ir abnormal manner of living fired their
imagination with erotic visions, mutilated their bodies to cleanse their
souls. "There is no place in the moral history of mankind of a deeper or
more painful interest than this ascetic epidemic. A hideous, sordid, and
emaciated maniac, without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural
affections, passing his life in a long routine of useless and atrocious
self-torture, and quailing before the ghastly phantoms of his delirious
brain, had become the ideal of the nations which had known the writings
of Plato and Cicero, and the lives of Socrates and Cato." (_Lecky:
"History of European Morals."_)

This concept that the closest of association between man and wife is an
obnoxious deed, has strewn its evil influence down through the ages to
the present day. The stealth and obscurity placed upon sexual matters
has had its roots so firmly fixed in our manner of dealing with this
purely normal function, that at this late date medical science is just
beginning to eradicate the evils. It is now well recognized by educators
and physicians and all clear-thinking individuals that it is extremely
harmful for men, women, and children to be kept in artificial ignorance
of the facts relating to sexual affairs. The obscurantism placed upon
sexual matters has caused more physical and mental distress than most of
our organic diseases. The physician is constantly correcting the
abnormal conceptions that exist. The sex act had become something in the
nature of a crime which could not be avoided, instead of assuming the
manifestation of the consummation of the greatest love and tenderness
that can exist between two individuals keenly attuned to the natural
desires of a natural act. "The love of man and woman at its best is free
and fearless, compounded of body and mind in equal proportions, not
dreading to idealize because there is a physical basis, not dreading the
physical basis lest it should interfere with the idealization. To fear
love is to fear life and those who fear life are already three parts
dead." (_Bertrand Russell: "Marriage and Morals."_)

Religion has brutalized the marital relations, and Lecky, dealing with
this subject, states, "The tender love which it elicits, the holy and
beautiful domestic qualities that follow in its train, were almost
absolutely omitted from consideration. The object of the ascetic was to
attract men to a life of virginity, and as a necessary consequence