ons, etc.

It almost appears as if there were but one _season_ for generation, that
in which the sun re-warms and vivifies the earth, trees dress in
verdure, and animals respire the soft breath of spring. Then every
living thing reanimates itself. The impulse of reproduction is excited.
Now, also, its gratification is most beneficial to the individual and to
the species. Children conceived in the spring time have greater
vitality, are less apt to die during infancy, than those conceived at
any other time of the year. The statistics of many thousand cases,
recently carefully collated in England, prove this beyond peradventure.
It is well known that a late calf, or one born at the end of the summer,
is not likely to become a well-developed and healthy animal. This has
been attributed to the chilling influence of approaching winter; but it
is capable of another and, perhaps, a truer explanation. Nature's
impulses, therefore, in the spring of the year are for the good of the
race, and may then be more frequently indulged without prejudice to the
individual. Summer is the season which agrees the least with the
exercise of the generative functions. The autumn months are the most
unfruitful. Then, also, derangements of the economy are readily excited
by marital intemperance.

The _temperaments_ exert over reproduction, as over all the other
functions of the body, a powerful influence. Love is said to be the
ruling passion in the sanguine temperament, as ambition is in the
bilious. There is also in some cases a peculiar condition of the nervous
system which impels to, or diverts from, sexual indulgence. In some
women, even in moderation, it acts as a poison, being followed by
headache and prostration, lasting for days.

With advancing years, the fading of sexual desire calls attention to the
general law, that animals and plants, when they become old, are dead to
reproduction. What in early life is followed by temporary languor, in
matured years is succeeded by a train of symptoms much graver and more
durable.

Those who are in feeble health, and particularly those who have delicate
chests, ought to be sober in the gratification of love. Sexual
intercourse has proved mortal after severe haemorrhages.

All organized beings are powerfully affected by propagation. Animals
become depressed and dejected after it. The flower which shines so
brilliantly at the moment of its amours, after the consummation of that
act, withers and