Happily, in all civilized countries there is a natural reserve in relation to sexual matters which indicates the reverence with which this high social power of our human nature should be regarded. It is a sign of something wrong in education, or in the social state, when matters which concern the subject of sex are discussed with the same freedom and boldness as other matters. This subject should neither be a topic of idle gossip, of unreserved publicity, nor of cynical display. This natural and beneficial instinct of reserve, springing from unconscious reverence, renders it difficult for one sex to measure and judge the vital power of the other. The independent thought and large observation of each sex is needed in order to arrive at truth. Unhappily, however, women are often falsely instructed by men, for a licentious husband inevitably depraves the sentiment of his wife, because vicious habits have falsified his nature and blinded his perception of the moral law which dominates sexual growth. Each sex has its own stern battle to fight in resisting temptation, in walking resolutely towards the higher aim of life. It is equally foolish and misleading to attempt to weigh the vital qualities of the sexes, and measure justice and mercy, law and custom, by the supposed results. It is difficult for the child to comprehend that a pound of feathers can weigh as much as a pound of lead. Much of our thought concerning men and women is as rudimentary as the child’s. Vast errors of law and custom have arisen in the slow unfolding of human nature from failure to realize the extent of the injury produced by that abuse of sex--fornication. We have not hitherto perceived that, on account of the moral degradation and physical disease which it inevitably produces, lustful trade in the human body is a grave social crime. In forming a wiser judgment for future guidance, it must be distinctly recognised that the assertion that sexual passion commands more of the vital force of men than of women is a false assertion, based upon a perverted or superficial view of the facts of human nature. Any custom, law, or religious teaching based upon this superficial and essentially false assertion, must necessarily be swept away with the prevalence of sounder physiological views. It is a fact that the brain and nervous system are the media of sensation, and that pleasure, physical or mental, in whatever way it may be aroused, must be measured by the keenness of nervous life in both sexes, not by any special act of one sex.