When we realize clearly this possibility of civilizations being based on very different sets of moral ideas and upon different intellectual methods, we are better able to appreciate the profound significance of the schism in our modern community, which gives us side by side, honest and intelligent people who regard Birth Control as something essentially sweet, sane, clean, desirable and necessary, and others equally honest and with as good a claim to intelligence who regard it as not merely unreasonable and unwholesome, but as intolerable and abominable.  We are living not in a simple and complete civilization, but in a conflict of at least two civilizations, based on entirely different fundamental ideas, pursuing different methods and with different aims and ends.

I will call one of these civilizations our Traditional or Authoritative Civilization.  It rests upon the thing that is, and upon the thing that has been.  It insists upon respect for custom and usage; it discourages criticism and enquiry.  It is very ancient and conservative, or, going beyond conservation, it is reactionary.  The vehement hostility of many Catholic priests and prelates towards new views of human origins, and new views of moral questions, has led many careless thinkers to identify this old traditional civilization with Christianity, but that identification ignores the strongly revolutionary and initiatory spirit that has always animated Christianity, and is untrue even to the realities of orthodox Catholic teaching.  The vituperation of individual Catholics must not be confused with the deliberate doctrines of the Church which have, on the whole, been conspicuously cautious and balanced and sane in these matters.  The ideas and practices of the Old Civilization are older and more widespread than and not identifiable with either Christian or Catholic culture, and it will be a great misfortune if the issues between the Old Civilization and the New are allowed to slip into the deep ruts of religious controversies that are only accidentally and intermittently parallel.

Contrasted with the ancient civilization, with the Traditional disposition, which accepts institutions and moral values as though they were a part of nature, we have what I may call—­with an evident bias in its favour—­the civilization of enquiry, of experimental knowledge, Creative and Progressive Civilization.  The first great outbreak of the spirit of this civilization was in republican Greece; the martyrdom of Socrates, the fearless Utopianism of Plato, the ambitious encyclopaedism of Aristotle, mark the dawn of a new courage and a new wilfulness in human affairs.  The fear of set limitations, of punitive and restrictive laws imposed by Fate upon human life was visibly fading in human minds.  These names mark the first clear realization that to a large extent, and possibly to an illimitable extent, man’s moral and social life and his general destiny could be seized upon and controlled by man.  But—­he must have knowledge.  Said the Ancient Civilization—­and it says it still through a multitude of vigorous voices and harsh repressive acts:  “Let man learn his duty and obey.”  Says the New Civilization, with ever-increasing confidence:  “Let man know, and trust him.”