Third. So far from its being necessary to humanity, it is the destruction of humanity. It is the production of disease, of gross physical cruelty, of moral death. Lastly. It should be checked by legislative enactment, and destroyed by social opinion. Now, to amplify and enforce the foregoing propositions would require a longer space than it would be right for one person to claim in a general conference, and would prevent the special consideration of the subject of disease. I will, therefore, simply offer them for consideration as fundamental propositions. I will only beg you to observe the distinct statement in the above, that it is the sexual intercourse without affection and without responsibility that I have spoken of. I say nothing about the exercise of the sexual faculties in legitimate or illegitimate single unions, where affection and responsibility may enter as elements. However injurious, therefore, illegitimate but single unions may be to the welfare of society, I leave them entirely aside in these remarks, as not coming under the head of prostitution. I speak of the conversion of soulless lust into a business traffic--of the system of brothels, procurers, and so-called Contagious Diseases Acts--the system which provides for, not checks, vice. I solemnly declare that so far from this system being a necessary part of society, it is the greatest crime that can be committed against our common humanity. Let me now lay bare to you the root of the whole evil system, because, as a physician acquainted with the physiological and pathological laws of the human frame, and as one who has lived through a generation of medical practice amongst all classes of the community, I can speak to you with a positive and practical knowledge rarely possessed by women. The central point of all this monstrous evil is an audacious insult to the nature of men, a slander upon their human constitution. It is the assertion that men are not capable of self-control, that they are so inevitably dominated by overwhelming physical instincts, that they can neither resist nor control the animal nature, and that they would destroy their mental or physical health by the practice of self-control. Now, it is extremely important that you should understand exactly the nature of this dangerous falsehood. It is that most dangerous of all kinds of falsehood--the perversion of truth. I think it was Swedenborg who said: ‘I saw a truth let down into hell, and forthwith it became a lie.’ I have often thought of this bold image when observing in the present day the audacious _lie_ which is announced as truth, in relation to that grand and universal force of humanity, the sexual power.