overcoming of selfish desire for sexual satisfaction decreases the
chances of real hygienic reform. It would even be an inexcusable
hypocrisy of the medical profession if, with its consent, one group of
specialists behave as if sexual abstinence were the bodily ideal,
while thousands of no less conscientious physicians in the world,
especially those concerned with nervous diseases, feel again and again
obliged to advise sexual intercourse for their patients. We know
to-day, even much better than ten years ago, how many serious
disturbances result from the suppression of normal sexual life. The
past has shown, moreover, that when society succeeded in spreading
alarm and in decreasing prostitution by fear, the result was such a
rapid increase of perversion and nerve-racking self-abuse that after a
short while the normal ways were again preferred as the lesser evil.

And the reformers will need a second limitation of their efforts. They
cannot hope for success as long as they fancy that reasoning and
calculation and sober balancing of dangers and joys, of injuries and
advantages, can ever be the decisive factor of progress. They ought
not to forget that as soon as this whole problem is brought down to a
mere considering of consequences by the individual, their eugenic
hopes may be cruelly shaken. However distressing it is to say it
frankly, by mere appeal to reason we shall not turn many girls from
the way which leads to prostitution, nor many boys from the
anticipation of married life. The girl in the factory, who hesitates
between the hard work at the machine for the smallest pay, without
pleasures, and the easy money of the street, with an abundance of fun,
may in the regrettable life of prosaic reality balance the
consequences very differently from the moralist. She has discovered
that the ideal of virtue is not so highly valued in her circles as in
the middle classes. The loss of her virtue is not such a severe
hindrance in her life, and even if she yields for a while to earn her
extra money in indecent ways, the chances are great that she may
remain more attractive to a possible future husband from her set than
if she lived the depressing life of grief and deprivation. The
probability of her marrying and becoming the mother in a decent family
home may be greater than on the straighter path. It is, of course,
extremely sad that reality takes such an immoral way, but just here is
the field where the reformers ought t