that whatever knowledge may be available, and whatever methods may be
devised, it would not be easy to convey this knowledge rightly to the
individual it is hoped to benefit without doing harm to others.
Further thought shows that the national problems involved are so
important and far reaching in effects that they might well arrest the
attention of the most careless advocate of indiscriminate conception
control.

This is a subject, therefore, which requires careful consideration
from the point of view of the individual, of public morality, and of
national welfare--and the more closely it is studied the more apparent
are the far reaching issues involved. It is improbable that the
practice of using contraceptives will continue for even a generation
without revealing the harmful effects which must to some extent ensue.

In the whole discussion of this subject it is important to keep in
mind that the physical is only one aspect of the sex relation.

In the evolution which sex has shared with all else, the psychic side
appears even in the higher animals. In them the desire is not for mere
indiscriminate physical satisfaction, but the element of choice comes
in, a factor which sometimes upsets the plans of breeders. In man this
aspect of the relation is all important. The higher side of sex, or
what we may call the psychical secondary sex characters, seem to
extend through the whole range of mental and spiritual activities.
Because of this there is freshness of contact in mental and spiritual
intercourse between men and women which differs somewhat from that
between individuals of the same sex, and very much of the joy of life
springs from the impact of these differing yet completing selves the
one upon the other.