"Can men keep their health and strength as celibates till such time as
they have the means to marry?" is the question we have, then, to face.
Is the standard of the moral law possible to men who have to maintain a
high level of physical efficiency in the sharp competition of modern
life?

Primarily, the answer to this question must come from the acknowledged
heads of the medical profession. Now, I am thankful to say, we have in
England a consensus of opinion from the representative men of the
faculty that no one can gainsay. Sir James Paget, Acton in his great
text-book, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir George Humphrey, of Cambridge,
Professor Millar, of the Edinburgh University, Sir William Gowers,
F.R.S., have all answered the above question in the strongest
affirmative. "Chastity does no harm to body or mind; its discipline is
excellent; marriage may safely be waited for," are Sir James Paget's
terse and emphatic words[4]. Still more emphatic are the words of Sir
William Gowers, the great men's specialist, who counts as an authority
on the Continent as well as here:

"The opinions which on grounds falsely called 'physiological'
suggest or permit unchastity are terribly prevalent among young
men, but they are absolutely false. With all the force of any
knowledge I possess, and any authority I have, I assert that this
belief is contrary to fact; I assert that no man ever yet was in
the slightest degree or way the worse for continence or better for
incontinence. From incontinence during unmarried life all are worse
morally; a clear majority, are, in the end, worse physically; and
in no small number the result is, and ever will be, utter physical
shipwreck on one of the many rocks, sharp, jagged-edged, which
beset the way, or on one of the banks of festering slime which no