The Salvaging of CivilizationWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
The Salvaging of Civilization
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization, Modern -- 20th century; Education
And closely connected with the care of one's mental and bodily health is
sexual morality, upon which again Deuteronomy and Leviticus are most
explicit, leaving very little to the imagination. I am all for imitating
the wholesome frankness of the ancient book. Where there are no dark
corners there is very little fermentation, there is very little foulness
or infection. But in nearly every detail and in method and manner, the
Bible of our Civilization needs to be fuller and different from its
prototype upon these matters. The real Bible dealt with an oriental
population living under much cruder conditions than our own, engaged
mainly in agriculture, and with a far less various dietary than ours.
They had fermented but not distilled liquors; they had no preserved nor
refrigerated foods; they married at adolescence; many grave diseases
that prevail to-day were unknown to them, and their sanitary problems
were entirely different. Generally our New Leviticus will have to be
much fuller. It must deal with exercise--which came naturally to those
Hebrew shepherds. It must deal with the preservation of energy under
conditions of enervation of which the prophets knew nothing. On the
other hand our New Leviticus can afford to give much less attention to
leprosy--which almost dominates the health instructions of the ancient
law-giver.
I do not know anything very much about the movements in America that aim
at the improvement of the public health and at the removal of public
ignorance upon vital things. In Britain we have a number of powerful
organizations active in disseminating knowledge to counteract the spread
of this or that infectious or contagious disease. The War has made us in
Europe much more outspoken and fearless in dealing with lurking hideous
evils. We believe much more than we did in the curative value of light
and knowledge. And we have a very considerable literature of books
on--what shall I call it? on Sex Wisdom, which aim to prevent some of
that great volume of misery, deprivation and nervous disease due to the
prevailing ignorance and secrecy in these matters. For in these matters
great multitudes of modern people still live in an ignorance that would
have been inconceivable to an ancient Hebrew. In England now the books
of such a writer as Dr. Marie Stopes are enormously read, and--though
they are by no means perfect works--do much to mitigate the hidden
disappointments, discontents, stresses and cruelties of married life.
Now I believe that it would be possible to compile a modern Leviticus
and Deuteronomy to tell our whole modern community decently and
plainly--just as plainly as the old Hebrew Bible instructed its Hebrew
population--what was to be known and what had to be done, and what had
not to be done in these intimate matters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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