The existence of these aspirations and endeavours cannot be simply denied, or declared indefensible; they exist and therefore presumably not without justification. It is both more interesting and more useful to study carefully the basic causes of these movements than to chime in with the lamentations of the professional mourners over morals, who prophesy with unction the moral downfall of humanity. The moralist least of all trusts God, for he thinks that the beautiful tree of humanity can only thrive by dint of being pruned, bound, and trained on a trellis, whereas Father-Sun and Mother-Earth have combined to make it grow joyfully in accordance with its own laws, which are full of the deepest meaning.
Serious people are aware that a very real sexual problem does exist at the present time. The rapid development of the towns, coupled with methods of work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour, the increasing industrialisation of the country and the growing security of life, combine to deprive humanity of many opportunities of expending emotional energy. Think of the life of the peasant, whose work so rich and full of change, affords him unconscious satisfaction by means of its symbolic content; a like satisfaction the factory-hand and the clerk can never know. Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. Alas! from all this we town-dwellers, we modern machines, are far, far removed.
Must we not admit that we are already deprived of the most natural and most beautiful of all satisfactions, since we can no longer contemplate the arrival of our own seed, the “blessing” of children, with unmixed pleasure? Marriages where no artifices are resorted to are rare. Is this not an all-important departure from the joys which Mother Nature gave her first-born sons? Can such a state of affairs bring satisfaction? Note how men slink to their work, watch their
