Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/19



A special trait of the last quarter of the century lately ended was the subtle but general, decided change in what one may call psychologic perspectives. The thoughtful classes have studied their fellow men of late, from the standpoints of practical psychiatrics and of moral responsibility, with a clearness of insight and from a variety of angles not before our time so considered or attained. The changes in currents of religious belief, by which dogmas have been displaced in favour of more natural spiritual conclusions, changes through which the understructure of ethical systems have been questioned and often rebuilt, have served humanity profoundly. Social science, applied to the individual, has also wrought similar healthful details in everyday life.

Perhaps no process in the category has been more valuable than the leverage of the medical psychologist. His studies of phases of human nature, and his conclusions as to its expressions, exercise now-a-days upon the social attitudes an influence for which we have no parallel unless we revert to the Middle-Ages and to the best aspects (troublesomely blended, as they were, with mischievous errors) of Ecclesiasticism as a factor in mediaeval society.