THE ETHICS OF SEX 187 



indecent pictures, or read lascivious passages, 

 or hear ugly stories, which remain with them 

 as pestilential memories. In such cases we 

 must try to bear the unwholesome impressions 

 out in a swift current of joyous adventure. 

 And if they sink as foul things will, and rise 

 worse than ever to the surface again, we must 

 change the subject persistently, and do some- 

 thing active. But should they still persist, 

 as they sometimes do, like blots in the brain, 

 we must look at them fair and square, and 

 squeeze the life out of them by understanding 

 them and something of the unwelcome phy- 

 siological power they have over us. As long as 

 anything mysterious remains, they will return 

 to us or we to them ; so it may be helpful in 

 obdurate cases to read up some thoroughly 

 scientific book, such as Marshall's Physiology 

 of Reproduction, and get a clean, clear view of 

 the facts. But to read pathological literature 

 because of some obsession is, we believe, the 

 worst possible expedient. 



CLEAN LIVING. Most men with a sense of 

 veracity will agree in confessing that the way 

 of absolutely normal sex-experience is a very 

 narrow way. Most have reason to fear, even 

 when they are old enough to have learned 

 wisdom. Even marriage may sink into mono- 

 gamic prostitution. It is only a very perfect 

 love that casts out all fear. 



It is well-known that purchase of sexual 

 gratification may be punished by disease by 

 gonorrhoea which may end in sterility, or by 

 syphilis which may end in general paralysis 

 many years afterwards. In these conse- 

 quences there is much to fear. But we would 



