism which has
since flooded us with its intellectual and moral bles-
sings, and also with its fanaticisms, has produced
nothing like him, as a whole. Several minds in this
and in the other sphere, have successfully criticised
10

Va FREE LOVE. Wli'A

some parts of his works. Many of his moral writ-
ings are hke prophecy, far in advance of his own
actual moral elevation. Perhaps this is true, in
a degree, of all reformers. Mr. Davis, as a teacher,
occupies a field of vast extent, and of overwhelming
importance. Through him, wisdom is uttering her
voice to the sons of men. He now writes directly
to, and for, a large class of minds. Many of these
minds, though of reformatory blood, are not yet past
the star-light of harmonial truth. If there was a
Divine wisdom in the thing signified, by the **vail**
over the face of Moses, when giving the Law to the
Jews, — and I believe there was, — a like wisdom, for
like reasons, may hide from our seer and teacher
some of the higher freedom of the more glorious
future, by its spiritual veil. Mr. Davis, evidently to i
us, does "not see to the end** of some of the law"
phases, which still linger in the infancy of his har-
monial philosophy. As a believer in a wise and holy
expediency, we cannot complain of Mr. D.*s spirits
teachers for this ; — and they may be alike untaught, .
We in no way find fault with the Providence. Even
the ancient Jesus found it necessary to leave the
world without revealing all of his highest percep-
tions of truth to his dearest and best beloved disci-
ples ; — much less to the world in general. They —
the disciples, — could *^not bear it.'* Moses, Jesus, ^
and every reformer since, were likely to be the best'
judges, each for himself in this matter. We only

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. Ill

wish to see all highly inspired minds so write as
not to cross the track of the future, and come direct-
ly in collision with it. But we wave this desire or
seeming objection.

We love Mr. Davis. Fromapartial diversity in our
mental "temperament ;" he is not our first mascu-
line mental love. But no other man living ever in-
structed us as much as he. We have been taught
much higher moral or spiritual truths by another.
We reverence A. J. Davis as a teacher.

We now approach no written testimony with more
reverence than we do his. We love and respect his
guiding angels. But God has created in all of us
our own separate individuality. He will never re-
call it ; — I speak reverently. Nor should we ever
yield the first iota of it to any being below Him.
When Mr. Davis writes to my understanding, new
and important truths, I most thankfully receive
them. When he, or any other mind, writes what I
cannot understand, I leave it, but with care not to
oppose it. But when he opposes what I know to be
truth, I have no fear to review and criticise him.
The reader will bear with my confidence. Such
an assurance is not necessarily dogmatism. Every
man knows some things. I, too, am a medium of
over twenty year's steady growth ; and not only
write in harmony with a legion of angels, but I
write what I am identified with, by having traveled
all tlie way to it. I am responsible to the world for

112 FRKE LOVE.

my book ; yet I have leave of my guiding angels to
invite Mr. Davis and his guiding angels to a full
discussion of the point of difference between us, in
the presence of the men of earth, and the men of
the spheres. 1, and we, most respectfully challenge
him and them to the discussion. And we add, if
this challenge shall be taken no notice of, without
other reasons, we shall not accuse these opponents of
cowardice, or of other unworthy motives. We take
our position in this, but judge no other man's or an-
gePs duty or privilege.

Mr. Davis' book on Marriage has instructed us.
He goes deeper into the philosophy of mind, and is
much more liberal, on the whole, than Mr. Wrio-ht.
It no less elevates love. Mr. Wright's book was
comparatively more from his heart. Mr. Davis' was
more from his head, — but from the upper [\T\di wisdom
part of it. In Mr. Davis, there is little less in
amount or volume of the magnetism of love, and
vastly more in wisdom — in higher truth. Mr. Davis
has his '' seven phases of marriage," and contends for
the naturalness of these various forms — bigamy,
polygamy, and omnigamy, — on the several lower
planes of the mind ; and so he is almost entirely free
from the bigotry and intolerance of the past and
present. Such a spirit in a writer on so sensitive a
theme, is most lovely, and entirely beyond this age,
Mr. Davis testifies that on the harmonial plane,
monogamy, or one man with one woman, is the only

