d, and nervously surcharged,
until, as a climax, they finally cause a sort of nervous explosion of
the organs involved. This climax is called an "orgasm" in scientific
language. Among most men and women it is spoken of as "spending."

On the part of the man, this orgasm causes the semen, which till this
instant has remained in the prostate pocket, to be suddenly driven
out of this place of deposit, and thrown in jets, and with spasmodic
force, through the entire length of the penis, and, as it were, shot
into the vaginal passage and the uterine cavity, till the whole region
is literally deluged with the life-giving fluid. At the same time,
the mouth of the womb opens wide; and into it pours, or rushes, this
"father stuff," entirely surrounding and flooding the ovum, if it be
in the womb. This is the climax of the sexual act, which is called
"coitus," a word which means, going together.

With the myriads of spermatozoa swarming about it, if the vital part
of the ovum comes in contact with some one of them, any one of which,
brought into such contact, will fertilize it, conception results. The
woman is then pregnant, and the period of gestation is begun.

This is a brief description of the act of coitus and of the means by
which pregnancy takes place. It is, however, only a small part of the
story of the sex relations of husbands and wives; and, be it said, a
_very_ small part of that, as will now be shown.

As has already been said, this use of the sex organs, merely to
produce progeny, and so insure a continuance of the race, is a quality
that mankind shares with all the rest of the animal kingdom. In all
essentials, so far as the material parts of the act are concerned, the
beginnings of the new life in the human family differ not a whit from
that of any other mammals. In each case the ovum is produced by the
ovaries of the female, passes into the womb, is there met by the semen
from the male, fertilized by the spermatozoa, and so the foetus gets
its start. This is the universal means by which the beginnings of all
animal reproductive life takes place.

But there is another phase in the sex life of human beings, which is
_entirely different_ from that of all other animals, and which must
therefore be considered beyond all that needs to be said regarding the
act of coitus for reproductive purposes only. This we are now ready to
consider and study.

Now in all animals, except human beings, the act of coitus is only