13
jealousy. But let that pass. The instinct of sex is anti-social, exclusive, not only owing to its pugnacity; it is, we have now to note, anti-social, exclusive, owing also to the intensity of its egotism.
Once more I would not be misunderstood. Egotism, the self-regarding sentiment, is, like pugnacity, an element that has worked and does work for civilisation. The self-regarding sentiment is indeed the very heart and kernel of our volition, and hence of our highest moral efforts. Moreover, all passion, all strong emotion, intellectual passion excepted, is in a sense exclusive and egotistic; but of all passions sex-emotion is nowadays perhaps the most exclusive, the most egotistic.
The reason of this is so far obscure that it must be considered a little in detail. As civilisation advances, the primal instincts, though they remain the bases of character and the motive power of action, are in their cruder form habitually satisfied, and therefore not immediately and obviously operative. Among the well-to-do classes, it is rare to find anyone who has felt the stimulus of acute hunger, and unless he go out into the wilds to seek it—thanks to generations of good government and efficient police—a man may pass his whole life without experiencing the emotion of fear. But, for the prompt and efficient satisfaction of the sex-impulse, society has made and can make no adequate provision. And this for a reason that demands special attention.
It is very important that we should keep hold of the initial fact that at the back of sex lies a blind instinct for the continuance of the race, an instinct shared with plants and animals. This instinct is so bound up with our life, with our keenest and most complex emotions,
