CHAPTER XVIIIToC
SEXUAL LIFE IN ART
The Genesis of Art.—Art represents in a harmonious form the movements of our sentimental life. The phylogeny of art is still very obscure; Darwin attributes it to sexual attraction, through the efforts made by one sex to attract the other; but his arguments have never convinced me.[15]
Aristotle recognized in art the principles of representation of the beautiful and of imitation. Karl Groos, of Giessen, refutes Darwin's hypothesis, and upholds the principle of the representation of self by sensations which relate to the subject, thus giving a tangible object to corresponding internal emotions (among animals, for example, the pleasure of hearing their own voice).[16]
The motor instinct and the movements executed in play seem to be among the most primitive autonomous creators of art. Similar play is observed in ants. In man, Groos attributes a considerable role to religious ecstasy and ecstasy in general, in the genesis of art. "Since its object is to excite the sentiments, it is obvious that art utilizes from the first the domain which is richest in emotional sensations, that is the sexual domain." He shows at the same time that erotic subjects have a much more general and definite importance in highly developed art than in what we know of primitive art.
Groos is certainly right, for primitive eroticism was too coarse and sensual, too exclusively tactile to affect the mind as deeply and with such gradations of symphony as is the case with civilized man. This reason alone seems to me sufficient to support Groos' view, which is also confirmed by the fact that primitive works of art contain very few erotic subjects.
The more delicate art becomes the better it acts. The intensity of its action depends, however, more especially on the power with which it moves our feelings. Art requires discord, not only in music, but elsewhere, in order to act more strongly on the human emotions by the effect of contrast. In describing the ugly it awakens desire for the beautiful. Art should be spontaneous and exuberant with the truth of conviction; it should be free from mannerism and all dogmatism, intellectual or moral. The positive æsthetic sentiment, or sentiment of beauty is very relative, and depends essentially on the phylogenetic adaptation of the human sentiments, as well as on individual habits and popular customs. The odor of manure is no doubt pleasant to a farm laborer, but it is unpleasant to us. The male invert finds man more beautiful than woman. A savage or a peasant regards as beautiful what a cultured man considers ugly. The music of Wagner or Chopin is tiresome to a person with no musical education or ear, while a melomaniac goes into raptures over it.
Erotic Art.—It is quite natural that the chord whose vibrations influence the most powerful human emotion—sexual love—has an infinite variety of vibrations in all forms of art. Music gives expression to the sexual sensations and their psychic irradiations by tones representing desire, passion, joy, sadness, deception, despair, sacrifice, ecstasy, etc.
In sculpture and painting it is love in all its shades which furnishes the inexhaustible theme; but it is in the domain of literature that love celebrates its triumphs, and often also its orgies. The novels and dramas in which it plays no part could be easily counted. I am not referring only to common novelettes, nor to those pot-house dramas which, in spite of repeating continually the same sentimental motives, always succeed in arousing the uncultivated sentiments of the masses. The greatest art aims at representing tragic, refined and complex conflicts of the human sexual sentiments and their irradiations, so as to awaken emotion by causing vibrations in the deepest chords of the human mind. Among poets and authors I may mention Shakespere, Schiller, Goethe, de Musset, Heine, Gotthelf, and de Maupassant; among musicians, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Loewe; among painters, Titian, Murillo, Boecklin; and sculptors such as those of the ancient Greeks or the modern French school.
Art and pure intellect do not form an antinomy; they are associated together in the human mind as thought and sentiment, each preserving its own, though relative, independence. Every artistic representation requires an intellectual foundation, in the same way as every sentiment is connected with ideas. The artist takes his subjects from the external world, from life, and from the events of all ages. He also utilizes the progress of science for the mechanism of his art. But, to transform the material into a complete picture, with a unity of action, where the different sentiments harmonize; to transform the work of art into a symbol of something human; to make the whole work speak to every mind capable of comprehending it, all this can only be the work of a great artist with creative genius.
Art and Morality.—True art is in itself neither moral nor immoral. Here we can well say—to the pure everything is pure. In the mirror of an impure mind, every work of art may appear as a pornographic caricature, while to the high-minded it is the incarnation of the noblest ideal. The fault is not with art and its products, but with nature and the peculiarities of many human brains, which deform everything they perceive, so that the most beautiful works of art only awaken in their pornographic minds cynical sexual images.
