ethics is not an impulsive rebellion of youth against the wisdom of the ages, or an untried philosophy that holds dangers to Society; they know that utilitarianism has instead been associated with the most enlightened, brilliant, and humanitarian periods of history: Athens in its period of greatest achievement, Greek Alexandria, the best centuries of Roman life, the richest eras of China and Japan, the finest phases of the Arab-Persian world, and the life of Moorish Spain. A metaphysical and religious moral code was, on the contrary, associated with that sustained period of civilized barbarism known as the Dark Ages. There are those today who cling to what is literally the moral code of the Middle Ages; and there are those who, mentally skipping that period, have resumed the normal line of the development of human thought as manifested in the Golden Ages of history.

There is, then, no need of a revised ethical code because of the Kinsey findings. What is needed is for the general public to get acquainted with the books on scientific Ethics that were written for the layman twenty years ago, but which never became best-sellers as the Kinsey Report has. A required course of reading should include Science and Good Behavior by Howard M. Parshley, The New Morality by Durant Drake, The Concept of Morals by Walter T. Stace, The Fine Art of Living by Isaac Goldberg, Personality and Conduct by Maurice Parmelee, The Key to Love and Sex by Joseph McCabe, Marriage and Morals by Bertrand Russell, Sin and Sex by Robert Briffault, Sex Love and Morality by William J. Robinson, and The Ethics of Sexual Acts by René Guyon. The book by Maurice Parmelee, written in 1918, considers in detail the needed revision of our sex laws, and not a line of it needs to be changed because of the Kinsey Report: perhaps now at last some attention will be paid to its proposals.

Fully twenty years ago, William J. Robinson formulated the basic principles of rational ethics as follows:

A. The basic principles of morality are always and everywhere the same. The thoughtless statement that morality changes with time and place refers to customs, dogmas, taboos, and superstitions, which have no relation to genuine morality.

B. The basic principles of morality (for every race and for all the ages) are: (a) do not injure or bring unhappiness to others; (b) help everyone as much as possible, bringing happiness and benefit to others.

C. The morality or immorality of an act or human relationship depends on the intention of the actor and the consequences of the act.

D. An act or relationship that brings pleasure or benefit to one or more persons, without injuring anyone, is moral. An act or relationship that injures one or more persons is immoral.

E. The above general code of morality applies to all sexual acts, without the need of any special code of sexual morals.

Applying these principles, Dr. Robinson found nothing immoral in the voluntary sexual relations of unmarried persons; and he found such intercourse equally moral if indulged in, without affection, for the sheer physical pleasure involved, or if practiced with ten partners rather than one. He found nothing morally wrong in one woman living with two men, or one man living with two women. He decided that the profession of the courtesan supplied a genuine need, and was neither immoral nor anti-social. He considered the granting of sexual favors the mark of a virtuous woman, indicating as it did a kind heart and a gracious nature. By specific actual cases he showed that adultery may sometimes be moral and commendable, bringing happiness to three persons and injuring none. He declared incest and miscegenation to be immoral only if they resulted in childbirth (in a culture where such a child would be socially handicapped). Rape and sadism he found to be always immoral, as also seduction by means of deception.

Such a moral code has long been accepted by those who base their thinking upon the facts of modern science, and nothing in the findings of Dr. Kinsey requires the slightest revision of its principles or their application. On the other hand, it is the privilege of anyone, if he wishes, to adopt Religion rather than Science as a guide to life; and such a person is fully entitled to argue that the Kinsey Report merely proves how thoroughly depraved this nation has become.

Now for the legal aspect of the matter. The Kinsey Report points out that sexual practices which are statistically normal are offenses against the penal code, and it is then implied that our laws should be changed to conform to practice. Attacking such reasoning as "both logically spurious and scientifically dangerous," Professor Birch writes, "To call for a change of laws to make them conform to practice is to accept current male sexual practices as desirable and permanent." Professor Birch

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