id
before, we might make a eugenist of Mrs. Grundy, so that she might be as
much affronted by a criminal marriage as she is now by the spectacle of
a healthy and well-developed baby appearing unduly soon after its
parents' marriage. The power is there, and it means well, though it does
disastrously ill. Public opinion ought to be decided upon these matters;
it ought to be powerful and effective. We shall never come out into the
daylight until it is; we shall not be saved by laws, nor by medical
knowledge, nor by the admonitions of the Churches. Our salvation lies
only in a healthy public opinion, not less effective and not more
well-meaning than public opinion is at present, but informed where it is
now ignorant, and profoundly impressed with the importance of realities
as it now is with the importance of appearances.

So much having been said, what can one suggest in the direction of
remedy? First, surely it is something that we merely recognize the price
of prudery. Personally, I find that it has made all the difference to my
calculations to have had the thing pointed out by the clerical critic
whose eye these words may possibly meet. It is something to recognize in
prudery an enemy that must be attacked, and to realize the measure of
its enmity. In the light of some little experience, perhaps a few
suggestions may be made to those who would in any way join in the
campaign for the education and transmutation of public opinion on these
matters.

First, we must compose ourselves with fundamental seriousness--with
that absolute gravity which imperils the publication of a book and
entirely prohibits the production of a play on such matters. There is
something in human nature beyond my explaining which leads towards
jesting in these directions. An instinct, I know, is an instinct; of
which a main character is that its exercise shall be independent of any
knowledge as to its purpose. We eat because we like eating, rather than
because we have reckoned that so many calories are required for a body
of such and such a weight, in such and such conditions of temperature
and pressure. It is not natural, so to say, just because man is in a
sense rather more than natural, that we should be provident and serious,
self-conscious, and philosophic, in dealing with our fundamental
instincts. But it is necessary, if we are to be human: and only in so
far as, "looking before and after," we transcend the usual conditions of
instinct, are