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, ll^

possible marriage. In his reply to Dr. Nichols he
argues against a "variety." He repeats his " ever-
lasting gratitude to Mr. Wright for the exclusive
feature of his book ; and, like him, confounds ancient
and modern polygamy with modern Free Love. He
entirely ignores the true and elevating principles of
the latter, and associates it, sometimes with partly
the same form, and sometimes with the monopoly of
polygamy, which is a different form, but always with
the undeveloped and sexual relations of the long
past, or of the far back to a rude age. Whether
this is from the deepest ignorance of the whole sub-
ject or otherwise, I leave for the reader to judge.
Mr. Davis knows that the monogaraic, as well as
the omnigamic form extend back alike into the past.
And the "pot" of the past cannot successfully slan-
der the '* kettle " of the same past, in relation to its
color. We have never charged exclusive dual mar-
riage, as such, of sensualism ; nor will our opponents
successfully fasten the latter to the car of Free
Love, as such. The effort is most inglorious. I
did not expect it from Mr. Davis. The most char-
itable conclnsion possible to put upon all this is,
that it is the fruit of ignorance. We have felt no
disposition to summon up the dead past to directly
help our cause, or to wound our opponents ; though
we might have just as truthfully done so. All forms
of love have been more or less drunk with sensual-
ism in the past. Mr. Davis tells us this was more
10*

114 FREE LOVE. "^^^^

natural in the infancy of the race. So I believe,
Mr. Wright goes back six thousand years to find a
pair to support his dual order. Mr. Davis would
send Free Love back to degrade it. (I do not say
this was his motive.) I am talking it for granted,
that the reader has seen Mr. Davis' book. We shall
be to it soon. Gentlemen, we decline the journey
for either object. We disapproved of this in Mr.
Wright; and we have no need to go back for our
support. Mind is with us, and we can read it, but if
Free Love has so great an antiquity as Mr. D. gives
it, we respectfully ask all who have a peculiar re-
spect for ancient institutions, to let this have its.
proper weight in our favor. This is entirely fair. We
prophecy that the time is not far distant when such
men as Mr. Davis and Mr. Wright will be compelled
to see a distinction between our philosophy of sex-
ual freedom, and that of the past or present sensual
freedom, — or more correctly, sensual bondage, — as
we see and confess the vast distance between their
exclusive marriage, and the general marriage of the
present, and nearly the entire past. We do them
justice, as they do not us.

The reader will find our first extract on page 297
of Mr. Davis' book. We think this the most
appropriate, and the nearest related to our subject
and argument of anything in the book.

"I have shown," says Mr. Davis, "that man's
love-department is divided into six separate actuating

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. ^^

life-principles, each having its own independent
mode of being and doing. Each has an attraction
of its own, and therefore seeks a separate gratification*
From these six loves there emanates six atmospheres.
Each atmosphere is composed of differently shaped
atoms, having, consequently, different affinities and
manifestations. But the six emanations, neverthe-
less, commingle and blend into one atmosphere,
which then environs the individual as the air sur-
rounds the earth.

" This aromal sphere of the soul is what sensitive
natures feel on the approach of different persons;
realising an attraction or repulsion — being affected
pleas iirably or otherwise, without perceiving a
palpable cause. This atmosphere is what a dog
smells in his master's path.

'* Each love has also a different-coZorec? atmosphere ;
this fact in connection with the diflferent shaped
atoms, constitutes and makes the individuality.

" And each love gravitates to its kind. The parti-
cles composing self-love are angular ; hence you can
feel the nettles of selfishness. Parental love is
composed of more spherical atoms ; hence children
and horses, cats and dogs, feel the presence of its
atmosphere. Animals are readily domesticated
under the influence of this love.

"Strangers can feel the aroma of fraternal love;
its atmosphere is finer and its particles more smooth
and penetrative.

116 FREE LOVE.

"And you can feel, in certain persons, the charac-
ter of the conjugal love ; whether it be on the
subordinate scale, or elevated to the higher phases.
Its particles are gross or refined in shape and color
in accord with its intrinsic growth. Self-love is, in
everything, a bigamist ; it invariably asks for two ,
pieces, a common expression of selfishness.

" Parental love is a. polygarnist ; it calls for plurality
of pets or productions. Its attractions lean towards
many children ; and embraces many even more
rapturously than one. If children are not desired
by all, it is mainly owing to external circumstances.

** Fraternal, filial and universal loves are by nature
omnigamic in their affinities. They love a countless
variety of objects and subjects. In their rapturous
and ever-widening sympathies, they encircle millions
at once. It will be a glorious era, and exceedingly
peaceful, when these 'Moves** can have a practical
development.

** But conjugal love, the marriage principle, when
in its juvenile or adolescent stages, includes all the
preceeding forms ; it is a bigamist, a polygamist, an
omnigamistj and is unsteady ; but with maturity
and with civility of development comes the power to
love but ONE counterpart. And when thus developed,
the atoms of conjugal love are spirally shaped ; the
female interlocking with the male atmosphere ; each
flowing into the other's being."