Art and Pornography.—After having enunciated the preceding fundamental principles, we must examine the following facts, which have a special importance for the question with which we are dealing. Under the banner of art are grouped a number of human enterprises which are far from deserving this honor. There are few great artists, but thousands of charlatans and plagiarists. Many of those who have never had the least idea of the dignity of art, pander to the lower instincts of the masses and not to their best sentiments. In this connection, erotic subjects play a sad and powerful part. Nothing is too filthy to be used to stimulate the base sensuality of the public. Frivolous songs, licentious novels and plays, obscene dances, pornographic pictures, all without any trace of artistic merit, speculate on the erotic instinct of the masses in order to obtain their money.
In these brothels of art, the most obscene vice is glorified, even pathological. Unfortunately, this obscenity spoils the taste of the public and destroys all sense of true and noble art. At the bottom of all this degeneration of the sentiment of art and its products in the sexual domain, we always find on close examination, corruption by money and brutalism by alcohol. I say advisedly, the sentiment of art and the products of art, for it is not sufficient for true artists to create their masterpieces, it is also necessary for them to find an echo in the public, and be understood by them. The two phenomena go hand in hand, as supply and demand. When the sentiment of art is low among the public, the quality of the artistic production is also low, and inversely. Professor Behrens, director of the Industrial School of Art at Dusseldorf, is in complete accord with me in the debasing effect of alcohol on the artistic sentiment. (Alkohol und Kunst.)
After establishing these facts, we return to the fundamental but delicate question: How is true erotic art to be distinguished from the pornographic? While certain ascetic and fanatical preachers of morality would burn and destroy all the erotic creations of art under the pretext that they are pornographic, other disciples of decadence defend the most ignoble pornography under the shield of art.
I will cite two examples which have already been mentioned previously (Chapter XIII). In a very primitive and bigoted region of the Tyrol, certain undraped, but very innocent, statues of women were erected in the streets. Feeling their modesty deeply wounded, and regarding the representation of the natural human body as a great inducement to misconduct, the peasants of the district broke up these statues. The same with the captain of police at Zurich, who made himself notorious by ordering the removal of the picture by Boecklin, entitled "The Sport of the Waves," regarding the two mermaids in the picture as a danger to the morality and virtue of the citizens of Zurich!
I designate by the term charlatanism, everything which consists in decorating or covering by the term art, all possible perversions of pornography, often pathological. Persons of artistic nature, dominated by emotional sentiments, will no doubt be excused for being often overexcited to a more or less pathological degree, for executing all kinds of fantastic vagaries in their sexual life, and for being capricious and excessive in love. These things are almost inseparable from the artistic temperament. But the systematic education of pornography, and the sexual orgies which are cynically made public, go decidedly beyond what is licit, and cannot be included in the scope of art without degrading it. The individual and pathological failings of artists and the eccentricities to which they often become victims, must not be confounded with art and its products.
On the other hand, we often find eroticism hidden where we should least expect it, for instance in certain books for the edification of the pious. Here also it does not fail to produce its effect, although old maids and pious families place these books in their libraries and recommend them as proper reading. It has been said with reason, that "what is improper in the nudity of a statue is the fig-leaf and not what is underneath." It is, in fact, these fig-leaves—sculptured, painted, written or spoken—which awaken lewdness rather than deaden it. By drawing attention to what they conceal, they excite sensuality much more than simple nudity. In short, the eroticism which plays at hide and seek is that which acts with greatest intensity. The directors of ballets and other similar spectacles know this only too well, and arrange accordingly.
I have seen at the Paris Exposition an Arab woman perform the erotic dance called the "danse du ventre," in which the various movements of coitus are imitated by movements of the hips and loins. I do not think, however, that this pantomime, as cynical as it is coarse, produces on the spectators such an erotic effect as the décolleté costumes of society ladies, or even certain amorous scenes of religious ecstasy in words or pictures (vide Chapter XII). As the "danse du ventre" was produced under the head of ethnology, it was witnessed by society ladies without their being in the least degree wounded in their sentiments of modesty! It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit between art and pornography. I will attempt to give an example.
