iness life of to-day, and our
political life. You become sterile, you make anarchy inevitable. And
so there you are. You have got to base your great purposive activity
upon the intense sexual fulfillment of all your individuals. That was
how Egypt endured. But you have got to keep your sexual fulfillment
even then subordinate, just subordinate to the great passion of
purpose: subordinate by a hair's breadth only: but still, by that
hair's breadth, subordinate.

Perhaps we can see now a little better--to go back to the child--where
Freud is wrong in attributing a sexual motive to all human activity.
It is obvious there is no real sexual motive in a child, for example.
The great sexual centers are not even awake. True, even in a child of
three, rudimentary sex throws strange shadows on the wall, in its
approach from the distance. But these are only an uneasy intrusion
from the as-yet-uncreated, unready biological centers. The great
sexual centers of the hypogastric plexus, and the immensely powerful
sacral ganglion are slowly prepared, developed in a kind of prenatal
gestation during childhood before puberty. But even an unborn child
kicks in the womb. So do the great sex-centers give occasional blind
kicks in a child. It is part of the phenomenon of childhood. But we
must be most careful not to charge these rather unpleasant apparitions
or phenomena against the individual boy or girl. We must be _very_
careful not to drag the matter into mental consciousness. Shoo it
away. Reprimand it with a pah! and a faugh! and a bit of contempt. But
do not get into any heat or any fear. Do not startle a passional
attention. Drive the whole thing away like the shadow it is, and be
_very_ careful not to drive it into the consciousness. Be very careful
to plant no seed of burning shame or horror. Throw over it merely the
cold water of contemptuous indifference, dismissal.

After puberty, a child may as well be told the simple and necessary
facts of sex. As things stand, the parent may as well do it. But
briefly, coldly, and with as cold a dismissal as possible.--"Look
here, you're not a child any more; you know it, don't you? You're
going to be a man. And you know what that means. It means you're going
to marry a woman later on, and get children. You know it, and I know
it. But in the meantime, leave yourself alone. I know you'll have a
lot of bother with yourself, and your feelings. I know what is
happening to you. And I know you get