The above, we understand to be Mr. Davis* clair-

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 117

voyant testimony. To us, it contains some of the
deepest and most clear mental philosophy which we
have ever seen in print; and also some which we
think complex, uncertain and erroneous. The entire
distinctness and individuality of each faculty, and
also their union and harmony, the various shaped
and colored atmospheres, all commends itself to our
understanding. All of this is very beautiful. It is
a real jewel. That these loves in their individuality^
are one a '* bigamist,*' one a "polygamist,** and
three "omnigamist,** while the sixth, the sexual,
passes through, in its growth, all of these phases,
up to, or down to the monogamist, is more doubtful.
We do not like to take the room to give our entire
objections to some part of it. Why could he not
have informed us whether any other faculty changes
its form in progression ? This is left entirely in the
dark for so important a subject. But the question
is, what are they, each and all, when acting in the
highest state of union and harmony ? For they are
one, as well as many. Conjugal love grows and
develops to the "power to love but one counterpart/*
**And when thus developed, the atoms of this
"love are spirally shaped."

Now this is a tremenduous proposition. This is
the hinge on which civilization turns. It should not
have been passed so slightly — no argument — no
proof — but testimony only. We have testified that
this love will develop to an ability to love mcrre

118 . . FREE LOVE.

than one, and we have argued to prove it. But we
are glad of so much from Mr. Davis. It seems that
sexual love has been right in the past, in its free
loves. It was acting to its nature. Children should
not act like men. This is quite a step gained.

Progression generally brings enlargement and an
increase of power. But we find connubial love con-
tracting in progression, decreasing in breadth and
extent of power, as it advances. How remarkable
that every man, as he attempts to defend exclusive
marriage, reverses the order of every natural lawf
and never gives a substantial reason for so doing.
They seldom give us any reason. Mr. Davis, do
other loves change their form by progression ? If
so, in what direction ? Do they contract and cen»
tralise, or do they expand and enlarge ? We are
inquirers and learners. As Mr. D. said nothing of
their change, we will conclude they do not : we
mean, of course, in form of manifestation. We have
no evidence of this change in amativeness, in its
separate individuality. We admit, that as progres-
sion brings a relative change between it and other
faculties, so its action may to the same extent
change. Admitting the "shape*' of the connubial
atmosphere does change, how does this hinder its
fitting all alike progressed opposites? Does Mr. D.
mean to teach us that this atmosphere is so concen-
trated upon, so confined to, the one, that it has no
power to get a release, and so stray elsewhere. We

ANDREW JACKSOil DAVIS. 119

do not believe in any permanent release or suspension.
But we insist, that "to divide is not to take away."
We do not withdraw our adhesive love from one in
order to love another. No more do we the connu-
bial. Mr. Davis, like others of his faith, does not
marry, exclusively marry, all of the connubial
atmosphere. He allows some part of it to act in
harmony with the laws of the higher loves — with
the "universal loves. '* As a comparatively high
mental philosopher, we call him back to this subject.
His work is hardly begun. He is bound, on every
principle of justice, to give us at least some clue to
tlie law which separates this faculty, and frees a part
and confines a part. Show us why some part, (we
do not know what part — the distinction is his, and
his friends, not ours,) can be non-exclusive, and
other parts cannot be. As he has failed to give us
any clue to this, we go in search of proof, but we
fail to find it. If we take the outer man as an index
of the inner, we are not relieved. We see nothing
more incompatible in this sense with the omnigamic
form in coitionary love, than in any other, any
higher. Mr. D. would and does virtually admit
this. We insist, then, that we have a right to call
for proof.

At first, our opponents, like Mr. Ballou, contended
that always and everywhere, every act of vari-
ety was, per se, "more or less adulterous.*' Long
since many of these have arrived nearly to Mr. D.*8

120 TREE LOVE, HAHX

position, that various orders might have been right
in the past, and possibly to some extent in the
present. But these now contend lustily that " any
how, they know the exclusively dual is the highest^
and the final of connubial love/' On the whole,,
this is a real gain in the right direction. We took
our pen to rout them from this last stand point,
and we are sanguine of final success. Here is their
last breast- w:ork, and here will come the death-strug-
gle of exclusiveness. Mr. Davis, a noble and an hon-
orable leader, has taken his position in this gap.
We liope and believe he will never surrender this
post, while he has any philosophical ammunition left
to defend it. We court ihe discussion of this last
question. What is the highest order of connubial
love ? This book contains our argumentative reply
to the question. Will our opponents give us as
thorough and as direct a defence of their position, if.
the thing is possible.

Mr. Davis defines marriage to be " the union of
the essence of two atoms.'' We add, the union of
two or more atoms. There is a duality in marriage ;
it is between the two sides — the male and the female
atmospheres. I have no doubt but that Mr. D. sees
this duality. He sees a healthful harmony in the
Joining ojf the two — a man and a woman. We see
a still greater harmony in th« marriage of many.

