intermingling and uniting――not by an ethical change, but by a change
in scientific thought. We shall no longer think of mind and matter
as wronging or thwarting one another, because they are not different
forces; and we shall no longer be able to separate physical from mental
virtue or depravity. We shall no longer value a love that suppresses or
disregards the union of personality.
Taboos and superstitions, struggling dynamic individuals or States――how
may we set up a new vision? Perhaps what I have written above seems
far-fetched to the reader, but I do not think our life can be cut up
into compartments. Philosophy and sex are more important in politics
than General Elections. The revolt against the all-powerful Christian
State began in the assertion of certain people that their love of good
fruit and wine or their enjoyment of sex were not worthy of hell-fire.
On personal conduct, on our standards of personal relationship, man to
woman, parents to children, are built the customs and laws of States
and ultimately their national and international policy. It is here,
then, with man and woman, that we must begin. I have in mind, as I
write, a piece of Chinese porcelain, on which the sage or poet sits
with his book and long pipe; a lovely and elegant lady peeps over his
shoulder, and close at hand plays an impish child. I do not think that
the Chinese who conceived it expected that poet to write bad verses,
or, if a sage, to compose worthless philosophy. On the contrary, to
love with devotion, to be learned, to have children, are ideas which
have shaped the harmony of Chinese life. As compared with their
generous acceptance of instinct our Christian dread of sex and horror
of the body are obscene.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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