a presentation of the wider scheme
of social reform out of which the more special sex studies have
developed. We are faced to-day by the need for vast and complex changes
in social organization. In these changes the welfare of individuals and
the welfare of communities are alike concerned. Moreover, they are
matters which are not confined to the affairs of this nation or of that
nation, but of the whole family of nations participating in the
fraternity of modern progress.

The word "progress," indeed, which falls so easily from our lips is not
a word which any serious writer should use without precaution. The
conception of "progress" is a useful conception in so far as it binds
together those who are working for common ends, and stimulates that
perpetual slight movement in which life consists. But there is no
general progress in Nature, nor any unqualified progress; that is to
say, that there is no progress for all groups along the line, and that
even those groups which progress pay the price of their progress. It was
so even when our anthropoid ancestors rose to the erect position; that
was "progress," and it gained us the use of hands. But it lost us our
tails, and much else that is more regrettable than we are always able to
realize. There is no general and ever-increasing evolution towards
perfection. "Existence is realized in its perfection under whatever
aspect it is manifested," says Jules de Gaultier. Or, as Whitman put it,
"There will never be any more perfection than there is now." We cannot
expect an increased power of growth and realization in existence, as a
whole, leading to any general perfection; we can only expect to see the
triumph of individuals, or of groups of individuals, carrying out their
own conceptions along special lines, every perfection so attained
involving, on its reverse side, the acquirement of an imperfection. It
is in this sense, and in this sense only, that progress is possible. We
need not fear that we shall ever achieve the stagnant immobility of a
general perfection.

The problems of progress we are here concerned with are such as the
civilized world, as represented by some of its foremost individuals or
groups of individuals, is just now waking up to grapple with. No doubt
other problems might be added, and the addition give a greater semblance
of completion to this book. I have selected those which seem to me very
essential, very fundamental. The questions of social hygiene, as