In his novels and romances, Guy de Maupassant has given perhaps the finest and most true descriptions which exist of the psychology of love and the sexual appetite. Although he has depicted the most ticklish sexual situations, often most recherché, we can say that with few exceptions he has not written in a pornographic spirit. His descriptions are profound and true, and he does not attempt to make attractive what is ugly and immoral, although he cannot be blamed for moralizing.
We have seen that the old hypocritical eroticism consisted essentially in the art of describing sexual forbidden fruit and making it as desirable as possible, at the same time covering it with pious phrases which were only a transparent mask. Vice was condemned, but described in such a way as to make the reader's mouth water. There is nothing of this in Guy de Maupassant, nor in Zola. By their tragic descriptions, they provoke disgust and sadness in the reader, rather than sensuality. It is otherwise with the illustrations which de Maupassant's publisher has added to his works and which are frankly pornographic. These are not fair to the author.
Another comparison shows, perhaps, still better the uncertainty of the line of demarcation between pornography and art. If we compare Heine with de Maupassant, I think we must admit that, in spite of the refinement of his art, the pornographic trait is incomparably stronger in the former, because Heine continually loses the thread of moral sense which impregnates most of the works of de Maupassant. The latter author emphasizes evil and injustice in the sexual question.
The refined art of the Greeks contains much eroticism and much nudity, but there is nothing whatever immoral in either. Innocence and beauty are so apparent that no one can think of evil. When we look at the antique statues of the Greek sculptors; when we read Homer, especially the story of Ares and Aphrodite; when we read the bucolic idyll of Daphnis and Chloe, we can no longer have any doubt on the point. It is not nudity, it is not the natural description of sexual life, but the obscene intention of the artist, his improper and often venal object, which has a demoralizing effect.
Finally, I repeat that the purest artistic creation may serve as a pornographic theme for every individual who is accustomed to introduce into his parodies his own depravity, immorality and obscene sentiments. I do not deny that in antiquity, especially at the time of the decadence of Rome, pornography and cynical coarseness often ruled in the sexual domain. History and the ruins of Pompeii give abundant evidence of it. But such phenomena occurred at the periods of decadence. Who then can decide where art ends and pornography begins, or how far eroticism may without danger be expressed in art? This question is so difficult and delicate that I am unable to answer it with sufficient competence. I think that when the reign of capitalism and alcohol has come to an end, the danger of pornography will be reduced enormously. I believe we ought to avoid extremes in both directions. Wherever pornography manifests itself in a purely cynical way, denuded of all art, society can and should suppress it. When it appears under an artistic mantle, it should be possible in each particular case to weigh the artistic merit of the work against its immoral tendencies, taking all other accessory circumstances into account, in order to decide the real weight of each of these elements. The corrupting action should also be carefully considered, which experience proves to have been exerted on the public by certain so-called works of art, or artistic exhibitions, as for example certain cafés chantants, etc.
Pathological Art.—The progressively pathological nature of certain productions of modern art constitute without any doubt a vicious feature; a fact of special importance in the sexual question. Witness what I have said concerning the poet Baudelaire. Erotic art ought not to become a hospital for perverts and sexual patients, and should not lead these individuals to regard themselves as interesting specimens of the human race. It should not make heroes of them, for in acting thus, it only confirms their morbid state, and often contaminates healthy-minded people.
A great number of novels, and even modern pictures, deserve the reproach of being pornographic works. In these are described, or painted, beings that we meet in hospitals for nervous diseases, or even in lunatic asylums, but more often phantoms which only exist in the pathological mind of the author. No doubt, art should not allow itself to be instructed in morality by pedagogues and ascetics; but, on the other hand, artists ought not to forget the high social mission of their art, a mission which consists in elevating man to the ideal, not in letting him sink into a bog.
The Moral Effect of Healthy Art.—Art has great power, for man is directed by sentiment much more than by reason. Art should be healthy; it should rise toward the heavens and show the public the road to Olympus—not the Olympus of superstition, but that of a better humanity. It is not necessary for this that it should diminish the energy of its eternal theme—love. No truly moral man would wish to eliminate the seasoning of eroticism whenever artistic necessity requires it, but art should never prostitute itself in the service of venal obscenity and degeneration.
