142 SEX 



year. The important point seems to be that 

 in mankind life is continued far beyond the 

 period of effective reproductivity, and that 

 there is an element of danger in this. The 

 waning of sexual desire after about fifty 

 must surely be regarded as normal, and the 

 fanning of its embers by artificial stimulation 

 as unnatural and possibly pathogenic. 



CHAPTER VII 



CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA 



The pathological side Pathological expressions of sex- 

 Seasons for pathological instability The work of 

 Freud General considerations. 



THE PATHOLOGICAL SIDE. Sex is the biological 

 condition of the love of lovers one of the 

 finest things in the world ; on the other hand 

 it yields the pathological condition of sexual 

 vice "corruptio optimi pessima" (that cor- 

 ruption of the best which is worst of all). 

 What can be usefully said, in a book like this, 

 regarding the seamy side of sex? It is not 

 useful to give samples from the infernal circle 

 of sex-diseases, to speak of the horrors of 

 the lock-hospital, or to tell of visits to 

 asylums. Yet it is not honest to ignore 

 the terrible pathology of sex, which is never 

 perhaps very far from any one of us. Nor 

 is it even safe to leave a fool's paradise 

 undisturbed. 



The facts do not seem to justify the fear 

 which some have expressed that a scientific 

 discussion of evils may suggest to the innocent 



