Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London
First published 1922
All Rights reserved
I am anxious to take this opportunity of thanking those friends who havehelped me by valuable suggestion and criticism in correcting the proofs ofthis small book. In particular I desire to mention Canon Lacey and Dr.Griffin, and to apologize for the amount of time which I must have stolenfrom them.
Kenneth Ingram
March 1922
Any honest inquiry into the Primal Instincts of humanity will necessarilylead to a clearer understanding of their nature, their functions, andtheir potentialities, and so will help to pave the way for the appearanceof a healthier and happier race of men. The dictum “Learn to knowyourself,” inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, has never been ofmore vital importance, both individually and nationally, than it isto-day, and the various schools of modern psychological thought, which aresteadily opening up those hitherto scarcely explored regions whence flowthe springs of human actions, are gradually clearing away the ignorancewhich has been the real cause of so much disease and distress. Thefollowing chapters are to be welcomed particularly as an effort at theconstructional reform of our treatment of one of our deepest and mostpowerful instincts. Even those who do not necessarily give assent to allthe details in the line of argument therein pursued must surely approvethe insistence upon the vital necessity of there being love in all sexrelationships.
The word “sexual,” though indispensable perhaps in such a book as this,invariably induces some measure of opposition by reason of theassociations which it calls up, and so is often replaced by the cognate[Pg 4]adjective “racial,” which emphasizes the wider aims of Race Preservationrather than the narrower matter of the reproduction of individuals. It isnot a matter of curing individual immorality, not even of explaining itonly, it is the greater matter of laying a sound foundation for apracticable social morality that is the object of consideration here. Itis important that any such opposition should be neither hypocritical norhyper-critical, for great national issues are at stake. Without thehealthy mind there can be no healthy body, at any rate from the point ofview of the community, and thus such a scientific inquiry as is set forthin these pages is definitely leading towards the production of a healthiernation.
The necessity of there being established a balance between an unlimitedself-expression and a rigid self-repression is clearly indicated also, andthe importance of self-control is not ignored here as it has beenelsewhere, unfortunately, both as regards the individual’s physical healthand the weal of the community at large; for self-control is a vitalessential in the health of a man just as it is a vital necessity for thecontinuance of a nation. The following pages contain information andsuggestions which should tend to the formation of a wiser and more hopefuloutlook over th