As to the manner in which it attains its object, while holding to its fundamental principles, that is its own affair, the business of the true artist. I cannot, however, in my capacity as a naturalist, refrain from giving a little modest advice to certain modern artists; that when they wish to take for the subject of their works the themes of social morality, medicine or science, they should avoid previous study of their subject in scientific books; that they should follow the example of de Maupassant and begin by living themselves the situations which they wish to depict, before beginning to model their work. Without this they will completely fail in artistic effect, and will become bad theorists, bad scientists, bad moralists and bad social politicians, at the same time ceasing to be good artists. If Maeterlinck's "Life of Bees" is a fine work of art, it is not only because the author is a distinguished writer, but because he was himself acquainted with bees, being an apicultor, and did not make his book a mere compilation of other scientific works.
Along with the struggle against the debasing influence of money and alcohol, the elevation of the artistic sentiment among the public will contribute strongly to condemn pornographic "æsthetics." The false and unnatural sentimentalism, spiced with erotic lewdness, which is displayed in the trash offered to the public under the title of "art," fills every man who possesses the least artistic sense with disgust. Disgust evidently constitutes a beneficial mental medicine in the domain of art, and we cannot agree with the severe and ascetic minds who think that true morality has nothing to do with art, or even that everything moral should be destitute of art. These people are completely deceived and unwittingly promote pornography, by repelling humanity with their austerity and driving it to the opposite extreme. The æsthetic and moral sentiments should be harmoniously combined with intelligence and will, each of these departments of the mind participating by its special energies in the elevation of man.
Anticonceptional Measures from the Æsthetic Point of View.—In conclusion, I will refer to a subject which is perhaps not quite in its place in this chapter. The anticonceptional measures recommended for reasons of social hygiene, which tend to regulate conceptions and improve their quality, have been often condemned, sometimes as immoral, sometimes as contrary to æsthetics. To interfere in this way with the action of nature is said to injure the poetry of love and the moral feeling, and at the same time to disturb natural selection.
There are several replies to these objections: In the first place, it is wrong to maintain that man cannot encroach on the life of nature. If this were the case, the earth would now be a virgin forest and a great many animals and plants would not have been adapted to the use of man. Our fields, our gardens and our domestic animals would die, instead of bearing fruit and multiplying as they do at present. The naturalist has much more fear of seeing rare and interesting wild plants and animals exterminated from the face of the earth by the egoistic and pitiless hand of man. He seeks in vain the means of checking this work of destruction.
We have proved without the least deference, often with a brutal hand, to the misfortune of art and poetry, that we are capable of successfully intermeddling with the machinery of nature, even in what concerns our own persons. I shall not return here to the subject of ethics. In Chapter XV, I have sufficiently shown how false is our present sexual morality, and I have proved in Chapter XIV the absolute necessity of measures to regulate conception in order to realize an efficacious social sexual morality.
The æsthetic argument appears at first sight more valid; it is unnecessary, however, to discuss matters of taste. Spectacles are certainly not particularly æsthetic; nevertheless the poetry of love does not suffer much from their use, and when one is shortsighted or longsighted one cannot do without them. Great artists wear spectacles. It is the same with false teeth, with clothes, with bicycles and a hundred other artificial things which man makes use of to make his life more easy. So long as they are novel and unusual they wound the æsthetic sentiment; but when we become accustomed to them we no longer take notice of them. Man has even come to regard as æsthetic, women's corsets which deform their chests, and pointed shoes which deform the feet. I am certain that the first man who mounted a horse was accused by his contemporaries of committing an act contrary to æsthetics!
From all points of view, the details of coitus leave much to be desired from the æsthetic point of view, and such a slight addition as a membranous protective does not appear to make any serious difference. It is impossible for me to recognize the validity of such an objection, which I attribute to the prejudice against anything which disturbs our habits.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] See also Lameere "L'Évolution des ornements sexuels," 1904.
[16] "Die Anfänge der Kunst und die Theorie Darwins." Hessiche Blätter für Volkskunde, Vol. III, Part 2.
