give us, no doubt, endless
versions of the only joy in which, as we may fancy, the blood of the
universe flows consciously through their hearts.

The darkness which conventionally covers this passion is one of the
saddest consequences of Adam's fall. It was a terrible misfortune in
man's development that he should not have been able to acquire the
higher functions without deranging the lower. Why should the depths of
his being be thus polluted and the most delightful of nature's mysteries
be an occasion not for communion with her, as it should have remained,
but for depravity and sorrow?

[Sidenote: Its degradation when instincts become numerous and
competitive.]

This question, asked in moral perplexity, admits of a scientific answer.
Man, in becoming more complex, becomes less stably organised. His sexual
instinct, instead of being intermittent, but violent and boldly
declared, becomes practically constant, but is entangled in many
cross-currents of desire, in many other equally imperfect adaptations of
structure to various ends. Indulgence in any impulse can then easily
become excessive and thwart the rest; for it may be aroused artificially
and maintained from without, so that in turn it disturbs its neighbours.
Sometimes the sexual instinct may be stimulated out of season by
example, by a too wakeful fancy, by language, by pride--for all these
forces are now working in the same field and intermingling their
suggestions. At the same time the same instinct may derange others, and
make them fail at their proper and pressing occasions.

[Sidenote: Moral censure provoked.]

In consequence of such derangements, reflection and public opinion will
come to condemn what in itself was perfectly innocent. The corruption of
a given instinct by others and of others by it, becomes the ground for
long attempts to suppress or enslave it. With the haste and formalism
natural to language and to law, external and arbitrary limits are set to
its operation. As no inward adjustment can possibly correspond to these
conventional barriers and compartments of life, a war between nature and
morality breaks out both in society and in each particular bosom--a war
in which every victory is a sorrow and every defeat a dishonour. As one
instinct after another becomes furious or disorganised, cowardly or
criminal, under these artificial restrictions, the public and private
conscience turns against it all its forces, necessarily without much
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