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Dr. Norman Haire, the editor of this series, says of this book: 'It has impressed me as one of the most important contributions to sexological literature that I have ever read'. We do not share this estimate. Nor should we like to think that by 'sexological literature' Dr. Haire understands 'propaganda against sexual morality'. For the work is essentially a shouting propaganda. From the point of view of scientific investigation of sexual phenomena—which is what one generally means by 'sexology'—it is so superficial as to be of little worth.
M. Guyon is a prolific writer—a list is mentioned of the books he has published and of six more in preparation—who has spent a great part of his life in the East. Like most observant travellers, he has been struck by the relativity of moral conventions and by the great variation in sexual customs in different parts of the world. Stimulated, no doubt, by these observations, he has come to the easy conclusion that the numerous systems of regulating sexual behaviour are in essence artificial and factitious, corresponding with no permanent law of psychology, sociology or biology. If all these regulations and taboos—and the most interesting part of the book is the amusing collection he has made of these—were abolished, the world would be a better and happier place. He applies the same conclusion to sexual perversions as to the more 'normal' modes of functioning.
M. Guyon has come across psycho-analysis and expresses his views about it freely, but courteously. In a chapter entitled 'Adhesion to Freud's General Principles' he gives a description of it which an analyst would not find very easy to recognize. Naturally he is favourably impressed by the general importance Freud attaches to the sexual instinct and to his studies