Even much of the higher harmony of marriage,
which he does teach, or foretell, he carries to tha>

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. Hi

other sphere for its practical realization. Yet all of
it, and more will be experienced here, and on this
earth. Like Paul in his "third heavens," and
Swede nborg in his ** celestial spheres,*' he sees things
there, which are but clairvoyant views of things to
come, and to be enjoyed here. He sets untruthful
bounds to the present, and coming attainments on
our earth.

"Repulsion," I believe, is considered by Mr. D.,
as a negative J or a less attraction, and designed to
regulate the various degrees of attraction. At least,
this is our view. And should we admit that those
on a widely different plane may never be so far at-
tracted to each other, as to desire and normally enjoy
all of the rights of connubial love, it is still true
that those on the same plane, and of " like temper-
ment," may. Such cannot in freedom, be entirely
exclusive. That which joins them to one, will join
to all on the same plain, and of the same " tempera-
ment." The ability to appreciate the one, gives the
ability to appreciate all others on the same plain and
of the same temperament.

Mr. Davis teaches us that the best we can do at
present, in seeking a connubial mate, is, if possible,
to reach the *• spiritual plane," and see that the
"central temperaments" meet in harmony. Then
by effort, and a careful culture, all others, or any
less degree of repulsion, can be brought into sub-
mission, and perhaps at last into love, and so render
U

122 .>IVy FREE LOVE. (aVik

the union eternal. If these repulsions are healthy
and normal, this course, so far destroys spontainety ;
and, like Mr. Wright, he, in this manner, detracts
from individuality, for the sake of unity. If these
repulsions are unhealthy, we give the same advice,
and add more to it. We advise all to at least overcome
these little repulsions, so far as they are abnormal,
between all on the same plane. But never, in any
case, or for any reason, to suppress or oppress a
healthy repulsion. Free Love neither requires nor
allows any such sacrifice. It leaves unabridged the
most perfect spontaniety and individuality. The
centrifugal force is as important as the centripetal,
and we would leave all natural forces alike free in
matter or in mind.

Yet we insist even here, that as benevolence can
do every other act of utility in harmony with its
general law of justice and mercy, over these lesser
repulsions, without harming them, so the same is
true, to some extent, on this subject. There are
various good motives which may wisely lead to the
ultimates of love. A degree of need, mutual and
normal enjoyment, and the creation of offspring, are
among them. In the first and second cases, at least,
if the two do not mix atmospheres any farther than
they harmonize, no harm is done. This is sometimes
possible. Not always. As I shall not take the room
to prove this last proposition, the reader can take or
leave it as it seems to be truth or otherwise to him.

II

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 123

I am sure Mr. Davis will not tell us that God
ever made two persons of the opposite sex, who were
entire attraction, and no repulsion. Then nature
never perfectly married two. But nature may, and
probably does, create a perfect fitness for each and
for all in the race ; then why not let each find that
supply in the race ? Why try to improve upon his
works ? Why not allow a perfect spontaniety, and
not warp each individuality for the sake of unity ?
Why not allow the race to progress to a higher and
more perfect harmony, in a perfect spontaniety?
Why marry any man, real man, harmonial man, one
iota beyond his normal and spontaneous attractions ?
Why labor to assimilate the one to the other more
than is strictly natural ? Let each and every person
differ from me eternally, so far as they were made to
difi'er. Universal love will harmonize and supply
all. I shall find every phase of marriage somewhere,
and every mental, moral and material want supplied.
I have no right to ask or expect a perfect ** rest *' in
any one woman, but I have such a right in the race
— in woman. So I give myself to woman. If I
find much more **rest" in some one woman, than in
any other — and this is natural — I may and should
take and enjoy it.

On page 411, Mr. Davis comes directly to the
question of a "variety'' in love. But he does this
in reply to Dr. Nichols. For two reasons, I think
it unnecessary for me to quote much, or write much
in reviewinor it.

-fiM -^ ' FREE LOVE.

