is only from such a standpoint, too, that the
ession of Health can speak with power in matters
nmorality and intemperance in those regions of
il and individual misadjustment in which the
armony is the direct or indirect result of a de-
;ure from a temperate or moral mode of life,
[oreover, the conspiracy of silence which now en-
ps the whole subject of sex responsibilities and
177 N



THE GREAT STATE

sex morality must be cleared away, and it will be the
duty of the Health adviser to co-operate with the
educationist in dispelling ignorance about normal sex
functions, and in pointing out the harmful results of
immoral conduct in ruined health and in diminished
efficiency. The work of the State doctor will be
preventive rather than curative, national as weU as
individual, and educational in a high degree. He it
is who will act as guide and counsellor in the coming
transition period in the history of the human race,
which is now approaching much more quicMy than
many suppose. For mankind is passing out of the
control of its old schoolmaster, Natural Selection, and
is entering on the wider career of adult life, when the
old evolutionary landmarks will be lost sight of,
when preadaptation and instinctive response will be
largely supplemented by capacity to profit by ex-
perience, and when the power of controlling his en-
vironment will enable man to take a large share in
the shaping of Human destiny. Those who are
called upon to advise the race in these great issues
must be public-spirited citizens above all suspicion
of self-seeking. Such public spirit as we need de-
mands public service and public recognition; it will
flourish in an atmosphere of penetrating criticism
efficiently performed, it will languish under condi-
tions both of unrestricted competition and of re-
stricted activity. It perishes in a life of unlimited
self-assertion and uncontrolled individualism.
