IMPOTENCE.

tion, and impotence in another. They have inquired into all the imaginary in

I COMMENCE by this question, in fa-ventions to assist nature; and with the avowed object of distinguishing that which is allowable from that which is not, have exposed all which ought to remain veiled. It might be said of them-" Nox nocti indicat scientiam."

vour of the impotent-frigidi et maleficiati,' as they are denominated in the decretals-Is there a physician, or experienced person of any description, who can be certain that a well-formed young man, who has had no children by his wife, may not have them some day or other? Nature may know, but men can tell nothing about it. Since then it is impossible to decide that the marriage may not be consummated some time or other, why dissolve it?

Among the Romans, on the suspicion of impotence, a delay of two years was allowed, and in the Novels of Justinian three are required; but if in three years Nature may bestow capability, she may equally do so in seven, ten, or twenty.

Those called "maleficiati' by the ancients were often considered bewitched. These charms were very ancient, and as there were some to take away virility, so { there were others to restore it; both of which are alluded to in Petronius.

Above all, Sanchez has distinguished himself in collecting cases of conscience which the boldest wife would hesitate to submit to the most prudent of matrons. One query leads to another in almost endless succession, until at length a question of the most direct and extraordinary nature is put, as to the manner of the communication of the Holy Ghost with the Virgin Mary.

These extraordinary researches were never made by anybody in the world except theologians; and suits in relation to impotency were unknown until the days of Theodosius.

In the gospel, divorce is spoken of as allowable for adultery alone. The Jewish law permitted a husband to repudiate a wife who displeased him, without speciThis illusion lasted a long time amongfying the cause. "If she found no favour us, who exorcised instead of disenchant-in his eyes, that was sufficient." It is ing; and when exorcism succeeded not, the marriage was dissolved.

The canon law made a great question of impotence. Might a man who was prevented by sorcery from consummating his marriage, after being divorced and having children by a second wife-might such man, on the death of the latter wife, reject the first, should she lay claim to him? All the great canonists decided in the negative-Alexander de Nevo, Andrew Alberic, Turrecremata, Soto, and fifty more.

the law of the strongest, and exhibits human nature in its most barbarous garb. The Jewish laws treat not of impotence; it would appear, says a casuist, that God would not permit impotency to exist among a people who were to multiply like the sands on the sea-shore, and to whom he had sworn to bestow the immense country which lies between the Nile and Euphrates, and, by his prophets, to make lords of the whole earth. To fulfil these divine promises, it was necessary that every honest Jew should be It is impossible to help admiring the occupied without ceasing in the great sagacity displayed by the canonists, and work of propagation. There was cerabove all by the religious of irreproach-tainly a curse upon impotency; the time able manners, in their development of the mysteries of sexual intercourse. There is no singularity, however strange, on which they have not treated. They have discussed at length all the cases in which capability may exist at one time or situa

not having then arrived for the devout to make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.

Marriage in the course of time having arrived at the dignity of a sacrament and a mystery, the ecclesiastics insensibly be

came judges of all which took place between husband and wife, and not only so, but of all which did not take place.

being desirous of dethroning him, and marrying the infant Don Pedro his brother, was aware of the difficulty of wedWives possessed the liberty of present-ding two brothers in succession, after the ing a request to be embesognées-such known circumstance of consummation being our Gallic term, although the causes with the elder. The example of Henry were carried on in Latin. Clerks pleaded, VIII. of England intimidated her, and and priests pronounced judgment, and she embraced the resolution of causing the process was uniformly to decide two her husband to be declared impotent by points-whether the man was bewitched, the chapter of the cathedral of Lisbon; or the woman wanted another husband. after which she hastened to marry his brother, without even waiting for the dispensation of the pope.

What appears most extraordinary is, that all the canonists agree, that a husband whom a spell or charm has rendered The most important proof of capability impotent, cannot in conscience apply to required from persons accused of impoother charms or magicians to destroy it.tency, is that called " the congress." The This resembles the reasoning of the regu- President Bouhier says, that this combat larly-admitted surgeons, who having the in an inclosed field was adopted in France exclusive privilege of spreading a plaister, in the fourteenth century. And he asserts assure us that we shall certainly die if we that it is known in France only. allow ourselves to be cured by the hand which has hurt us. It might have been as well in the first place to inquire whe-cisely as people have imagined. It has ther a sorcerer can really operate upon the virility of another man. It may be added, that many weak-minded persons feared the sorcerer more than they confided in the exorcist. The sorcerer having deranged nature, holy water alone would not restore it.

