Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/462

 Before that I had received from France a letter from Angèle Françoise and her pamphlet.

In this letter Mrs. Angèle informed me of the existence of two societies which have for their aim the encouragement of the purity of the sexual relations,—one in England, and another in France,—Société d'amour pur. In the article by Mrs. Angèle the same thoughts were expressed as in the Diana, but less clearly and less definitely, and with a shade of mysticism.

The thoughts expressed in the pamphlet Diana, though having at their base not the Christian, but rather a pagan, Platonic world conception, are so new and so interesting, and so obviously show the irrationality of the established dissipation, both in the celibate and in the married life of our society, that I want to share these thoughts with my readers.

The fundamental idea of the pamphlet, the motto of which is, "And they twain shall be one flesh," is the following:

The difference in the organization of man and woman exists not only in a physiological relation, but also in other moral qualities, which in man are called masculinity, in woman femininity. The attraction between the sexes is not based on the striving after physical intercourse alone, but also on mutual attraction, which these opposite properties of the sexes exert upon one another, femininity upon man and masculinity upon woman. One sex strives to be complemented by the other, and so the attraction between the sexes produces an equal tendency toward the spiritual as toward the physical union. The strivings after physical and after spiritual intercourse are manifestations of one and the same source of attraction, which are in such interdependence that the gratification of one striving invariably weakens the other. In proportion as the striving after spiritual intercourse is satisfied, the striving after the physical union is weakened