Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 | Page 2

to eat grass, which
I don't like? Instinct notwithstanding, we may be quite sure that only a

small minority would succeed in eating reasonably and wholesomely.
The sexual secrecy of life is even more disastrous than such a nutritive
secrecy would be; partly because we expend such a wealth of moral
energy in directing or misdirecting it, partly because the sexual impulse
normally develops at the same time as the intellectual impulse, not in
the early years of life, when wholesome instinctive habits might be
formed. And there is always some ignorant and foolish friend who is
prepared still further to muddle things: Eat a meal every other day! Eat
twelve meals a day! Never eat fruit! Always eat grass! The advice
emphatically given in sexual matters is usually not less absurd than this.
When, however, the matter is fully open, the problems of food are not
indeed wholly solved, but everyone is enabled by the experience of his
fellows to reach some sort of situation suited to his own case. And
when the rigid secrecy is once swept away a sane and natural reticence
becomes for the first time possible.
This secrecy has not always been maintained. When the Catholic
Church was at the summit of its power and influence it fully realized
the magnitude of sexual problems and took an active and inquiring
interest in all the details of normal and abnormal sexuality. Even to the
present time there are certain phenomena of the sexual life which have
scarcely been accurately described except in ancient theological
treatises. As the type of such treatises I will mention the great tome of
Sanchez, De Matrimonio. Here you will find the whole sexual life of
men and women analyzed in its relationships to sin. Everything is set
forth, as clearly and as concisely as it can be--without morbid prudery
on the one hand, or morbid sentimentality on the other--in the coldest
scientific language; the right course of action is pointed out for all the
cases that may occur, and we are told what is lawful, what a venial sin,
what a mortal sin. Now I do not consider that sexual matters concern
the theologian alone, and I deny altogether that he is competent to deal
with them. In his hands, also, undoubtedly, they sometimes become
prurient, as they can scarcely fail to become on the non-natural and
unwholesome basis of asceticism, and as they with difficulty become in
the open-air light of science. But we are bound to recognize the
thoroughness with which the Catholic theologians dealt with these
matters, and, from their own point of view, indeed, the entire

reasonableness; we are bound to recognize the admirable spirit in
which, successfully or not, they sought to approach them. We need
to-day the same spirit and temper applied from a different standpoint.
These things concern everyone; the study of these things concerns the
physiologist, the psychologist, the moralist. We want to get into
possession of the actual facts, and from the investigation of the facts we
want to ascertain what is normal and what is abnormal, from the point
of view of physiology and of psychology. We want to know what is
naturally lawful under the various sexual chances that may befall man,
not as the born child of sin, but as a naturally social animal. What is a
venial sin against nature, what a mortal sin against nature? The answers
are less easy to reach than the theologians' answers generally were, but
we can at least put ourselves in the right attitude; we may succeed in
asking that question which is sometimes even more than the half of
knowledge.
It is perhaps a mistake to show so plainly at the outset that I approach
what may seem only a psychological question not without moral
fervour. But I do not wish any mistake to be made. I regard sex as the
central problem of life. And now that the problem of religion has
practically been settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been
placed on a practical foundation, the question of sex--with the racial
questions that rest on it--stands before the coming generations as the
chief problem for solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never
learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.--So, at
least, it seems to me.
Having said so much, I will try to present such results as I have to
record in that cold and dry light through which alone the goal of
knowledge may truly be seen.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
July, 1897.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The first edition of this volume was published in 1899, following
"Sexual Inversion," which now forms Volume II. The second edition,
issued by the present publishers and substantially identical with the