CHAPTER XIXToC
CONCLUSIONS
Utopia and the Realizable Ideal.—The term Utopia may be applied to every ideal project elaborated by human imagination for the future welfare of society, which has no healthy and real foundation, is contrary to human nature and the results of experience, and has consequently no chance of success. Persons of conservative minds who live in prejudice and in the faith of authority apply the term Utopia to every ideal which has not been legalized and sanctioned by time, custom, or authority. This is a grave error, which, if it always prevailed, would bar the way to all social progress.
As regards the ideal, the future may realize much progress that the past has not known, and on this point Ben Akiba was wrong in saying that "there is nothing new under the sun." International communication, universal postage, the suppression of slavery in civilized countries, the artificial feeding of new-born infants, the telephone, wireless telegraphy, etc., are realized advances which had formerly never appeared on the horizon of humanity, and which would have been regarded as impossible fantasies, or Utopias.
Why should the common use of an international language and the suppression of war between civilized countries be Utopias? The most diverse races already speak English, and all might learn Esperanto. In the interior of countries such as France and Germany, etc., the old feudal wars ceased long ago. Why should a more and more international union between men be impossible?
Why should the suppression of the use of narcotic substances such as alcohol, opium, hashish, etc., which poison entire nations, be Utopian? Why should it be the same with the economic reform desired by socialists, that is the equitable division of wages; for example, by the aid of a coöperative system or by the reduction of capital to a minimum?
These things are all possible, and even necessary for the natural and progressive development of humanity. It is only the prejudice of old customs, based on the conservative tendency of sentiments, which opposes these projects and tries to ridicule them by calling them Utopian. In its shortsightedness, it does not see the change which occurs all over the world in the social relations of men, or does not estimate them at their true value, and it cannot abandon its old idols.
Lastly, why should rational reforms in the sexual domain be more difficult to realize than the artificial feeding of infants, than the actual triumphs of surgical operations, than sero-therapy, than vaccination, etc.? In the same way that shortsighted and longsighted persons wear spectacles, or those who have no teeth use artificial ones, so may men who are tainted by hereditary disease employ preventatives in coitus to avoid the procreation of a tainted progeny; and the same means may be employed to give women time to recover their strength after each confinement.
Résumé.—Let us briefly recapitulate the matter contained in the chapters of this book:
(1). In the first five chapters I have given an account of the natural history, anatomy and functions of the reproductive organs, and the psychology of sexual life.
(2). In Chapter VI, I have given (chiefly according to Westermarck) a résumé of ethnography and the history of sexual relations in the different human races.
(3). In Chapter VII, I have attempted to trace the zoölogical evolution of sexual life along the line of our animal ancestors, and to briefly describe the evolution of sexual life in the individual, from birth till death. I have thus endeavored to acquaint the reader with the two sources of our sexual sensations and sentiments—the hereditary or phylogenetic source, and the source acquired and adapted by the individual.
(4). In Chapter VIII, I have described the pathology of sexual life, because this concerns social life much more than is generally supposed.
(5). In Chapters IX to XVIII, I have explained the relations of sexual life to the most important spheres of human sentiments and interests, to suggestion, money and property, to the external conditions of life, to religion, law, medicine, morality, politics, political economy, pedagogy and art. Incidentally, I have glanced at the social organizations and customs which depend on these relations.
If we sum up the results obtained, we can draw from them a series of conclusions which we will divide into two groups:
NEGATIVE TASKS
Suppression of the Direct or Indirect Causes of Sexual Evils and
Abuses, and the Social Vices which Correspond to Them
The corruption into which a semi-civilization has plunged humanity, by facilitating the means of obtaining satisfaction for its unbridled passion for pleasure, is maintained by the latter itself. But in the long run, the unlimited abandonment of the individual to pleasure cannot be in accord with the welfare and progress of society. This is the knotty point. It is necessary for a better social organization to artificially restrain the passion for pleasure, at the same time raising the social quality of men; that is to say, their altruism or instinct (social ethics). We can only expect immediately the first of these two objects; but we have seen that it is possible to prepare the second for the future, by neglecting none of the factors of social salvation.
We have become acquainted with the most important roots of sexual degeneration, due to semi-civilization. I use the word "semi-civilization" because our present culture is still very incomplete and has hardly done more than skim over the surface of the masses.
