nt lying ever in wait to betray
him; and there arrived a moment in the history of every race, and of
every representative religion, when the sexual rites and ceremonies of
the older time lost their naive and quasi-innocent character and became
afflicted with a sense of guilt and indecency. This extraordinarily
interesting and dramatic moment in human evolution was of course that in
which self-consciousness grew powerful enough to penetrate to the centre
of human vitality, the sanctumof man's inner life, his sexual instinct,
and to deal it a terrific blow--a blow from which it has never yet
recovered, and from which indeed it will not recover, until the very
nature of man's inner life is changed.

It may be said that it was very foolish of Man to deny and to try
to expel a perfectly natural and sensible thing, a necessary and
indispensable part of his own nature. And that, as far as I can see, is
perfectly true. But sometimes it is unavoidable, it would seem, to do
foolish things--if only to convince oneself of one's own foolishness.
On the other hand, this policy on the part of Man was certainly very
wise--wiser than he knew--for in attempting to drive out Sex (which of
course he could not do) he entered into a conflict which was bound
to end in the expulsion of SOMETHING; and that something was the
domination, within himself, of self-consciousness, the very thing which
makes and ever has made sex detestable. Man did not succeed in driving
the snake out of the Garden, but he drove himself out, taking the real
old serpent of self-greed and self-gratification with him. When some day
he returns to Paradise this latter will have died in his bosom and been
cast away, but he will find the good Snake there as of old, full of
healing and friendliness, among the branches of the Tree of Life.

Besides it is evident from other considerations that this moment of the
denial of sex HAD to come. When one thinks of the enormous power of this
passion, and its age-long, hold upon the human race, one realizes that
once liberated from the instinctive bonds of nature, and backed by a
self-conscious and self-seeking human intelligence it was on the way to
become a fearful curse.

A monstrous Eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth;
For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran.

And this may have been all very well and appropriate in the
carboniferous Epoch, but WE in the end of Time have no desire to fall
under any