But while the sexual life leads to the very highest The Importance manifestations of virtue, religion and patriotism, it of Its Cultivation cannot be denied, and must always be borne in mind, that it also lies behind the worst dangers which threaten society and the State. Sexual love, as a blind, unbridled passion, is like a cyclone that destroys everything in its path; but, ruled and held in leash by the gentle restraints of religion, society and civilization, is capable of leading us on to the grandest and most beneficent ends.

It is true that the culture of sexual morality becomes equally important with its recognition as a primitively inherent force. This culture will depend, as to its direction, on the ethical view-point of the country in which it obtains. Thus a Japanese woman is only eligible to wifehood after she has lived at least a year in a house of prostitution; and she can, and does, thus satisfy her sexual passion, daily, without detracting either from her virtue as a woman or her market value as a wife; proving that among this remarkable people—more remarkable through the astounding developments of the present war1—woman possesses rather a procreative, and physical, than ethical value. And we must not hastily condemn, in these sons of Dai Nippon, institutions and customs which are the heritage of Asiatic ancestors, and the growth of ages.

1 Russo-Japanese War, 1904^5.