rience; and of these it is the former
that, as a rule, determines to prostitution. Every kind of moral and
intellectual looseness and dullness can, for the most part, be traced
to this cause. At all events it is the strongest among many. Not alone
for the prostitute's sake must this subject be seriously approached,
but for society's sake as well. As things stand with us at present,
moral sensitiveness has a poor chance of being cultivated, and those
who realise that this is the case are still very few. Women have yet
to learn the responsibilities of love, not only in regard to their
duties of child-bearing and child-rearing, but in its personal bearing
on their own sexual needs and the needs of men. I believe that the
degradation of our legitimate love-relationships is the ultimate cause
of prostitution, to which all other causes are subsidiary.

If we look now at the position for a moment from the other side--the
man's side--a very difficult question awaits us. It is a question that
women must answer. What is the real need of the prostitute on the part
of men? This demand is present everywhere under civilisation; what are
its causes? and how far are these likely to be changed? Now it is easy
to bring forward answers, such as the lateness of marriage, difficulty
of divorce, and all those social and economic causes which may be
grouped together and classed as "lack of opportunity of legitimate
love." Without question these causes are important, but, like the
economic factor which drives women into prostitution, they are not
fundamental; they are also remediable. They do not, however, explain
the fact, which all know, that the prostitute is sought out by
numberless men who have ample opportunity of unpriced love with other
women. Here we have a preference for the prostitute, not the
acceptance of her as a substitute taken of necessity. It is, of
course, easy to say that such preference is due to the lustful nature
of the male. There was a time when I accepted this view--it is,
without doubt, a pleasant and a flattering one for women. I have
learnt the folly of such shallow condemnations of needs I had not
troubled to understand. Possibly no woman can quite get to the truth
here; but at least I have tried to see facts straight and without
feminine prejudice.

This is what seems to me to be the explanation.

We have got to recognise that there are primitive instincts of
tremendous power, which, held in check by our dull