First, I see from ''Nichols' Journal" of last month,
that the Dr. has replied to him in a later edition of
his work on marriage. Second, Mr. Davis resolves
the question of a variety in love, into the question
of the "fickleness, unsteadiness," or otherwise, of
love. On this, I certainly have no controversy with
Mr. Davis. I doubt whether Dr. Nichols has. We
all admit that love, in an undeveloped state, is some
times fickle. I am sure it will not be so in true
harmony. Mark, I only contend that we may love
more than one. I think I do not favor divorce, in
the present state of the world, as much as Mr. Davis
or Mr. Wright. They allow a variety by a succes-
sion of persons ; I more by a succession of acts, but
without "putting away." I do not like "putting
away." It often partakes of a much greater degree
of injustice than entire exclusiveness. Nature does
not often, after forming or permitting so entire a
union, absolutely and entirely put away. As a fact,
I never advised the separation of man and wife.
Perhaps, in a few cases, more wisdom might have
lead me to do this. On the whole, I do not gener-
ally approve of too violently disturbing past and
present relations, to get to the better which we may
justly hold in promise. Sometimes it may be wise.
Mr. Davis asks : " Does not every well developed,
person obey the law of harmony ? What is harmony
but the unity of variety — that is the centralization
of diversity? " I only reply, a variety in harmony,

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 125

is consistent with the action of every love of the
mind. Connubial love "centralises** on woman.
He adds ; " Every love, as I have hitherto affirmed, is
monogamio : 1 speak now of the regulated soul.
When the soul finds that occupation which meets its
attractions, it does not wish to be divorced therefrom,
but steadily loves and labors onward." I fully agree
with this sentiment, as I understand him here in
the use of the word "monogamic.*' In my reply
to Mr. Ballou, I said that every faculty was, in one
sense, confined to one desire — one object. But man,
in this "regulated'* state, finds this one desire — one
object, met in many persons. Even benevolence has
but one desire — it desires but one object ; still it
takes a universe to supply material for its grat-
ification.

" Alimentiveness " has but *^ one desire,*' but it
takes a variety of articles, and a variety of diverse
mixtures to fully supply it. ** But presently comes
a fatigue, a thought of monotony, a longing for
novelty,'* in exclusive monogamic marriage. " Well,
have true lovers no other resources ? Let me think.
* * •* * Society is accessible— friends are to
be visited and entertained, the imperative demands
of the remaining five affections are to be considered,
and to all these varieties may be added an endless
programme of pleasurable efforts and realizable
aspirations for the world*s advancement.**

Mr. Davis has here totally annihilated his entire
11*

126 FREE LOVB.

argument, if he meant it as an argument, from the
monogamic nature of all the loves. Because, if that
monogamic law confines connubial love to one
person, it alike confines every love to one person.
So all of this "society," and these many *' friends,'*
are licentious. That law, so carried out, would take
all, like the mythological Adam and Eve, into a dual
hermitage.

Mr. Davis expresses his opinion of our views
somewhat freely, but we pass it. *' Can there be
freedom in error ? " No, never. " The truth shall
make you free.'' Yes, always. But we ask out
opponent, what is truth ? Where is the truth on
this subject ? and we take our present leave of his
slight argument, (we are not sure that he really
meant it as an argument,) by inviting him back to
the subject.

Mr. Davis refers to the testimony of Swedenborg,
as to the dual marriages of heaven ; and relates a
particular case of great glory, resplendent beauty,
and comparative loveliness. Probably no testimony
from the other spheres has gone past this. Jesus
testified beyond it, but from what evidence, we do
not know. In the nuptial pair which Swedenborg
describes, much of their beauty, to him, was from
their beautiful clothing. He writes much of tlw)
coverings, or apparel of angels, as well as of their
marriages, and yet he barely drops the testimony, that
** the innermost angels, go naked." (I quote from

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. ]Wt

memory.) I testify that there is no exclusive mar-
riage or clothing in the higher or real heavens. All
exclusiveness, and all veils are there taken away,
Nature is too pure and too beautiful to need, or be
marred, by covering. But we should have supposed
that even if they were naked, they might have ap-
peared in clothing to his sight. It would have been
wise. Still we have no doubt but exclusive marriaore

o

and clothing may be common in Paradise, Purgatory
and the Hells. I presume Swedenborg saw that
loving couple, in what I should call Paradise — or'
some of the lower heavens. Paul saw, in vision,
to the "third heavens,** but he thought it not ex-
pedient then to tell us what he saw there. The
customs of heaven and of earth, on the same moral
plane, will be nearly alike.

But there is another interesting view of this case,
which may be suggested, as it is so appropriate a
reply to Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis tells us in his book,
that it was "visions of the vulvar female extremist"
which " supplied Swedenborg with material for his
infernal spheres." We saw, twelve years ago, that
the great seer's description of the ** celestial angels*'
of heaven, was nothing more than a truthful view
of some of the celestial angels of our sphere. It
did not exceed the truth of the moral or spiritual
elevation of some minds of our mundane world.
And we then thought it more than probable that he
was only relating "visions *' of the future elevation of

128 FREE LOVE.

progressed humanity on our globe. With this view,
his relations of the glorious nuptials of heaven
might have been simply a just tribute of prophesy
of Mr. Wright's and Mr. Davis' Love marriage, and
possibly the identical image of ** Ernest and Nina'*
in our friend Wright's mind. But we have no need
to resort to such an exposition, believing, as we do,
that what exists here exists there.

