Nor have all the social and administrative re-
sources of modem civilization availed to ex-
ercise an effective control. The elementary
laws on which prostitution rests are stronger
than the artificial codes imposed by moral teach-
ing, conventional standards or legislatures, and



MODERN CITIES

attempts at repression lead only to a change of
form, not of substances. It survives all treat-
ment, and though it may coexist with national
vigor, its extravagant development is one of the
signs of a rotten and decaying civilization."^

Another authority contends that ""sexual in-
tercourse is an imperious necessity, implanted
in our nature, for the gratification of whidi
man will brave any danger however great to
health and even life. Whether descended from
the ape or created in the image of his Maker,
he is still an animal, who, but for the human-
izing influence of civilization and Christianity,
would be more savage and degraded than tbe
wildest beast of the forest. If this postulate
be admitted, it requires no argument to prove
that prostitution is an essential necessity of
society." ^

Lecky, the historian, delivers an apostrojAe
to the harlot: "Herself the supreme type of
vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian
of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity
of countless homes would be polluted, and not
a few who, in the pride of their untempted
chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder,
would have known the agony of remorse and
of despair. On that one degraded and noUe
form are concentrated the passions that mij^

* Encyc. Brit., 1 1th Ed., Vol. XXII, p. 46S.
