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SEX AND LIFE
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equally universal impulse for reproduction, which is just as essential as the former, as it is the instinct for the preservation of the species.

The attempt to prepare to meet the problems of life without recognizing either of these two supreme impulses is doomed to frustration or failure. The problem of nutrition—an economic one—is conceded by all. Every normal person wishes to make a livelihood and to assure himself of the material needs that are so self-evident, even though often so elusive in sufficiency. Practically all training of the young takes this more or less into consideration, and even well in advance of adulthood, the individual is vaguely impressed with the inexorable operation of the economic struggle, even if he does not understand the mechanism behind it.

But how different is the individual and collective attitude toward the reproductive impulse! Here we have a factor with tremendous potentialities for making or marring the individual's life—but the outcome is only too often left in the lap of chance.

The refinements of civilization and the opportunities of culture have extended the ramifications of the sex urge, and intensified the love-impulse. Notwithstanding this increased importance of the rôle of sex in modern life, the subject has received less consideration than primitive peoples have given it, instead of more, as it deserves.

Savages' Attitude Toward Sex. Savages, at least, recognized the potency of the sexual urge, and attempted in their own way to prepare the pubescent boy and girl for the responsibilities involved in the sexual awakening.

In fact, the mysteries of sex have always exercised a profound influence upon the primitive mind. The savage's conceptions of the supernatural were largely colored by sexual