196 SEX 



better than the pairing of the lower plant 

 sort which is the ideal of the mariage de 

 convenance. Second, because mating, physi- 

 cal and psychic, can only be full and true 

 when it is permanent that is, when it goes on 

 evolving throughout the lives it intertwines. 



We have taken one instance of the need 

 for a revision, or at any rate rethinking, 

 of social judgments, and within our limits it 

 must serve. But the reconsideration must be 

 extended to other cases, sometimes perhaps 

 confirming, sometimes perhaps modifying, 

 current views. Confirming, for instance, the 

 sanctity of marriage, for even apart from 

 the claims and bonds of offspring and of 

 society, the biological and psychic ideal is 

 of permanent monogamy; the "primitive 

 promiscuity " of which we used to hear so 

 much being in the main an ugly dream, a 

 disease-utopia of city degeneration under 

 domestication, and probably not at any place 

 or time a phase in the main line of human 

 evolution. 



In the reconsideration which is being 

 forced upon us, three principles must be kept 

 in mind : (1) Sex is a cardinal fact of life 

 and one of the prime movers of progress. It 

 has been well said that " there is gold and 

 clay, sunlight and savagery, in every love- 

 story." To increase the proportions of gold 

 and sunlight is a task set all of us. (2) A 

 sexually vicious habit of mind and body is 

 something far more evil and destructive than 

 is any single or even occasional lapse in 

 temptation. (3) Irregularities in sexual be- 

 haviour or conduct have to be judged not 



