can scarcely be quoted too often:
"You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat: it sticks up a
little, here towards the left--'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten
it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent.
Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. Harder,
you say. Still no effect. Another stroke? Well, there is one, and another,
and another. The prominence remains, you see: the evil is as great as
ever--greater, indeed. But that is not all. Look at the warp which the
plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now
curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead of curing the original
defect we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practiced in
'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to
be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part. He
would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-adjusted
blows with a hammer elsewhere: so attacking the evil, not by direct, but
by indirect actions. The required process is less simple than you thought.
Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those
common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence. What, then,
shall we say about a society?... Is humanity more readily straightened
than an iron plate?" (_The Study of Sociology_, p. 270.)

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

The Significance of the Venereal Diseases--The History of Syphilis--The
Problem of Its Origin--The Social Gravity of Syphilis--The Social Dangers
of Gonorrhoea--The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating
Venereal Diseases--Causes of the Decay of the System of Police
Regulation--Necessity of Facing the Facts--The Innocent Victims of
Venereal Diseases--Diseases Not Crimes--The Principle of Notification--The
Scandinavian System--Gratuitous Treatment--Punishment for Transmitting
Venereal Diseases--Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal
Diseases--Lectures, Etc.--Discussion in Novels and on the Stage--The
"Disgusting" Not the "Immoral."

It may, perhaps, excite surprise that in the preceding discussion of
prostitution scarcely a word has been said of venereal diseases. In the
eyes of many people, the question of prostitution is simply the question
of syphilis. But from the psychological point of view with which we are
directly concerned, as from the moral point of view with which we