ods
upon which we rely for the expression of thought require preliminary
study in those whom nature has made poets, musicians or painters, is
it not obvious that, in order, to be happy, it is necessary to be
initiated into the secrets of pleasure? All men experience the craving
for reproduction, as all feel hunger and thirst; but all are not
called to be lovers and gastronomists. Our present civilization has
proved that taste is a science, and it is only certain privileged
beings who have learned how to eat and drink. Pleasure considered as
an art is still waiting for its physiologists. As for ourselves, we
are contented with pointing out that ignorance of the principles upon
which happiness is founded, is the sole cause of that misfortune which
is the lot of all the predestined.

It is with the greatest timidity that we venture upon the publication
of a few aphorisms which may give birth to this new art, as casts have
created the science of geology; and we offer them for the meditation
of philosophers, of young marrying people and of the predestined.

CATECHISM OF MARRIAGE.

XXVII.
Marriage is a science.

XXVIII.
A man ought not to marry without having studied anatomy, and dissected
at least one woman.

XXIX.
The fate of the home depends on the first night.

XXX.
A woman deprived of her free will can never have the credit of making
a sacrifice.

XXXI.
In love, putting aside all consideration of the soul, the heart of a
woman is like a lyre which does not reveal its secret, excepting to
him who is a skillful player.

XXXII.
Independently of any gesture of repulsion, there exists in the soul of
all women a sentiment which tends, sooner or later, to proscribe all
pleasure devoid of passionate feeling.

XXXIII.
The interest of a husband as much as his honor forbids him to indulge
a pleasure which he has not had the skill to make his wife desire.

XXXIV.
Pleasure being caused by the union of sensation and sentiment, we can
say without fear of contradiction that pleasures are a sort of
material ideas.