Mr. Davis sees and foretells a coming war — ** a
bloodless war," on the subject of marriage : and yet
in his position, he seems compelled to entirely ignore
one of the first, if not the first, great and honorable
champions in this war, John H. Noyes. We tell Mr.
Davis, the hardest battle will come when and where
men are required to relinquish their monopolizing
grasp upon woman. When the man feels that the
last vestige of what has more or less strengthened
his ownership of sex, is giving way before the firea
of coming truth, then and there we shall see a sen-
sation which has not been equaled in modern times.
Man, in the past, has rested upon deeds and marriage
certificates for the protection of his lands and sexual
claims. Our reformatory opponents require him to
yield the certificate and some times to consent to a
change of possession. This, as Mr. Davis foresees,
he will oppose. But we shall only see the full
strength of his opposition, when the demand comes
home to him to unconditionally and forever yield
his entire personal and exclusive grasp upon each

1

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 129

and every womaa ; resting each year, month, day,
hour, minute, of his coming future, upon his own
inherent lovliness to attract and supply his coming
wants. This is a condition which undeveloped mind
is far from coveting ; but is ever ready to seek to
avoid. Our non-exclusive principle, added to our
entire and absolute freedom of woman, is what will
** lay the axe into the root of the tree." If the past
teaches us any lesson — and we think it does — it is
that as man has progressed, this man-power over
woman, with its monopoly of exclusive ownership,
has become less and less. Polygamy is a sort of
wholesale and one-sided sexual monopoly. Mono-
gamy is an improvement in the right direction. Its
monopolies are less, and it is more just to man and
more reciprocal ; yet it is far from being entirely
just, even on its own principles, to woman. The
rich and the powerful have receded from many to
one ; so far as they have lived to their covenant.
Marriage, in her present injustice y is old in years,
and strong in power. She seems to sit in compara-
tive ease, and in her slumbers, as did slavery a few
years since. But she sits upon a volcano of smoth-
ered and crushed affections, which will in a coming
hour, break her slumbers and arouse her from her
lethargy. The fires of a true and burning Love wil^
yet burn up and consume, as they are fanned by the
perpetual gales of truth, her exclusive and selfish con-
nubiality. Their powers are at work, and nothing

13<X FREE LOVE.

can stay them. Everything will forward and hasten
it. The more narrow minded and seiually selfish
have always felt it keenly that they were not
(permitted to carry their exclusive system into heav-
'-en ; but the prophesy of their religion had taught
:them not to hope for this. But when these lower
minds — I speak what I know — see that another
jprophesy in the same book is to hare a fulfilment —
; that the will of Grod is to be done on esrth as it is
done in heaven — as the higher angels do it — they
will howl in their misery. Such minds do not, and
can not at once enjoy the free spirit of angels. We
should be glad of the assurance that the coming war
would be entirely *' bloodless.'' Still we have no
fear persmially. ISTor have we a thought of living to
• see the full consummation of all of which we speak*
Progress i« slow at the best ; and doubtless it is well
that it is 'SO, on the whole. We tell the, as yet, un-
developed world, there is to be a mighty change,
N^ow selfishness is the rule in everything. Benevo-
lence is the exception. Progress will change all
this. Benevolence will one day be the rule,
AND SELFISHNESS THE EXCEPTION. When man
'. has fairly grown to his manhood, he will be
nothing lower than this. The marriages of Mr.
Wright 'and Mr. Davis are glorious, compared to the
past, for they really and truly elevate love to the
lower phases, or to the germ of spiritual and harmo*
mial connubiality. But we prophesy that even these,

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 131

in the future, will have comparatively *'na glory, '*
by reason of the glory which will then so far exceed
them. The fruition of a ripe, manly and womanly
love will then comprehend and absorb all of the
good in all below it ; then, in connubial love, benev-
olence will be the rule, and selfishness will be the
exception. I glory in the hope and assurance of
such a day ; and in living to hasten it. The forma-
tion of man's brain promises all of this, and it will
not lie. Mental philosophy never lies. Progression
will redeem its every pledge. Nothing is more
sure. We come back to that " war " — as we hope
"bloodless war." We agree with our opponents
that it is coming. We, in entire respect and friend-
ship, yet solemnly, put the question — when that
war fairly comes, in all its intensity, and aims its
most deadly blows against our n on -exclusive prin-
ciples, where will Mr. Wright and Mr. Davis be
found ? That hour will try the souls of reformers.
We, in the commencement of this mental, and
more than mental, stir, stand in defence of all, or
nearly all, in which these opponents have parted from
the principles of the past. Where will they be when
the crisis more fully reaaches our camp ? I must
repeat my interrogatory — will they then be found,
on the whole, for, or against us ? We aver that we
are not anxious for ourselves, or for the cause which
we identify, as to the practical answer which the
future may give to these questions. Each in his

