n, a common psychic tendency, which
is by no means confined to Anglo-Saxon lands, and is even more
well marked among the better educated in the merely literary
sense, than among the worse educated people. The aesthetic is
confused with the moral, and what arouses disgust is thus
regarded as immoral. In France the novels of Zola, the most
pedestrianally moralistic of writers, were for a long time
supposed to be immoral because they were often disgusting. The
same feeling is still more widespread in England. If a
prostitute is brought on the stage, and she is pretty,
well-dressed, seductive, she may gaily sail through the play and
every one is satisfied. But if she were not particularly pretty,
well-dressed, or seductive, if it were made plain that she was
diseased and was reckless in infecting others with that disease,
if it were hinted that she could on occasion be foul-mouthed, if,
in short, a picture were shown from life--then we should hear
that the unfortunate dramatist had committed something that was
"disgusting" and "immoral." Disgusting it might be, but, on that
very account, it would be moral. There is a distinction here that
the psychologist cannot too often point out or the moralist too
often emphasize.

It is not for the physician to complicate and confuse his own task as
teacher by mixing it up with considerations which belong to the spiritual
sphere. But in carrying out impartially his own special work of
enlightenment he will always do well to remember that there is in the
adolescent mind, as it has been necessary to point out in a previous
chapter, a spontaneous force working on the side of sexual hygiene. Those
who believe that the adolescent mind is merely bent on sensual indulgence
are not less false and mischievous in their influence than are those who
think it possible and desirable for adolescents to be preserved in sheer
sexual ignorance. However concealed, suppressed, or deformed--usually by
the misplaced and premature zeal of foolish parents and teachers--there
arise at puberty ideal impulses which, even though they may be rooted in
sex, yet in their scope transcend sex. These are capable of becoming far
more potent guides of the physical sex impulse than are merely material or
even hygienic considerations.

It is time to summarize and conclude this discussion of the prevention of
venereal disease, which, though it