It is something to recognize in
prudery an enemy that must be attacked, and to realize the measure of
its enmity. In the light of some little experience, perhaps a few
suggestions may be made to those who would in any way join in the
campaign for the education and transmutation of public opinion on these
matters.
First, we must compose ourselves with fundamental seriousness--with
that absolute gravity which imperils the publication of a book and
entirely prohibits the production of a play on such matters. There is
something in human nature beyond my explaining which leads towards
jesting in these directions. An instinct, I know, is an instinct; of
which a main character is that its exercise shall be independent of any
knowledge as to its purpose. We eat because we like eating, rather than
because we have reckoned that so many calories are required for a body
of such and such a weight, in such and such conditions of temperature
and pressure. It is not natural, so to say, just because man is in a
sense rather more than natural, that we should be provident and serious,
self-conscious, and philosophic, in dealing with our fundamental
instincts. But it is necessary, if we are to be human: and only in so
far as, "looking before and after," we transcend the usual conditions of
instinct, are we human at all.
The special risk run by those who would deal with these matters
seriously--or rather one of the risks--is that they will be suspected,
and may indeed be guilty, of a tendency to priggishness and cant.
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