SEX AND THE INDIVIDUAL 191 



disciplined social groups, they will one day be very 

 largely prevented. An intelligent self-discipline is 

 all that is necessary to bring about a result of such 

 incalculable value to the race. What human beings 

 need more than all else is discipline and control over 

 their faculties, and whatever makes for this makes 

 for civilization. But in the case of the passion whose 

 gratification is an automatic and frenzied act, the 

 reassertion of cortical control is very difficult when 

 this control has become enfeebled or lost. And 

 this is particularly true of imaginative and highly 

 sensuous temperaments. The cortical control essen- 

 tial to avoid evil consequences does not come neces- 

 sarily nor merely from knowledge. It is notorious 

 that a conventional and superficial familiarity with 

 physiology in itself brings no accession of sexual 

 morality, but it is on the contrary liable to inspire 

 contempt for the instinctive self-restraint often 

 practiced by the uninformed. What is especially 

 needed is the will to practice sufficient self-restraint 

 to avoid incurring the risk of bringing evil conse- 

 quences to others, and this obviously depends mainly 

 upon good feeling and a realization that the sex in- 

 stinct should serve a far more serious purpose than 

 mere sensual gratification. 



There is one road by which, more surely than by 

 any other, human beings can attain to a higher level 

 of sexual morality. This is through a betterment 

 in the attitude of women toward the ideals or 

 lack of ideals harbored by men. As the sex 



