One result of this state of matters is the repression or complete prevention of all unprejudiced inquiry into the nature and working of the human soul; men are trained to accept unquestioningly as truth everything that bears the warrant of tradition or authority, and the opponents of the principle of authority are accused of desiring and favouring immorality. If a man set himself seriously to ascertain what in our day is the most degrading and stultifying of all the principles that exist upon this earth, he could not avoid arriving at the conclusion that the principle of authority is the one most deserving of this unenviable distinction. The principle of authority consistently applied produces such axioms as: Marriage exists for the sake of society, and the object of society is to preserve itself, or--the same thing differently put: Marriage in its traditional form is sacred, because it is indispensable to the preservation of pure morality. And in what does pure morality consist? In the preservation of marriage in its traditional form. There is no progress possible on these lines. We go round in a ring without moving from the spot. But if, on the contrary, the opponents of the principle of authority insist: The object of society is the greatest happiness of its members, and the object of marriage the welfare of the family, we are left free to find out what this welfare and this greatest happiness are. And if they further say: "Moral purity consists in that species of relation between beings of opposite sexes which conduces most to their development and mutual happiness, taking the farthest off as well as the immediate results of the union into consideration," this definition, supposing it to be accepted or put to the test of experiment, leaves such freedom for thorough and scientific investigation into all that concerns the health of the body, of the soul, and of society as has never before been known. Order and refinement! These were the watchwords of the champions of the principle of authority. By all means let us have order and refinement--but what men have had to learn, and what they will learn even though it should take them centuries, is that order and refinement are the work of science or natural development, and never are or can be the work of arbitrary legislation, or of a criminal code and a public opinion founded upon tradition and authority. There is no real ordering, no real order of society but that which is the result of scientific insight into the nature of man. All societies--the society called the family as well as that called the state--exist, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, for the purpose of enabling each individual composing them to attain certain great aims and great benefits. Such aims and benefits are personal development, moral purity, the education of the young, the protection of women.