Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/52

 CHAPTER III. THE REPRESSIVE SYSTEM, IN REFERENCE TO MUNICIPAL ACTION. facts recorded in the foregoing pages prove the dangers arising from letting vice alone; and they also prove to demonstration, the social demoralization resulting from the registration and regulation of the women who take part in promiscuous intercourse.

It is seen that the first system permits great and dangerous evils to run into license, leaving them to be dealt with solely through individual effort, and through the action of the moral and religious organizations, which in a Christian country gradually arise to combat them—organizations indispensable to social progress, but lacking the coherence, force, and educating influence of righteous law.

It is seen also that the last system gradually destroys individual responsibility; little by little it produces cynicism, corruption, and a deep-seated moral degradation in all classes of society, which at last (42)