The inevitable
results of it have been shown in some of the cases we have narrated.
The trial of it on a larger scale would only yield a larger number of
similar degenerations, weaknesses, and sacrifices of noble lives. Put
a boy and girl together upon the same course of study, with the same
lofty ideal before them, and hold up to their eyes the daily
incitements of comparative progress, and there will be awakened within
them a stimulus unknown before, and that separate study does not
excite. The unconscious fires that have their seat deep down in the
recesses of the sexual organization will flame up through every
tissue, permeate every vessel, burn every nerve, flash from the eye,
tingle in the brain, and work the whole machine at highest pressure.
There need not be, and generally will not be, any low or sensual
desire in all this elemental action. It is only making youth work over
the tasks of sober study with the wasting force of intense passion. Of
course such strenuous labor will yield brilliant, though temporary,
results. The fire is kept alive by the waste of the system, and soon
burns up its source. The first sex to suffer in this exhilarating and
costly competition must be, as experience shows it is, the one that
has the largest amount of force in readiness for immediate call; and
this is the female sex.
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