132 FREE LOVE.

book, has classed us with the enemy. Will these
men ever retract that folly ? Double folly to the
real cause which they seek to promote ! I will not
speak for Mr. Wright, but I think Mr. Davis, if he
does not then directly favor free love, will be a men-
tal and moral non-resistant towards it, and treat it
with entire respect. We hope not to be disappoint-
ed. More, we hope he will yet rejoice, and feel
"everlasting thanks'* to a higher power, in the fi-
nal fulness, as well as in the infancy, of his Har-
monial philosophy.

We and our opponents alike contend for the ab-
solute freedom of woman. This is well. Then it
is right that she should be ** allowed to choose the
father of her children, ^^ We here tell our oppo-
nants if she, in freedom, shall continue to do this,
in strict harmony with their dual doctrines, we
will never reproach or condemn her for it. Are
they ready to meet us here, if in such freedom, she
shall, to any extent, act in harmony with our views?
We have a right, and do demand as much as this
of them. We ask Mr. Wright in the name of ev-
ery principle of justice and consistency, after having
so nobly defended the rights of woman, to take off
and keep off his hands from all women, and from
man also. I honor the man or woman who, from
an honest faith, or belief, lives to his or her dual
pledge. I have no heart in me to reproach or
slander such. We ask, and demand of our oppo-

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 133

nents, who talk freedom, to feel and act freedom —
allow freedom.

If we fail to make them understand our mental
philosophy, we will then meet, and appeal to them
to let tooman h^free; and we covenant with them to
keep hands off — judgments and reproaches off — and
we will abide by her practical decision. We can
join issue here, if they and we really mean the/ree-
iom of woman. This is a good and fair test. We
shall write our book as they have theirs, and then
wait with entire trust to the developments of the fu-
ture. Woman will have her freedom. Truth will
^ow and prosper, and that shall be our final arbiter.
12

APPENDIX.

While we have been writing our book, New York
city has been all astir with a volcano of Free Love.
No not that : It was a volcano of exclusive mar-
riage, touched off by a free love match. (See city
papers about the 20th of October.) The Tribune
reissued its bulls and pledged itself anew to the de-
fence of the family. Other editors — from the great-
er to the less, even to the remote towns — caught the
spirit of the times, and were on the alert ; and alike
renewed their vows of watchful care and kind re-
gards to their old mistress. Seriously — what has
happened to cause this alarm in the marriage insti-
tution ? Has free love encroached upon her just
and established rights ? Has she clandestinely
entered the sexual plantations of her neighbor, and
enticed away his body slave-mate ? No ! There is
no evidence of that. Has she taken the liberty to
regulate her own domestic concerns to her own taste,
regardless of what might be the incidental effect
upon her old neighbor ? We think not even that.
She has spoken her mind of exclusive marriage, and
recommended free love ! She has talked about the

135

i

136 APPENDIX.

marriage institution. It will not do. Something
must be done. The power of the law must be in-
voked ► She must send the noble Brisbane to hei
city dungeon for a night, as a token of what shei
can and will do, if her wishes are not regarded!
Shame on such despotism and cowardly persecution
in Protestantism ! Shame on such inhumanity in
the light of this*age !

When an institution of so great age, and being _
such an overwhelming majority, is so easily an&
carelessly set in such excited and angry motion, ii
is moral proof equal to a mathamatical demonstration
of her inherent weakness, and of her consciousnesi
of it. It must be rotten at heart, and without a s
foundation. Like slavery, it quakes when touch'
Yea, when even looked at ! Mr. Greeley, Mr. BalL
and others, would know how to appreciate such rJi
flections as these, if connected with any subject noo
in harmony with their faith. Our opponents see thu
full force of them, when they relate to slavery. Gen
tlemen, consistency is a jewel. If I were to fine
such a sensation on my side of the house, from com
parativly so small a cause, even though our belovec
is hardly through her teens, I should recommen(
its friends to look again, and overhaul the whol
concern, to lay a deeper foundation for their super
structure. Mr. Greeley believes in the entire safet]
of truth in free discussion, when it relates to thi
institutions of his remote neighbors, but does h*

APPENDIX. 137

really dare to trust it and himself here ? Has he
no fear of the consequences here ? From his course
with Mr. Andrews, and since, we think he has. Still,
as he believes in a true expediency, he may have
thought the people would not yet bear it. Perhaps
not. We do not complain of him, but we do thank
him for what he has ventured in this hne.

