en you have one) at its feet." On the other hand, the working girl in
the same town often complains that a man will not look at a girl unless
she is a "four-loom weaver," earning, that is, perhaps, 20s. or 25s. a
week.

[48] See the very interesting work of Alfred Espinas, _Des Societes
Animales_, which contains many fruitful suggestions for the student of
human sociology.

[49] The subtle and complex character of the sexual relationships in a
high civilization, and the unhappy results of their State regulation,
was well expressed by Wilhehm von Humboldt in his _Ideen zu einen
Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen_, so long
ago as 1792: "A union so closely allied with the very nature of the
respective individuals must be attended with the most hurtful
consequences when the State attempts to regulate it by law, or, through
the force of its institutions, to make it repose on anything save simple
inclination. When we remember, moreover, that the State can only
contemplate the final results of such regulations on the race, we shall
be still more ready to admit the justice of this conclusion. It may
reasonably be argued that a solicitude for the race only conducts to the
same results as the highest solicitude for the most beautiful
development of the inner man. For after careful observation it has been
found that the uninterrupted union of one man with one woman is most
beneficial to the race, and it is likewise undeniable that no other
union springs from true, natural, harmonious love. And further, it may
be observed that such love leads to the same results as those very
relations which law and custom tend to establish. The radical error
seems to be that the law commands; whereas such a relation cannot mould
itself according to external arrangements, but depends wholly on
inclination; and wherever coercion or guidance comes into collision with
inclination, they divert it still farther from the proper path.
Wherefore it appears to me that the State should not only loosen the
bonds in this instance, and leave ampler freedom to the citizen, but
that it should entirely withdraw its active solicitude from the
institution of marriage, and both generally and in its particular
modifications, should rather leave it wholly to the free choice of the
individuals, and the various contracts they may enter into with respect
to it. I should not be deterred from the adoption of this principle by
the fear that all f