Modern man is beset by another peculiar temptation. The beauty of woman,
which in the days of the past was regarded as sacred, can be made a
means of pleasure, and thus drawn from the realm of values into the
realm of sensuality. This is a breach with the principle of personal
love, for to the latter the beauty of a woman is so much part and parcel
of the whole personality that it cannot be enjoyed separately, that
indeed it can hardly be noticed as a distinct element. This cleavage has
become so nearly universal that we are hardly conscious of its profound
perversity. It is the arch-sin of all higher eroticism to realise beauty
not as the undetachable and self-evident outward form of a beloved soul,
but as a means of heightening pleasure. Although in its essence it is
the same thing as the examination of a work of art merely for the sake
of the pleasure it affords to the senses, the offence is here aggravated
because personality is involved. This degradation of the higher values,
whether of nature, art, beauty, knowledge, kindness, religion or the
human soul, to serve the ends of sensual pleasure is the expression of a
perversity which is possibly the most radical and characteristic of our
age.
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