Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. VI, Sex in relation to society / by Havelock Ellis.
- Havelock Ellis
- Date:
- [1910], ©1910
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: Studies in the psychology of sex. Vol. VI, Sex in relation to society / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
661/680 page 641
![4 POSTSCßlPI. 641 obstinate as this of sex. It may help to restore the serenity of our optimism if we would more clearly realize that in a very few generations all these prejudices will Ьал^е perished and be forgotten. He who follows in the steps of Nature after a law that was not made by man, and is above and beyond man, has time as well as eternity on his side, and can afford to be both patient and fearless. ]\Ien die, but the ideas they seek to kill live. Our books may be thrown to the flames, but in the next generation those flames become human souls. The transformation is effected b}^ the doctor in his consulting room, by the teacher in the school, the preacher in the pulpit, the journalist in the press. It is a transformation that is going on, slowly but surely, around us. I am well aware that many will not feel able to accept the estimate of the sexual situation as here set forth, more especially in the final volume. Some will consider that estimate too conservative, others too revolutionary. For there are always some who passionately seek to hold fast to the past; there are always others Avho passionately seek to snatch at Avhat they imagine to be the future. But the wise man, standing midway between both parties and sympathiz¬ ing with each, knows that w^e are ever in the stage of transi¬ tion. The present is in every age merely the shifting point at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel with either. There can be no Avorld without traditions ; neither can there be any life without movement. As Hera- cleitus knew at the outset of modern philosophy, we cannot bathe twice in the same stream, though, as we know to-day, the stream still flows in an unending circle. There is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die. 41](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18033659_0662.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
