e situation as though men and women were _mere
animals! Men and women are far more than mere animals, and God hath
made them so_! And for these reasons we will have respect for men and
women as _God has made them_, rather than as Dr. C. and the "purity
leagues" say God _should_ have made them!

As a matter of fact, the secondary function of sex in the human family
is something _far above_ mere animality; it is something that mere
animals know nothing about, that they can never experience, or in any
way attain to, and these _fundamental differences_ in the premises
remove the whole issue from the realm of comparison with any forms or
functions of mere animal life. As well reason that animals never eat
cooked food, and so men ought never to eat cooked food (and there are
some people who do so reason, strange to say) or that animals do
not wear clothes, and so men ought not to wear clothes--as well make
these, or a score more of comparisons, between the human race and mere
animals, as to try to compare them in the item of their sex functions.

In only the single fact that, on the physical plane merely, coitus
for the purpose of procreation is common to all animal life, mankind
included, is there a point of comparison between humanity and the
brute creation. _Beyond that point there is nothing comparable between
the two_! As well say that because beasts can hear, therefore they
can comprehend and enjoy a Beethoven Sonata, or because they have eyes
they can delight in a picture by Corot!

This is only another way of saying that sex has functions and uses in
the human family that are entirely apart from the possibilities of all
other animal life--functions as much above mere animality as music is
above mere physical hearing, as painting above mere physical sight.

These facts forever upset and overthrow all the theories of Dr. C. and
Co., they entirely eliminate the whole bunch from any part or lot in
the issue on which they have essayed to speak with such authority,
but whose main point, whose essential elements they have _entirely
misunderstood_, and hence have treated in a way that is wholly at
variance with the truth in the premises, and it is the truth that we
are looking for.

Once more (for it is well to go to the bottom of this matter while we
are about it) the honest truth is, that _it is the universal practice
of the human race for men and women to cohabit for other purposes than
reproduction, and it has always