How the boundary will finally be defined—in the one case as in the other—we cannot know at present. It is true that there is here and there a glimmer of light which already shows the way; but until these gleams become more frequent, mankind can only grope and stumble along the path by which perhaps it will one day march in full daylight.
Many who regard sexual morality from the point of view of evolutionism have never enquired whether monogamy—and an increasingly perfect monogamy—is really the best means of human development. These evolutionists unite with the champions of Christian idealism in condemnation of “the immorality of the present day,” which declares itself in sexual matters in the form of free connections outside matrimony; of an increase of divorce among those married; of disinclination for parentage and of the claim of unmarried women to the right of motherhood. Other evolutionists think that all this is the earliest announcement of the awakening which will assign to love its full importance, not only for the perpetuation, but for the progress of the race. With the will of active, effective life they attack the current standard of morality and the rights of the family. The object of the conflict is not itself new; what is new is only the boldness, fostered, consciously or unconsciously, by the evolutionary idea, of thus asserting the rights of love against those of society, the code of the future against that of the past.
The new morality knows that in a wide sense civilisation will only attain lasting power over nature when it combines higher emotions of happiness with the ends in the pursuit of which harsh means may be demanded. That creed of life which makes the mission of the race co-operate with personal happiness in love, will also demand of the latter the sacrifices which the former renders necessary. But it must not augment these requirements by ascetic demands for purity which are meaningless for the racial mission. The followers of this creed will take love as the criterion of the individual’s sexual emotions and actions, above all because they believe that the happiness of the individual is the most important condition also for the enhancement of the race.
They desire to fill the earth with hungerers for happiness, since they know that only thus will earthly life attain its inmost purpose, that of forming—in an altogether new sense—creatures of eternity.
The word, which through Eros became flesh and dwells among us, is the profoundest of all: Joy is perfection.
If we accept this dictum of Spinoza as the highest revelation of life’s meaning, our eyes are at the same time opened to the harmony of existence. We perceive that the more perfect race will be in the fullest sense of the word created by love. But this will not take place until love has become a religion, the highest expression of the fear of life—not the fear of God;—when faith in life has scattered the superstition and unbelief which still disfigure love. When the eldest of the gods has no other god before him, then will the monsters who now fill the murky deeps over which the spirit of the god moves perish in the light of the new day of creation.
For the sake of clearness, it has been necessary to sum up here the main ideas of the following exposition. In some measure it will therefore be also necessary to return to them during the following treatment of the movements which have the deepest influence on sexual morality: the evolution of love, its freedom and its selection; the claims of a right to and an exemption from motherhood; of collective motherhood, of free divorce, and of a new marriage law.