truth. In a world of liars who are hushers? In a world of hushers who are liars? Someone's got to tell the truth. Someone's got to give sex its due. You can't give spirit its due until you give sex its due. You can't accept one and cast aside one. They go together. They are inseparable.

You refer to body and soul as if you knew just where one stops and the other commences. Maybe neither stops and neither commences. Maybe they are not two things but two names. Maybe when you put a body into a grave you put a soul there too. And maybe you put neither there. It's not so easy to say.

I can't see anything in the things you call spiritual more marvelous than what you call the physical birth of a baby from a mother. Maybe you know all about it. I don't. I know nothing about it. To me it's mysterious. To me it's the supreme demonstration of the spiritual.

How that a baby comes from a man and a woman. I want that kept clean. It starts clean. Why do we corrupt it? You who disparage it corrupt it. You ascetics anywhere. You libidinous roues anywhere. You corrupt it. By your excesses. You who never say yes. You who never say no. You corrupt it.

You parents. You professors. You prudes. This is addressed to you. What have you got to say about it? You have tremblingly closed the question. I would coolly open it. You have rebuked God by silence. I would praise God by speech.

II

THE ARGUMENT AND THE INFORMATION

No apology is offered for what is said in the following pages, but a brief explanation is virtually necessary to make clear, from the outset, the reasons why it has been written.

It is one of the chief characteristics of the human race that the knowledge acquired by one generation can be passed on to the generations that follow; and that, in this way, progress in the betterment of life's results and the adaptation of means to ends can make a steady and reliable advance.

Such a method of evolution and growth is not possible in the vegetable or animal kingdom, where instinct is the only means for the transmission of acquired knowledge. It is this feature that differentiates man from all other created beings.

But here is a curious fact: In one realm of human experiences, in all Christian civilized countries, it has been considered wrong, even in some cases being counted a criminal offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for anyone to make any record of, or transmit to anyone else, any knowledge that may have been acquired regarding sex relations in the human family.

To be sure, there has been preserved, from time to time, a body of professional knowledge of this sort, made and prepared by physicians, but confined strictly to that class of people. No attempt has been made to disseminate such knowledge among those who most need it—the common people. On the contrary, every possible effort is put forth to keep such knowledge from them. This is wholly at variance with the practice regarding all other forms of human knowledge, which is to spread, as widely as possible, all known data that have so far been obtained.

There is not space, in this small volume, for pointing out the reasons for this anomalous condition of affairs, but the chief cause of its status, past and present, is grounded on two sources: The first of these is a brutal selfishness which has come over to modern times from a savage past; the second is a sort of pious prudery.

The result of these causes has been to make the whole subject of sex in the human family, with its functions and mission in human affairs, together with its proper training, discipline and exercise—to make all these things tabu, something to be ashamed of and ignored as much as possible, and all the knowledge regarding them that one generation has been permitted to transmit to those who come after, may be summed up in these words, namely "Thou shalt not."

Now it goes without saying that, in the very nature of things, all this is just as bad as it can possibly be. For, of all phenomena with which the human race has to do, that of the highest importance, so far as the well-being of the race is concerned, is that which has to do with sex in men and women. A large percentage of all the physical ailments in mankind and womenkind arise from errors in sexual life, and these are but trifles compared with the mental and spiritual disasters which come upon humanity from the same source. It is probably true that more than one-half of all the crimes that are committed in the civilized world are more or less directly connected with sex affairs, and there is no so common a cause for insanity as sex aberrations.

And nearly all these ills, crimes and misfortunes arise because of ignorance in the matter of sex in which the rank and file of the race are forced to live. Few of these ever acquire any positive and definite knowledge in the premises, and if they do learn anything for sure, they keep it to themselves, inspired to do so by a false belief regarding the rightful transmission of such knowledge; or, by a false modesty, or prudery, they are kept from telling to anyone else what they have discovered or found to be the truth in these matters. And so the people stumble along in ignorance of these vital affairs in life, generation after generation, repeating the errors of their predecessors, and no positive progress being made as the years go by. Because of this state of affairs millions of human beings die every generation, and other millions suffer the tortures of the damned while they live, when they should enjoy the delights of the elect, and would do so if they only knew the actual facts in the case, and would act in accordance with the knowledge that ought to be made theirs.

But there are not wanting signs of the times that there will slowly come a change in these conditions. The fact is that the intelligent world is beginning to emerge from a condition of conformity to the say-so of some one supposed to speak with authority, and to come into a realm of obedience only to a law that has a scientific basis of actual knowledge for its foundation.

For untold ages the sex relations of the human family have been directed and determined by the clergy and by their teachings and pronunciamentos regarding what was fit and right. There is no need of saying hard things about such a fact; nevertheless, it is true that, for the most part, all the dicta of these men have originated amongst those who knew nothing of the scientific conditions regarding the subject on which they issue their mandates. So did the blind lead the blind, and the ditches of the past years are filled to overflowing with the dead bodies and souls of men and women, who, for this cause, have fallen therein.

This must not always be! It is neither wise nor right that the essential matters of human life should always remain a stumbling block and a rock of offense for the children of men. We are coming to see that sex is no more unclean and to be denied a scientific knowledge of, than any other part of the human body—the eye, the ear or whatsoever. Furthermore, the rank and file are beginning to clamor for a knowledge of these matters for themselves. This is shown by the frequency of articles that deal with sex in many of the best newspapers and magazines in the civilized world, and by similar discussions in the literature, the works and scientific books that now go into the hands of the common people. It also shows in the attempts that are occasionally being made to introduce the subject of sexual hygiene into our public schools