that people lose their innocence. The Japanese have had much experience
of this within fifty years.

+603. Chinese religion and mores.+ For contrast it may be worth while to
notice the evidence collected by Schallmeyer[1954] that the specifically
Chinese religions are free from all immoral notions and usages. Indeed
the Chinese religions are said to be hostile to indecency. Meadows is
quoted as saying that any sentence of the canonical writings of China
could be read in any English family without offense, and that there is
nothing in Chinese religious rites resembling the immoral rites which
are met with elsewhere. Chinese lyric poetry is said to be pure.

+604. Philosophy of interest in reproduction. Incest.+ Some reserve in
regard to the interpretation of myths is proper and necessary, but the
absorbing interest of sex production for man, after he begins to depend
upon it and cooperate with it for his food supply, is a product of the
study of myths which may be accepted with confidence. That interest was
no more sensual than interest in the rainfall, and the mythologizing
about it was no more depraved than mythologizing about creation or
language. Men were sure to apply all which they learned about
reproduction in food plants and animals to their own reproduction. If
Chaldean civilization goes back five or six thousand years before
Christ, then the Chaldeans had had ample time, even before Hammurabi, to
experience the evils of overpopulation and of sex vice. In the Chaldean
mythology Ishtar, goddess of all sex attraction and repulsion, destroyed
all the lovers whom she selected. She had the double character, which
appears in all myths and philosophy, of sex license and sex renunciation
together. She was a goddess of the mother family and polyandric.[1955]
The two policies, sex license and sex renunciation, were both advocated
at the same time in the early centuries of the Christian era and in the
Middle Ages. Men found out that the problem of reproduction for them was
far more complicated than the multiplication of dates to the utmost
limit. At this point of knowledge instinctive or intelligent regulations
had to be put on physical appetites. For primitive men the reproductive
function is as simple a function as eating or sleeping. It is not in
itself wicked or base. It is naive until knowledge comes. Then it is
found that rules must be made to regulate the interest. If there are
rules, there is the sense of wrongdoin