Men of higher culture have overcome the maladies of infancy of civilization much better than the uneducated masses, and it is precisely this fact which should give us courage and confidence in a future in which a true higher culture will be the appanage of all. The roots of degeneration are either directly or indirectly associated with sexual life. It is our duty to declare war of extermination against all of them, and not to cease this contest before reducing them to their natural primitive minimum. The following are the chief evils to be contended against.
1. The Cult of Money.—We have recognized the primary sources of degeneration in the historical development of humanity and its sexual life (Chapters VI and X). They consist in the exploitation of man by man, in the desire of possessing riches and power, which become the source of marriage by purchase and by abduction, of prostitution and all the modern requirements by the aid of which is cultivated the passion for sexual pleasures, thanks to the power of money.
The priests and disciples of Mammon lie when they say that their god—the golden calf—is the most powerful stimulus to work and the principal promoter of culture. If we look closer we see the contrary. Men of genius, thinkers, inventors and artists are urged to work by their hereditary instinct, by true love of the ideal and thirst for knowledge. The disciples of Mammon, on the watch for the discoveries and creations of these men, rob them not only of the fruit of their work, but often of the honors which belong to them. Intellectual robbery is added to pecuniary robbery.
These are the methods of "Mammonism," which must be seen to be appreciated; and we are told that this kind of industry should be the only stimulus to human work and culture! No doubt, the unbridled lust for gain urges men to feverish activity; but this kind of zeal, which is nearly always associated with the passion for pleasure, and only works to obtain the means of satisfying it, is unhealthy. It is necessary for other factors to act in stimulating human work. Fortunately these forces exist, and can be found, for without work there can be no culture, social progress nor happiness.
The worship of the golden calf, the utilization of accumulated wealth as a means of exploiting the work of others for individual interest, is therefore the primary and principal root of social degeneration, marriage for money, prostitution and all their corrupt associations. If this root is not torn out, humanity will never succeed in the sanitation of sexual matters. The struggle against the exaggerated modern legal rights of capital, and the abuses which result from it, is therefore one of the most important tasks to be accomplished in order to lead indirectly to the sanitation of sexual intercourse.
2. The Use of Narcotics.—The habit of using narcotic poisons, especially alcohol, leads to the physical and moral degeneration of men, a degeneration which not only affects the individuals concerned, but also their germinal cells and consequently their offspring. I have designated this degeneration by the term blastophthoria. Blastophthoria is intimately connected with sexual phenomena, and thanks to it, the individual influence of these poisons may extend to many generations.
A single radical remedy would be easy to apply, if men were not so much the slaves of their habits and prejudices, of capital and the passion for pleasure. All narcotic substances, especially distilled and fermented drinks, should be abolished as a means of pleasure and relegated to pharmacy, in which they may still be used as remedies, with special precautions. Alcohol may also be used for industrial purposes.
Science has proved that even the most moderate indulgence in alcohol disturbs the association of ideas, and renders them more superficial, without the subject being aware of it. This slight degree of alcoholic narcosis causes in man a temporary feeling of pleasure and gayety to which he soon becomes accustomed. In this way there is created in him a desire for more, too often with increasing doses.
Most narcotics, especially alcohol (either fermented or distilled), have the peculiarity of exciting the sexual appetite in a bestial manner, thereby leading to the most absurd and disgusting excesses, although at the same time they weaken the sexual power. The transient pleasure produced by these substances is, therefore, of no real and lasting advantage, while it results in the most terrible individual and social miseries.
Societies for total abstinence from all alcoholic drinks have undertaken a war of extermination against the use of all poisons used for purposes of pleasure, when experience has proved their social danger. Let us hope that they will succeed; then a second fundamental root of degeneration of sexual life will be destroyed.
3. The Emancipation of Woman.—A third source of sexual anomalies is due to the inequality of the rights of the two sexes. This can only be attacked by the complete emancipation of women. In no kind of animal is the female an object possessed by the male. Nowhere in nature do we find the slave-law which subordinates one sex to the other. Even among ants, where the male, on account of his great physical inferiority, is very dependent on the workers, the latter do not impose on him any constraint. We have already refuted the argument which is based on the intellectual inferiority of woman.
