188 SEX 



refer rather to something deeper the fear 

 of moral disease. Just because man is highly 

 evolved, he is liable to many instabilities- 

 hells to match his heavens. It is a great pity 

 to lapse into self-indulgence, and a great pity 

 to buy sexual gratification ; but it is a greater 

 pity when a man becomes sexually obsessed, 

 when an evil habit grips his body and suborns 

 his will, when his mind becomes preoccupied 

 with obscene pictures and lustful purposes. 

 Without becoming morbid, then, it behoves 

 most of us men to entertain a wholesome 

 awareness of danger the kind of quality a 

 good climber has habitually. Fortunate in- 

 deed are those who always remain gentlemen 

 unafraid. 



But there is a higher argument than that 

 of fear, for every honest man knows that the 

 controlled life in all its paths is the more 

 efficient. " Behold the life of ease, it drifts ; 

 the sharpened life commands its course." 

 Self-restraint means struggle, but it is the 

 honourable life and it brings a reward of higher 

 happiness. Many an intellectual athlete has 

 got rid of his sex through his brain, as a French 

 saying has it. Fere, a leading authority on 

 sex-pathology and hygiene, denies categori- 

 cally that a man is ever hurt by continence, 

 and affirms that he is always the stronger. 

 This, at any rate, is certain : that a man will be 

 happier all his life if he can come to his wife 

 a passionate lover, with a clean record. 



It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 while anatomical chastity is a moral achieve- 

 ment, it is not the deepest virtue. The 

 incisive declaration : " Whosoever looketh on 



