[216] Journal des Goncourt, vol. iii; this was in 1866.

[217] Rev. the Hon. C. Lyttelton, Training of the Young in Laws of Sex, p. 42.

[218] See, e.g., R.W.  Taylor, Treatise on Sexual Disorders, 1897, pp. 74-5.  Georg Hirth (Wege zur Heimat, 1909, p. 619) narrates the case of a young officer who, being excited by the caresses of his betrothed and having too much respect for her to go further than this, and too much respect for himself to resort to masturbation, knew nothing better than to go to a prostitute.  Syphilis developed a few days after the wedding.  Hirth adds, briefly, that the results were terrible.

[219] It is an oft-quoted passage, but can scarcely be quoted too often:  “You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat:  it sticks up a little, here towards the left—­’cockles,’ as we say.  How shall we flatten it?  Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent.  Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise.  Harder, you say.  Still no effect.  Another stroke?  Well, there is one, and another, and another.  The prominence remains, you see:  the evil is as great as ever—­greater, indeed.  But that is not all.  Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge.  Where it was flat before it is now curved.  A pretty bungle we have made of it.  Instead of curing the original defect we have produced a second.  Had we asked an artisan practiced in ‘planishing,’ as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting part.  He would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-adjusted blows with a hammer elsewhere:  so attacking the evil, not by direct, but by indirect actions.  The required process is less simple than you thought.  Even a sheet of metal is not to be successfully dealt with after those common-sense methods in which you have so much confidence.  What, then, shall we say about a society?...  Is humanity more readily straightened than an iron plate?” (The Study of Sociology, p. 270.)

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONQUEST OF THE VENEREAL DISEASES.

The Significance of the Venereal Diseases—­The History of Syphilis—­The Problem of Its Origin—­The Social Gravity of Syphilis—­The Social Dangers of Gonorrhoea—­The Modern Change in the Methods of Combating Venereal Diseases—­Causes of the Decay of the System of Police Regulation—­Necessity of Facing the Facts—­The Innocent Victims of Venereal Diseases—­Diseases Not Crimes—­The Principle of Notification—­The Scandinavian System—­Gratuitous Treatment—­Punishment for Transmitting Venereal Diseases—­Sexual Education in Relation to Venereal Diseases—­Lectures, Etc.—­Discussion in Novels and on the Stage—­The “Disgusting” Not the “Immoral.”