I am quite willing to give up all the paths to gratification interdicted by society, but am I sure that society will reward me for this renunciation by opening for me—even after a certain delay—one of the permitted paths? One can plainly tell what these witticisms whisper, namely, that the wishes and desires of man have a right to make themselves perceptible next to our pretentious and inconsiderate morality. And in our times it has been said in emphatic and striking terms that this morality is merely the selfish precept of the few rich and mighty who can gratify their desires at any time without deferment. As long as the art of healing has not succeeded in safeguarding our lives, and as long as the social organizations do not do more towards making conditions more agreeable, just so long cannot the voice within us which is striving against the demands of morality, be stifled. Every honest person finally makes this admission—at least to himself. The decision in this conflict is possible only through the roundabout way of a new understanding. One must be able to knit one’s life so closely to that of others, and to form such an intimate identification with others, that the shortening of one’s own term of life becomes surmountable; one should not unlawfully fulfill the demands of one’s own needs, but should leave them unfulfilled, because only the continuance of so many unfulfilled demands can develop the power to recast the social order. But not all personal needs allow themselves to be displaced in such a manner and transferred to others, nor is there a universal and definite solution of the conflict. We now know how to designate the witticisms just discussed; they are cynical witticisms, and what they conceal are cynicisms. Among the institutions which cynical wit is wont to attack there is none more important and more completely protected by moral precepts, and yet more inviting of attack, than the institution of marriage. Most of the cynical jokes are directed against it. For no demand is more personal than that made upon sexual freedom, and nowhere has civilization attempted to exert a more stringent suppression than in the realm of sexuality. For our purposes a single example suffices: the “Entries in the Album of Prince Carnival” mentioned on page 108. “_A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may always take a cab._”