Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/88

72 to overdo the "enjoyment." Did he not have the liberty and the capacity to overstep the necessity of nature, neither would he have the liberty and the capacity to refrain from transgressing. That he refrains from reasonable motives, » that he regulates his impulse in accordance with reasonable aims, that he through his reason shows his liberty the measure of its use, that he consciously and voluntarily fulfils the aim of nature as the animal does unconsciously and involuntarily — that is his pride, that is morality.

To deny nature or to thwart the aims of nature, which in a manner furnish reason with the material for morality, can never be moral; it is rather just as immoral as on the other side a transgression of the natural limits and objects. An old maid (who purposely renounces her sexual nature) is therefore just as immoral as a courtesan, and a celibate just as immoral as a libertine.

The false ideas of morality with respect to sexual affairs show themselves in what we Commonly call the sense of shame.

What is the sense of shame? Generally speaking, it is the diffidence about exposing something, or the pain at having exposed something which may meet with the disapproval of others. Without this respect for others there would be no sense of shame. The-existence or the degree of shame, therefore, directly depends on the conception of the one feeling ashamed, and this conception