This proof, about which so much noise has been made, was not conducted pre

been supposed that a conjugal consummation took place under the inspection of physicians, surgeons, and midwives, but such was not the fact. The parties went to bed in the usual manner, and at a proper time the inspectors, who were assembled in the next room, were called on to pronounce upon the case.

In the cases of impotency in which the devil took no part, the presiding ecclesi- In the famous process of the Marquis astics were not less embarrassed. We de Langeais, decided in 1659, he dehave, in the Decretals, the famous head {manded" the congress:" and owing to "De frigidas et maleficiatis," which is the management of his lady (Marie de St. very curious, but altogether uninforming. Simon) succeeded not, He demanded a The political use made of it is exempli- second trial, but the judges, fatigued with fied in the case of Henry IV. of Castile, the clamours of the superstitious, the who was declared impotent, while sur-plaints of the prudes, and the raillery of ounded by mistresses, and possessed of a wife by whom he had an heiress to the throne; but it was an archbishop of Toledo who pronounced this sentence, not the pope.

Alfonso, King of Portugal, was treated in the same manner, in the middle of the seventeenth century. This prince was known chiefly by his ferocity, debauchery, and prodigious strength of body. His brutal excesses disgusted the nation; and the queen his wife, a princess of Nemours,

the wits, refused it. They declared the marquis impotent, his marriage void, forbade him to marry again, and allowed his wife to take another husband. The marquis however disregarded this sentence, and married Diana de Navailles, by whom he had seven children!

His first wife being dead, the marquis appealed to the grand chamberlain against the sentence which had declared him impotent, and charged him with the costs. The grand chamberlain, sensible of the

ridicule applicable to the whole affair, ing to this jurisprudence, every king may confirmed his marriage with Diana de acquire the dominions of another, while Navailles, declared him most potent, re- incapable of losing any of his own. So fused him the costs, but abolished the that, in the end, each would be possessed ceremony of the congress altogether. of the property of somebody else. The The President Bouhier published a de-kings of France and England possess fence of the proof by congress, when it very little special domain: their genuine was no longer in use. He maintained, and more effective domain is the purses that the judges would not have committed of their subjects. the error of abolishing it, had they not been guilty of the previous error of refusing the marquis a second trial.

All the kings of Europe, who affect to imitate the emperors, have had their in-whole nation. alienable domain. Francis I., having effected his liberty by the cession of Burgundy, could find no other expedient to preserve it, than a state declaration, that Burgundy was inalienable; and was so fortunate as to violate both his honour and the treaty with impunity. AccordVOL. II.-66

as much as I believe it of the Athenians, the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. From the above it might be concluded, that it was common for children to marry with their fathers or mothers; whereas even the marriage of cousins is forbidden among the Guebres at this day, who are held to maintain the doctrines of their forefathers as scrupulously as the Jews.

INCUBUS.

HAVE there ever been incubi and cubi? Our learned jurisconsults and monologists admit both the one and other.

It is pretended that Satan, always the alert, inspires young ladies and p tlemen with heated dreams, and by a s of double process produces extraord consequences, which in point of fa to the birth of so many heroes and dat gods in ancient times.

The devil took a great deal of fluous trouble: he had only to lear young people alone, and the work

You will tell me, that everything is contradictory in this world; that it was forbidden by the Jewish law to marry two sisters, which was deemed a very indecent act, and yet Jacob married Rachel during the life of her elder sister Leah; and that this Rachel is evidently a type of the Roman Catholic and apos-be sufficiently supplied with heroes tolic church. You are doubtless right, out any assistance from him. but that prevents not an individual who An idea may be formed of incr sleeps with two sisters in Europe from the explanation of the great Deira being grievously censured. As to power-Boguets, and other writers learned ful and dignified princes, they may take sorcery; but they fail in their ac the sisters of their wives for the good of succubi. A female might pretend to a their states, and even their own sisters by lieve that she had communicated the same father and mother, if they think { and was pregnant by a god, the exp tion of Delrio being very favourab the assumption. The devil in this acts the part of an incubus, but ha formances as a succubus are more ceivable. The gods and goddesse antiquity acted much more nobly decorously: Jupiter in person, incubus of Alcmena and Semele; Ta

proper.

