The legend of the instinct of philoprogenitiveness which is to-day so universally believed, is undoubtedly the result of the general feeling that sexual intercourse as such is base and degrading.  But because of the more or less clear consciousness that sexual intercourse is really what is most desired in love, and because of the lack of courage openly to admit it, attempts are made to justify it from a social standpoint.

The task of establishing the equilibrium between love and sensuousness has not yet been accomplished.  What is so often realised as the sexual trouble has its origin in the fact that the higher stage has not yet been finally reached.  There is an infinite number of unions, all of which have a flaw.  Witness modern literature with its indefatigable treatment of eroticism.  If a complete unity is ever to be established, then doubtless it will be the privilege of the Germanic race to achieve it, for the Neo-Latin nations mean by love either the individualised instinct, or the rare, purely spiritual love.  But it is not likely that the third stage will become a universal condition; in all probability it will, for a long time to come, be limited to special individuals, and even then only to specific phases of their lives.  The feeling of the great majority of men has not changed; it is primitively sexual; in the state of mind which is called to be in love it is centred on an individual woman, to be, after a time, gradually stifled by other interests.  The emotional life of the majority of women, on the other hand, is still what it was in remotest antiquity.  Love impels woman into the arms of a man to whom she remains faithful, until slowly her instincts are transformed into love for her children.  But in the case even of the average woman, body and soul are equally affected; there is no more terrible moment in a woman’s life than the one in which she discovers that the man to whom she has given herself has merely used her as a means for gratification.  Harmoniously organised woman has given herself to a merely sexual man who sought in her only the satisfaction of his senses.  This also is the cause of the horror with which the normal woman regards the prostitute, for the latter has made of herself a means for the gratification of male sexuality, losing thereby her inherent harmony and individuality.  And it is also the reason why, in spite of ethical convictions and logical conclusions, we should have different standards for the loyalty of the husband and the loyalty of the wife; in man sexuality is a distinct element, an element, it is true, which we do not value, but which nevertheless exists and has, as we have seen, a historical root.  When a man gives way to his instincts, his individuality is not only not destroyed, but it is hardly affected.  It is very different in the case of the woman; with her, emancipated sexuality is synonymous with inward annihilation, for it has not the support of the past