In the long process of adaptation to social life, men have
had to harness the wishes and desires born of these inner energies,
the greatest and most imperative of which are Sex and Hunger. From
the beginning of time, men have been driven by Hunger into a thousand
activities. It is Hunger that has created "the struggle for existence."
Hunger has spurred men to the discovery and invention of methods and
ways of avoiding starvation, of storing and exchanging foods. It has
developed primitive barter into our contemporary Wall Streets. It has
developed thrift and economy,--expedients whereby humanity avoids the
lash of King Hunger. The true "economic interpretation of history" might
be termed the History of Hunger.
But no less fundamental, no less imperative, no less ceaseless in its
dynamic energy, has been the great force of Sex. We do not yet know the
intricate but certainly organic relationship between these two forces.
It is obvious that they oppose yet reinforce each other,--driving,
lashing, spurring mankind on to new conquests or to certain ruin.
Perhaps Hunger and Sex are merely opposite poles of a single great
life force. In the past we have made the mistake of separating them
and attempting to study one of them without the other. Birth Control
emphasizes the need of re-investigation and of knowledge of their
integral relationship, and aims at the solution of the great problem of
Hunger and Sex at one and the same time.
In the more recent past the effort has been made to control, civilize,
and sublimate the great primordial natural force of sex, mainly by
futile efforts at prohibition, suppression, restraint, and extirpation.
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