Sex and civilization / by Paul Bousfield.

  • Bousfield, Paul, 1880-
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Sex and civilization / by Paul Bousfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    intelligent courage of human beings themselves. If society must save itself, it must consider its resources. Human nature and human energy themselves are among the most important factors to be considered, though not of course the only ones. Mr Wells clearly believes that the study of human nature, made possible by modern psychology, is one of great promise and utility at the present time. The advances made in psychology as a practical science during the last thirty or forty years have been enormous. When J. S. Mill* wrote in 1869 on the subject of woman, he said that : Of all difficulties which impede the pro- gress of thought and the formation of well-guided opinions on life and social arrangements the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance and inattention of mankind in respect to influences which form human character. And this is exactly the defect for which modern psychology will provide the remedy. New light is nowadays continually thrown upon the obscure springs of conduct and motive, and people are beginning to understand a little better the way of working though not yet the actual nature, of that force, viz., their own energies, which men and women must use for the improvement of society and for the conscious advance- ment and further evolution of the race. Now, in the present work, the writer has attempted to investigate one aspect of this human energy—a very vital one—and one particular branch of social life in which changes are essential if we are to continue to progress from a lower to a higher form of civilization, although its bearing in that connection is usually not at all clearly seen. This is due to unconscious prejudice and insufficient knowledge of the physiological and psychological facts and of the inferences to draw from them upon which true *J. S. Mill, On The Subjection of Women, p.39.
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