262 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



even the rudest manifestations of sex are suppressed 

 from the chisel pictures and the color pictures with a 

 thoroughness that would win the praise of the Puri- 

 tan rulers of a New England town. And much the 

 same holds true at the Ptolemaic time, when Cleo- 

 patral forms obtrude themselves on temple walls, 

 and the birth houses picture each stage in the drama 

 of a human childbirth. There is little to show that 

 the artist's mind had grasped more than the mechan- 

 ical and obvious aspects of the sex power. Only 

 rarely do sculptured scenes occur that suggest that 

 the love of man and wife, or of parent and child, is 

 one of the great human forces to be reckoned with. 

 In the days of Greco-Egyptian, Greek, or Roman art 

 sculpture served better than painting to record the 

 charm of sex, and it was not until the days of the 

 Renaissance that gifted painters, yielding to the 

 gentle lead of Christian tradition, gave themselves, 

 at least in part, to the congenial task of portraying 

 the adoration of the Sacred Mother for her child. 



The immense popularity of the Madonna and her 

 child has its real basis in the awakening of that 

 human sympathy which springs from the love of 

 offspring, and it is a pity that the legend of the birth 

 of Christ should have been marred by the useful but 

 unbiological myth of the immaculate conception. 

 It is not surprising that the weaknesses of the story, 

 now so obvious to the students of science, should 

 have been overlooked by the multitudes who turned 

 for comfort from the harsh, inhuman attitude of 



