8 SEX 



(6) In others the repugnance comes from 

 the poetic and artistic side, and recalls to us 

 the warning tale of Amor and Psyche. Love, 

 they rightly say, is the most wonderful thing 

 in the world; to inquire into its mysterious 

 origins and pre-human analogues repels us. 

 Why thus dig at the roots of the Mystic Rose ? 

 Is there not risk of losing by scientific analysis 

 far more than one gains? Even the savage 

 mother very long ago preferred what she 

 sometimes still prefers her poetic fancy of 

 the child-spirit entering her womb from the 

 totem-ground, where desirable qualities of 

 strength, swiftness, endurance, and the like 

 were actualised or symbolised, to an acknow- 

 ledgment of the naked fact of physical 

 paternity ! To those who feel so strongly that 

 " love " is an artistic preserve a charmed 

 corner of the Earthly Paradise where science 

 is a trespasser, little can be said by us biolo- 

 gists. Unless it be this, that from their 

 position it is impossible to see one of the 

 biggest facts about " love ", namely its evolu- 

 tion. Perhaps this also, that when the steps 

 of the evolution of love are faced and climbed, 

 the poetic and spiritual possibilities are found 

 to be more assured than ever, since they 

 appear henceforth, not merely as the dreams 

 of the poet, but as the promise of the race. 

 And what are most dreams, after all, but 

 tendrils coarse and fine groping or feeling 

 after the hitherto unattained ? 



(c) For others the repugnance is more 

 intellectual and deliberate. To talk about sex, 

 they say, makes for morbid self-conscious- 

 ness, for indelicacy, even if not impurity. 



