e can never be sure that his warnings will be
heard, and even the observance of his advice would be attended
with various undesirable results. It sometimes happens that a
married couple agree, even before marriage, to live together
without sexual relations, but, for various reasons, it is seldom
found possible or convenient to maintain this resolution for a
long period.

It is the recognition of these and similar considerations which has
led--though only within recent years--on the one hand, as we have seen, to
the embodiment of the control of procreation into the practical morality
of all civilized nations, and, on the other hand, to the assertion, now
perhaps without exception, by all medical authorities on matters of sex
that the use of the methods of preventing conception is under certain
circumstances urgently necessary and quite harmless.[432] It arouses a
smile to-day when we find that less than a century ago it was possible for
an able and esteemed medical author to declare that the use of "various
abominable means" to prevent conception is "based upon a most presumptuous
doubt in the conservative power of the Creator."[433]

The adaptation of theory to practice is not yet complete, and we could not
expect that it should be so, for, as we have seen, there is always an
antagonism between practical morality and traditional morality. From time
to time flagrant illustrations of this antagonism occur.[434] Even in
England, which played a pioneering part in the control of procreation,
attempts are still made--sometimes in quarters where we have a right to
expect a better knowledge--to cast discredit on a movement which, since
it has conquered alike scientific approval and popular practice, it is now
idle to call in question.

It would be out of place to discuss here the various methods which are
used for the control of procreation, or their respective merits and
defects. It is sufficient to say that the condom or protective sheath,
which seems to be the most ancient of all methods of preventing
conception, after withdrawal, is now regarded by nearly all authorities
as, when properly used, the safest, the most convenient, and the most
harmless method.[435] This is the opinion of Krafft-Ebing, of Moll, of
Schrenck-Notzing, of Loewenfeld, of Forel, of Kisch, of Fuerbringer, to
mention only a few of the most distinguished medical authorities.[436]

There is some interest in attempting to tra