ce, the side of sexual restraint, or the side of sexual
unrestraint, but they fail to realize that so narrow a basis is inadequate
for the needs of complex human beings. From the wider psychological
standpoint we recognize that we have to conciliate opposing impulses that
are both alike founded on the human psychic organism.

In the preceding volumes of these _Studies_ I have sought to refrain from
the expression of any personal opinion and to maintain, so far as
possible, a strictly objective attitude. In this endeavor, I trust, I have
been successful if I may judge from the fact that I have received the
sympathy and approval of all kinds of people, not less of the
rationalistic free-thinker than of the orthodox believer, of those who
accept, as well as of those who reject, our most current standards of
morality. This is as it should be, for whatever our criteria of the worth
of feelings and of conduct, it must always be of use to us to know what
exactly are the feelings of people and how those feelings tend to affect
their conduct. In the present volume, however, where social traditions
necessarily come in for consideration and where we have to discuss the
growth of those traditions in the past and their probable evolution in the
future, I am not sanguine that the objectivity of my attitude will be
equally clear to the reader. I have here to set down not only what people
actually feel and do but what I think they are tending to feel and do.
That is a matter of estimation only, however widely and however cautiously
it is approached; it cannot be a matter of absolute demonstration. I trust
that those who have followed me in the past will bear with me still, even
if it is impossible for them always to accept the conclusions I have
myself reached.

HAVELOCK ELLIS.

Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

The Child's Right to Choose Its Ancestry--How This is Effected--The Mother
the Child's Supreme Parent--Motherhood and the Woman Movement--The Immense
Importance of Motherhood--Infant Mortality and Its Causes--The Chief Cause
in the Mother--The Need of Rest During Pregnancy--Frequency of Premature
Birth--The Function of the State--Recent Advance in Puericulture--The
Question of Coitus During Pregnancy--The Need of Rest During
Lactation--The Mother's Duty to Suckle Her Child--The Economic
Question--The Duty of the State--Recent Progress in the Protection of the
Moth