THE SEXUAL INSTINCT
ITS USE AND DANGERS AS AFFECTING HEREDITY AND MORALS.
ESSENTIALS TO THE WELFARE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
AND THE FUTURE OF THE RACE
BY JAMES FOSTER SCOTT (Tale University), M.D., CM. (Edinburgh University)
OBSTETRICIAN TO COLUMBIA HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN, AND LYING-IN ASTLUM,
WASHINGTON, D.LATH VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICAL ASSO-
CIATION
OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ETC., ETC.
THIRD EDITION
REVISED AND ENLARGED
CHICAGO
LOGIN BROTHERS,
1814 W. HARRISON ST. I93O
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
IT is a matter of extreme thankfulness to me that this book has received almost uniform approval from the Medical, Religious, and Lay press, and this in spite of the many defects in its composition, of which I am well aware. I thank the reviewers for their kindness in overlooking lesser matters, and for generously upholding its main purport and intent. My views have changed only in a direction which has strengthened them.
No complaint has ever reached me that harm of any kind has been derived from these pages, and had evidence of such effect been forthcoming, nothing could have induced me to allow them to survive. But the whole mass of testimony which has come to my ears has been that it has been useful.
Groups of medical men, containing no small number of the foremost names in the profession, have formed organizations for the promotion of social decorum in many of our principal cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and also in Germany, Holland, and other European countries, and from many of these I have received so hearty an encouragement that it is quite evident that we hold essentially similar views. Harmoniously, and by various methods, an increasing number of doctors of medicine are busying themselves in the introduction of these teachings among that class
where they will most affect conduct.
The increasing importance of the subject is now so well recognized that we look upon a man who is not well-informed concerning it as pseudo enlightened, and as one who has missed a most important part of his ethical education.
I have come to believe that a large part of the guidance of human conduct, such as may advantageously be used in practice, belongs peculiarly to the medical calling, and less to philosophers and clerics. This idea may be pardonable when we consider the intense interest which its pursuit inspires, but we will not quarrel with any class of men who take their part in furthering its cause, and who claim the field as peculiarly their own.
But a merely philosophical, religious, or sexless system of ethics seems weaponless, for in the moralities sexuality occupies a leading position.
The various systems of religion are rich in such material, and the Founder of Christianity was called the "Great Physician." The physician greatly influences conduct by teaching the laws of preventive medicine, of hygiene, and of quarantine, and by pointing out the need of bodily cleanliness, and the danger of filthiness and dissipation and vicious or careless modes of life.
Likewise the ethical counsellor effectively directs attention to the derangements which necessarily follow when good conduct is replaced by an immoral life. The former teaches to be physically clean; the latter to be morally upright. The "mens sana" is most often to be found "in corpore sano."
If the conscientious physician thinks that he can make people hunger and thirst after health by freely imparting information, why should he not as well think that he could make them hunger and thirst after righteousness by extending their circles of thought ?
The humanitarian is dissatisfied with the conditions as they are. His aim is to make the world a healthier and a happier place, and in that effort he finds enthusiasm. Those who are under obligation to teach sexual ethics have in their care the highest grade of work, and they would have no license to busy themselves about these matters if they yielded the precedence of their importance to any other thing whatever.