The emancipation of women is not intended to transform them into men, but simply to give them their human rights, I might even say their natural animal rights. It in no way wishes to impose work on women nor to make them unaccustomed to it. It is as absurd to bring them up as spoilt children as it is cruel to brutalize them as beasts of burden. It is our duty to give them the independent position in society which corresponds to their normal attributes.
Their sexual role is so important that it gives them the right to the highest social considerations in this domain. I will not repeat what I have said in Chapter XIII, but simply state categorically that, when women have acquired in society rights and duties equal to those of men (in accordance with sexual differences), when they can react freely according to their feminine genius, in a manner as decisive as men, on the destinies of the community, a third fundamental root of present sexual abuses will be suppressed. The complete emancipation of woman thus constitutes our third principal postulate, and in this I am in accord with Westermarck, Secretan and many other eminent persons.
The difference which exists between the two sexes does not give any reasonable excuse to man for monopolizing all social and political rights. The external world and our fellow beings, by whom and for whom we live in body and mind, are the same for woman as for man, so that even when the mentality of one sex is on the average a little higher than that of the other, the first cannot claim the right of refusing the second the liberty of living and acting from the social point of view according to her own genius. The two sexes differ in many respects it is true; on the other hand, all legal and consequently artificial constraint of one by the other has the effect of hindering the free development of both. Each sex has the right to look upon the world and assimilate it according to its nature. It can thus develop its personality so that it does not become etiolated and atrophied like a domestic animal. It is only the right of the stronger, cultivated by narrow-minded prejudice, that can deny or misunderstand these facts. The legal restrictions which we impose on woman, on her mentality and her whole life, especially her conjugal life, have nothing in common with the just restrictions which the law should provide against the encroachments of individual egoism, which injure the rights of others or those of society.
4. Prejudice and Tradition.—There is still another enemy opposed to reform, which is so deeply rooted in human nature that we can only hope for a slow improvement in the quality of men, by its progressive weakening. I refer to the host of prejudices, traditional customs, mystic superstitions, religious dogmas, fashions, etc. I should require many pages of moral preaching to deal with all the vices which are perpetually created and supported by the wretched tendency of the human mind to sanctify every ancient tradition and consider it as unalterable.
Prejudice, faith in authority, mysticism, etc., with conscious or unconscious hypocrisy, and by the aid of more or less transparent sophisms, place themselves at the service of the basest human passions—envy, hatred, vanity, avarice, lewdness, scandal, desire of domination and idleness—and clothe them all with the sacred mantle of ancient customs, the better to sanction their ignominy by relying on the authority of tradition. There is no infamy which has not been justified, glorified or even deified in this way.
I am convinced that it is only by the introduction of the scientific spirit, of an inductive and philosophical manner of thinking, into schools and among the masses, that we shall be able to contend efficaciously with the routine and parrot-like repetitions which are rooted in the worship of authoritative doctrines and prejudices based on the sanctity of what is old.
We have already sufficiently dealt with the superannuated prejudices and customs to be contended with in the sexual domain, and need not return to them. The whole of this category of causes of evil, a category which also plays a great part in all other domains of human life, can only, therefore, be contended with by true science combined with an integral and free education of the character of youth.
I must once again insist on the necessity of a fight to a finish on this ground. It is necessary for this that scientists should from time to time emerge from their sanctums, and let their lights shine in the whirlpool of human society. They must take part in social conflicts and avoid losing touch with what is and always will be human.
The following postulates relate to aberrations and dangers which are more partial or more local.
5. Pornography.—In Chapters V, X and XVIII, I have spoken of pornography, and in Chapter XVII, of its great danger to the development of a normal sexual life in youth. Although pornography owes much of its origin and development to the greed for gain, it must not be forgotten that, on the other hand, masculine eroticism tends to promote its mercantile interests. It is the duty of society to oppose the pornographic products of morbid eroticism, without imposing the least constraint on true art. The sexual appetite of man is on the average rather strong; we may even say that it is much too strong, compared with the social necessities of procreation. It is, therefore, quite superfluous to artificially stimulate it. The struggle against pornography must, therefore, be raised to the rank of a postulate.
