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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    evolutionary significance, but do not rather act as a check and a deterrent to any further progress. At the very least it must be said that their values are enormously over-estimated and over-accentuated at the present time in every possible direction. In order to facilitate the argument, it is perhaps necessary for the reader to grasp the scheme under which it is laid out, because various lines of evidence will be considered in the earlier part of the book, and threads of this evidence will only be drawn together towards the end. My scheme is somewhat as follows : 1. In the first chapter I have dwelt upon those psychological difficulties we all possess, which prevent our appreciating the fact that our preconceived notions of ourselves may be fundamentally wrong. Technically, this difficulty is known as Resistance, and since the Resistance is of an unconscious nature, it will be evident that in order to appreciate any form of evolutionary thought concerning ourselves, we must particularly attempt to rule out our prejudices and desires, and to separate them from our reasoning. 2. Following upon this, I have endeavoured shortly to show that there is a real problem exercising the public mind at the moment concerning woman's position in the social and economic world, and moreover that a variety of opinions are held on the subject, few of which have any value, on account of disregard of both physiological and psychological factors on the part of their propounders. 3. In the succeeding chapters, I have tried to follow the converging lines of evidence, historical, physiological, and psychological, which show that with the exception of certain definite sexual characteristics mostly connected with reproduction it is incorrect to define as masculine or feminine, various attributes commonly so regarded. In order to do this I have thought it necessary to attempt to
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