THE STUDY OF SEX 13 



ence. The ranks of those who habitually 

 buy and sell sexual gratification are crowded. 

 Unnatural vices lurk in dark places. There 

 are many who have allowed their minds to 

 become unclean, who keep up the trade of 

 pornographic printing, or chew the cud of 

 filthy stories, whose thoughts are always 

 turning to the flesh and the lusts thereof, 

 who can hardly look at a woman without 

 becoming adulterous in heart. In many 

 men who are not unhealthy-minded there is 

 a selfish celibacy which postpones marriage 

 for the " assured position " that best helps 

 a man to life-ruin. In the old stories the 

 lover galloped boldly off with his lady ; but 

 nowadays the motor-car serves oftenest to 

 postpone the wife till love is past its youth. 

 On the other side, too, our modern wealth- 

 spirit fosters feminine selfishness, and spreads 

 that love of untaxed pleasure which shirks 

 maternity or minimises it. In too many 

 of the lives which prosperity has freed from 

 strain or struggle for existence, it seems as 

 if not only the lights of chivalry and romance 

 had gone out, but even of everyday affection 

 and courage also. 



WHAT SEX MAY COME TO MEAN. A study 

 of the past and the present should not be 

 without its suggestions of the possible. What 

 are the lines of change that seem feasible and 

 not too Utopian? (1) A gradual introduc- 

 tion of carefully thought-out sex-education, 

 differentiated for age and circumstances, is 

 likely to do much towards healthy-minded- 

 ness, towards lessening morbid brooding, 

 towards a wholesomer view of everything 