It is a far worse affair to have a commerce with a gossip or godmother, which was deemed an unpardonable offence by the capitularies of Charlemagne, being called a spiritual incest.

Venus of Anchises, without having course to the various contrivances of

One Andovere, who is called Queen of France, because she was the wife of a certain Chilperic, who reigned over Sois-in person, the succubus of Peleus sons, was stigmatised by ecclesiastical justice, censured, degraded, and divorced, for having borne her own child to the bap-extraordinary demonism. tismal font. It was a mortal sin, a sacrilege, a spiritual incest; and she thereby forfeited her marriage-bed and crown. This apparently contradicts what I have just observed, that everything in the way of love is permitted to the great, but then I spoke of present times, and not those of Andovere.

As to carnal incest, read the advocate Voglan, who would absolutely have any two cousins burned who fall into a weakness of this kind. The advocate Voglan is rigorous-the unmerciful Celt.

Let us simply observe, that the frequently disguised themselves, in pursuit of our girls, sometimes eagle, sometimes as a pigeon, a swati horse, a shower of gold; but the goddes assumed no disguise: they had only: show themselves, to please. It must! ever be presumed, that whatever shape gods assumed to steal a march, they summated their loves in the form of

As to the new manner of reade girls pregnant by the ministry of the it is not to be doubted, for the Sorbo decided the point in the 1318. year

"Per tales artes et ritus impios et invocationes et demonum, nullus unquam sequatur effectus ministerio demonum, error."

"It is an error to believe, that these magic arts and invocations of the devils are without effect."

This decision has never been revoked. Thus we are bound to believe in succubi and incubi, because our teachers have always believed in them.

INFINITY.

WHO will give me a clear idea of infinity? I have never had an idea of it which was not excessively confusedpossibly because I am a finite being.

What is that which is eternally going on without advancing-always reckoning without a sum total-dividing eternally without arriving at an indivisible particle?

There have been many other sages in It might seem as if the notion of infithis science, as well as the Sorbonne.nity formed the bottom of the bucket of Bodin, in his book concerning sorcerers, the Danaïdes.

dedicated to Christopher de Thou, first Nevertheless, it is impossible that infipresident of the parliament of Paris, re-nity should not exist. An infinite duralates that John Hervilier, a native of tion is demonstrable.

Verberie, was condemned by that parlia- The commencement of existence is ment to be burned alive for having pro-absurd; for nothing cannot originate stituted his daughter to the devil, a great black man, whose caresses were attended with a sensation of cold which appears to be very uncongenial to his nature; but our jurisprudence has always admitted the fact, and the prodigious number of sorcerers which it has burnt in consequence will always remain a proof of its accuracy.

The celebrated Picus of Mirandola (a prince never lies) says, he knew an old man of the age of eighty years who had slept half his life with a female devil, and another of seventy who enjoyed a similar felicity. Both were buried at Rome, but nothing is said of the fate of their children.

Thus is the existence of incubi and succubi demonstrated.

It is impossible, at least, to prove to the contrary; for if we are called on to believe that devils can enter our bodies, who can prevent them from taking kindred liberties with our wives and our daughters? And if there be demons, there are probably demonesses; for to be consistent, if the demons beget children on our females, it must follow that we effect the same thing on the demonesses.

Never has there been a more universal empire than that of the devil. What has dethroned him?-Reason.

something. When an atom exist, we must necessarily conclude that it has existed from all eternity; and hence an infinite duration rigorously demonstrated. But what is an infinite past?—an infinitude which I arrest in imagination whenever I please. Behold! I exclaim, an infinity passed away; let us proceed to another. I distinguish between two eternities, the one before, the other behind

me.

I

When however I reflect upon my words, perceive that I have absurdly pronounced the words "one eternity has passed away, and I am entering into another."

For at the moment that I thus talk, eternity endures, and the tide of time flows. Duration is not separable; and as something has ever been, something must ever be.

The infinite in duration, then, is linked to an uninterrupted chain. This infinite perpetuates itself, even at the instant that I say it is passed. Time begins and ends with me, but duration is infinite.

The infinite is here quickly formed without, however, our possession of the ability to form a clear notion of it.

We are told of infinite space-what is space? Is it a being, or nothing at all? If it is a being, what is its nature?