Note 139 — Chapter XLI · CELIBACY

Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 209 sqq. This is in my opinion a more natural explanation than the one suggested by Sir J. G. Frazer, namely, that uncivilised man imagines “that the vigour which he refuses to expend in reproducing his own kind, will form as it were a store of energy whereby other creatures, whether vegetable or animal, will somehow benefit in propagating their species.” This theory entirely fails to account for the fact that illicit love, by preference, is supposed to mar the fertility of the earth and to blight the crops—a belief which is in full accordance with my own explanation, in so far as such love is considered particularly polluting.