A few words may here be said about the legal aspect of this important question. It has to be remarked that the present state of the Law, both in Germany and Britain--arising as it does partly out of some of the misapprehensions above alluded to, and partly out of the sheer unwillingness of legislators to discuss the question--is really impracticable. While the Law rightly seeks to prevent acts of violence or public scandal, it may be argued that it is going beyond its province when it attempts to regulate the private and voluntary relations of adult persons to each other. The homogenic affection is a valuable social force, and in some cases a necessary element of noble human character--yet the Act of 1885 makes almost any familiarity in such cases the possible basis of a criminal charge. The Law has no doubt had substantial ground for previous statutes on this subject--dealing with a certain gross act; but in so severely condemning the least familiarity between male persons[47] we think it has gone too far. It has undertaken a censorship over private morals (entirely apart from social results) which is beyond its province, and which--even if it were its province--it could not possibly fulfil;[48] it has opened wider than ever before the door to a real, most serious social evil and crime--that of blackmailing; and it has thrown a shadow over even the simplest and most ordinary expressions of an attachment which may, as we have seen, be of great value in the national life. That the homosexual feeling, like the heterosexual, may lead to public abuses of liberty and decency; that it needs a strict self-control; and that much teaching and instruction on the subject is needed; we of course do not deny. But as, in the case of persons of opposite sex, the law limits itself on the whole to a maintenance of public order, the protection of the weak from violence and insult,[49] and of the young from their inexperience; so we think it should be here. The much-needed teaching and the true morality on the subject must be given--as it can only be given--by the spread of proper education and ideas, and not by the clumsy bludgeon of the statute-book.[50]