The new conception of morality grows out of the hope of the gradual ascent of the race towards greater perfection. Those forms of sexual life which best serve this progress must therefore become the standards of the new morality. But as the nature of a relation can only be determined by its results, those who hold the faith of Life will _apply a conditional judgment also in the case of sexual affairs_. Only cohabitation can decide the morality of a particular case—in other words, its power to enhance the life of the individuals who are living together and that of the race. _Thus sanction can never be granted in advance_ nor—with certain exceptions relating to children—_can it be denied to any matrimonial relationship. Each fresh couple_, whatever form they may choose for their cohabitation, _must themselves prove its moral claim_. This is the new morality, which is now called immoral by the same type of souls as condemned Luther on his appearance as immoral,—a judgment which is repeated in the Catholic world, where to-day the same abuse is heaped upon “the unchaste monk” as is poured upon the adherents of “free love” within the Lutheran communities. The question for Luther’s present-day “liberal” followers, both in this matter and in that of faith, is whether they shall turn back or go forward; back to the firm ground of absolute authority, or over the bridge of free experiment into the untrodden country of an entirely personal faith; back to indissoluble marriage or over the bridge of coercion to the rights of love. The right course of a consistent thought admits of no third possibility. The neo-Protestant doctrine of marriage is already much less logical than Luther’s. They agree with him in admitting the right of the sensual side of love, and with their contemporaries in granting to love its share in human life. But when they proceed to draw limits for both, they bring themselves into an untenable position. They bring themselves into an untenable position not because they insist upon self-control within as well as outside of matrimony (all preparation for a final enhancement of life involves temporary checks upon life) but because the self-control they demand is so comprehensive that it will be in a high degree obstructive to life without the compensation of a final enhancement, for they limit the sexual part of love to the task of continuing the species, and the part of love in human life to a single relationship. Those couples who are unable or unwilling to take upon themselves the responsibility for a new life are thus condemned to celibacy in marriage. Those couples who have once founded their marriage on love must maintain the relationship even without love.