Résumé.—Let us briefly recapitulate the matter contained in the chapters of this book:
(1). In the first five chapters I have given an account of the natural history, anatomy and functions of the reproductive organs, and the psychology of sexual life.
(2). In Chapter VI, I have given (chiefly according to Westermarck) a résumé of ethnography and the history of sexual relations in the different human races.
(3). In Chapter VII, I have attempted to trace the zoölogical evolution of sexual life along the line of our animal ancestors, and to briefly describe the evolution of sexual life in the individual, from birth till death. I have thus endeavored to acquaint the reader with the two sources of our sexual sensations and sentiments—the hereditary or phylogenetic source, and the source acquired and adapted by the individual.
(4). In Chapter VIII, I have described the pathology of sexual life, because this concerns social life much more than is generally supposed.
(5). In Chapters IX to XVIII, I have explained the relations of sexual life to the most important spheres of human sentiments and interests, to suggestion, money and property, to the external conditions of life, to religion, law, medicine, morality, politics, political economy, pedagogy and art. Incidentally, I have glanced at the social organizations and customs which depend on these relations.
If we sum up the results obtained, we can draw from them a series of conclusions which we will divide into two groups:
NEGATIVE TASKS
Suppression of the Direct or Indirect Causes of Sexual Evils and
Abuses, and the Social Vices which Correspond to Them
The corruption into which a semi-civilization has plunged humanity, by facilitating the means of obtaining satisfaction for its unbridled passion for pleasure, is maintained by the latter itself. But in the long run, the unlimited abandonment of the individual to pleasure cannot be in accord with the welfare and progress of society. This is the knotty point. It is necessary for a better social organization to artificially restrain the passion for pleasure, at the same time raising the social quality of men; that is to say, their altruism or instinct (social ethics). We can only expect immediately the first of these two objects; but we have seen that it is possible to prepare the second for the future, by neglecting none of the factors of social salvation.