er's time, for instance--would evidently have
been regarded as a species of rude joke, should now be deemed one of
the most serious of crimes."[929]

"When a sexual act, from whatever cause, is not, and cannot be,
productive of offspring, the feeling of the majority has no _locus
standi_ in the matter. Not only is it properly outside the sphere of
coercion, but it does not concern morality at all. It is a question
simply of individual taste. The latter may be good or bad, but this is
an aesthetic, and not directly a moral or social question."[930] "No
social and secular argument readily presents itself against the act
for which the brilliant and wretched Wilde is to-day the associate of
felons. In view of the exclamations of bated horror over this offence,
and the tacit assumption that it stands second only to murder in its
enormity, it may be worth while to point out that, tested by a
non-theological ethic, it is not quite certain that such practices are
immoral at all."[931] "It has been well said that there are few laws
so futile as those that profess to seek out and punish acts--normal or
abnormal--done in secret and by mutual consent between adult persons.
There are also few laws more unjust when the acts thus branded by law
are the natural outcome of inborn disposition and not directly
injurious to the community at large. The Moltke-Harden case brings
these considerations clearly before us afresh, and compels us to ask
ourselves whether it would not be possible to amend our laws in the
direction not only of social purity and sincerity but of reason and
humanity."[932]

The "social purity" of Socialism would be the purity of Sodom and
Gomorrah. It would be unrestricted bestiality.

The majority of Socialists who have seriously considered the marriage
problem in the Socialist State of the future--Marx, Lassalle,
Rodbertus, and others, consider only the economic problems--have
pronounced themselves in favour of free love in some form or the
other. In this the conclusions of the Socialists agree with those of
the Anarchists.[933] Indeed, "collective" marriage and other
abominations have been freely practised during a long time in the
Socialist colonies of North America, such as Oneida and
Wallingsford.[934] Some Socialist thinkers, such as Saint-Simon and
Enfantin, following the footstep of Plato, condemn marriage for life
and recommend the organisation of procreation by the State. Others,
such as Fourier, favour