We must not forget, however, that we shall contend with it much more successfully by fulfilling our first four postulates, and in raising the artistic ideal and feeling in man, than by direct measures of suppression. The latter should be limited to the most coarse and corrupt productions of pornography.
6. Politics and Sexual Life.—I need only remind the reader of the encroachments of politics on sexual life, and especially of the abuse of sexual influence in the domain of politics. It is needless to point out the necessity of opposing all useless intermeddling of the State in the sexual life of individuals by the aid of unjustifiable regulations, as well as all intervention in the natural sexual requirements of man (in marriage, etc.), when no individual or social interest is injured. What is much more difficult, is to prevent the pressure of sexual sympathies and antipathies, and especially of amorous passions in politics.
7. Venereal Disease.—There is need for a great combat with venereal disease and pathological corruptions of the sexual appetite. (Vide Chapters VIII, XIII and XIV.) Sexual criminals should be treated conjointly with the pathology of the sexual appetite, and in the same manner; for it is nearly always a question of anomalies of the human brain, which are impossible to improve or eliminate by punishment or other penal measures.
For the present, medical and administrative measures of restriction, undertaken by society against dangerous and degenerate individuals in the sexual domain, are the only possible remedy. We should also endeavor in the future to prevent such individuals from breeding and suppress the causes of blastophthoria, by the aid of our second postulate.
8. The Conflict of Human Races.—There remains a last postulate, extremely arduous and serious, which we have already mentioned. How is our Aryan race and its civilization to guard against the danger of being passively invaded and exterminated by the alarming fecundity of other human races? One must be blind not to recognize this danger. To estimate it at its proper value, it is not enough to put all "savages" and "barbarians" into one basket and all "civilized" into the other. The question is far more complicated than this. Many savage and semi-savage races become rapidly extinct on account of their comparative sterility. Europeans have introduced among them so much alcohol, venereal disease and other plagues, that they promptly perish from want of the power of resistance. This is the case with the Weddas, the Todas, the Redskins of North America, the Australian aboriginees, Malays and many others.
The question presents itself in another aspect with regard to negroes, who are very resistant and extremely prolific, and everywhere adapt themselves to civilized customs. But those who believe that negroes are capable of acquiring a higher civilization without undergoing a phylogenetic cerebral transformation for a hundred thousand years, are Utopians. I cannot here enter into the details of this question. It seems obvious to me, however, that in the already considerable time during which the American negroes have been under the influence of European culture, they ought to have often demonstrated their power of assimilating it and of developing it independently, according to their own genius, if their brains were capable of so doing. Instead of this, we find that negroes in the interior of the island of Haiti, formerly civilized by France, then abandoned to themselves, have, with the exception of a few mulattoes, reverted to the most complete barbarism, and have even barbarized the French language and Christianity, with which they had been endowed.
Compare with this the rapidity with which a civilized or civilizable race, depending on its innate energy, assimilates our culture with or without Christianity! We need only look at what has happened in Japan during the last thirty years, and what the Christian races of the Balkan countries have been doing after delivery from the yoke of the Turks—for example, the Roumanians, Bulgarians and Greeks.
It is by its fruits that we judge the value of the tree. The Japanese are a civilizable and civilized race, and must be treated as such. The negroes, on the contrary, are not so; that is to say, they are only by themselves capable of quite an inferior civilization, and only become adapted to our customs by a superficial veneer of civilization.
Up to what point can the Mongolian, and even the Jewish race, become mixed with our Aryan or Indo-Germanic races, without gradually supplanting them and causing them to disappear? This is a question I am incapable of answering. If it were only a question of the Japanese there would be no serious difficulty and the assimilation would be beneficial. But the Chinese and some other Mongolian races constitute an imminent danger for the very existence of the white races. These people eat much less than ourselves, are contented with much smaller dwellings, and in spite of this produce twice as many children and do twice as much work. The connection of this with the sexual question is not difficult to understand.
Possibly we might make a compact with the Mongols, and the Chinese in particular, which would allow both races to live on the earth without annihilating each other. I am quite convinced that we have more to fear from their blood and their work than from their arms. Some time ago experts in Far-Eastern questions predicted that the world would end by becoming Chinese.