There are few more cruel
things possible than to bring a girl up in the ignorance which is
mistaken for innocence and then to allow her to go out into the world
to learn the truth by chance, or through some unclean mind.
That is why I gladly address myself to the task of this book, in which
at least some of the truth is told.
Of course the real issue that stands in the background here is the one
which concerns the nature of true spirituality. We are all agreed that
the essential greatness of man lies in the fact that in him spirit may
rule everything else. And until spirit does thus rule he has not
reached his true life, But the question of the place of the body in the
full life of man still remains to be faced and thought out.
The hermits of the desert assumed that the way of true life lay in the
repression of all bodily desire and as much negation of the body as is
consistent with mere existence. But in fact they often succeeded in
making life disgusting, and generally in making it useless. It may be
doubted whether they contributed anything to the real problem of
civilization.
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