I am unable to feel any spontaneous enthusiasm for fecundity such as
that which Zola sings. Moreover, I regard the whole pose as a
superstition. I may be a member of an exhausted race,--that is quite
possible,--but between the devotion to our species which is professed by
these would-be re-peoplers of countries, and the purely selfish
preoccupation of the Malthusians, my sympathies are all with the latter.
I see nothing beyond the individual in this sex question--beyond the
individual who finds himself inhibited by sexual morality.
This question must be faced some day and cleared up, it must be seen
divested of all mystery, of all veils, of all deceit. As the hygiene of
nutrition has been studied openly, in broad daylight, so it must be with
sex hygiene.
As a matter of fact, the notion of sin, then, that of honour, and,
finally, dread of syphilis and other sexual diseases, rest like a cloud
on the sexual life, and they are jumbled together with all manner of
fantastic and literary fictions.
Obviously, rigid sexual morality is for the most part nothing more than
the practice of economy in disguise. Let us face this whole problem
frankly. A man has no right to let his life slip by to gratify fools'
follies. We must have regard to what is, with Stendhal. It will be
argued of course that these veils, these subterfuges of the sexual life,
are necessary. No doubt they are to society, but they are not to the
individual. There are those who believe that the interests of the
individual and of society are one, but we, who are defenders of the
individual as against the State, do not think so.