I have not done with Mr. Greeley, I wish to re-
cord my sincere gratitude to him for the good he has
done to the cause which I advocate, as also to every
other radical reform, in preparing the way for it and
them by his general efforts on the side of free discus-
sion. Whatever may be his future course, I promise
never to forget his past services. He has made his
impress on the age, in favor of a degree of freedom.
Like the colter to the plow, he has cut the sod.
True, in all this he has never meant to advance free
love ; and as this child is being born, he would
gladly slay it. He has just renewed his pledge to
always pursue it, and if possible exterminate it. (I
suppose the late pledge in the Tribune to be his.
At least he stands in that position ) To the cause
of the most radical reform, Mr. Greeley's name has
been John (the baptist,) now it is Herod. Christ
has come and John is no more needed. We think
Herod is ; but we have np fear that he can do his
successor any real harm. We most sincerly pray
that he may not do by what has been the John
in himself, as the Herod of old did with the
12*

138 APPENDIX.

baptist.'* As one who still loves liim we have
feared this.

Mr. Greeley is still really devoted to the spread
and advancement of free love ; never before half as
much so as now. He has taken his position behind,
in the rear of it, and by his opposition he will bringrj
the whole power of his tremenduous battery to drive^j
it forward. The cause has able leaders enough, J
and Mr. Greeley has taken the best possible position
which he could take, and the only one which he is^
now prepared to occupy. Here he will act with zeal.
Header, these were our reflections on reading the j
late pledge of perpetual opposition to our principles.!
in the Tribune. As I turned from my pen to that I
paper for relaxation, I was encouraged and strength-
ened by that promise to oppose. I do not beheve
that a truthful opposition will ever advance error.
But I do believe that an untruthful opposition will
always advance truth.

[The author would say to the reader that from
unavoidable hinderances, this small work has been
delayed over a year since it was ready for the press.]

ETERNAL JUSTICE.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

The man is thought a knave or fool.

Or bigot, plotting crime,
Who for advancement of his kind

Is wiser than his time.
For him the hemlock shall distill ;

For him the axe be bared ;
For him the gibbet shall be built ;

For him the stake prepared ;
Him shall the scorn and wrath of men

Puraue with deadly aim ;
And malice, envy, spite, and lies,

Shall desecrate his name.
But truth shall conquer at the last :

For round and round we run,
And ever the right comes uppermost,

And ever is justice done.

Pace through thy cell, old Socrates,

Cheerily to and fro ;
Trust to the impulse of thy soul.

And let the poison flow.
They may shatter to earth the lamp of clay

That holds the light divine,
But tliey cannot quench tlie fire of thought

By any such deadly wine ;
They cannot blot thy spoken words

From the memory of man,
By all the poison ever was bruised

Since Time his course began.
To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored.

So round and round we run,
And ever the truth comes uppermost.

And ever is justice done.

Plot in thy cave, gray anchorite.

Be wiser than thy peers ;
Augment the range of human power.

And trust to coming years.
They may call thee wizard and monk accursed.

And load thee with dispraise ;

KO ETERNAL JtSTICB.

Thou wert born five hundred years too so

For the comfort of thy days.
But not too soon for human kind —

Time hatli reward in store ;
And the demons of our stories become

The saints that we adore.
The blind can see, the slave is lord ;

So round and round we run.
And ever the wrong is proved to be wrocg,

And ever justice is done.

Keep, Galileo, to thy thought,

And nerve thy soul to bear ;
They may gloat o'er the senseless words tbey wiiog

From trie pangs of thy despair ;
They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide

The sun's meridian glow ;
The heel of a priest may tread thee down.

And a tyrant work thee woe ;
But never a truth has been destroyed :

They may curse and call it crime ;
Pervert and betray, or slander and slay

Its teachers for a time.
But the sunshine aye will light the sky,

As round and round we run.
And truth shall ever come uppermost,

And justice shall be done.

And live there now such men as these —

With thoughts like the great of old ?
Many have died in their misrry,

And left their thought untold ;
And many live, and are ranked as mad.

And are placed in the cold world's ban.
For sending their bright, far-seeing souls

Three centuries in the van ;
They toil in penury and grief.

Unknown, if not maligned ;
Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn

Of the meanest of mankind.
But yet the world goes round and round,

And the genial seasons run.
And ever the truth comes uppermoBt,

And ever is justice done.

PAMPHLET B'

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