Havelock Ellis – Studies in the Psychology of Sex

Studies in the Psychology of Sex series was originally published in 7 volumes by F. A. Davis Company, medical publishers, and its sale restricted to doctors and lawyers. The origin of these “Studies in the Psychology of Sex” dates from many years back. As a youth I was faced, as others are, by the problem of sex. Living partly in an Australian city where the ways of life were plainly seen, partly in the solitude of the bush, I was free both to contemplate and to meditate many things.

A resolve slowly grew up within me: one main part of my life-work should be to make clear the problems of sex. That was more than twenty years ago. Since then I can honestly say that in all that I have done that resolve has never been very far from my thoughts. I have always been slowly working up to this central problem and in a book published some three years ago – Man and Woman: a “Study of Human Secondary Sexual Characters” – I put forward what was, in my own eyes, an introduction to the study of the primary questions of sexual psychology.

The first edition of the Studies in the Psychology of Sex was published in 1899, following “Sexual Inversion,” which now forms Volume II. The second edition, issued by the present publishers and substantially identical with the first edition, appeared in the following year. Ten years have elapsed since then and this new edition will be found to reflect the course of that long interval. Not only is the volume greatly enlarged, but nearly every page has been partly rewritten.

Now that I have at length reached the time for beginning to publish my results, these results scarcely seem to me large. As a youth, I had hoped to settle problems for those who came after now I am quietly content if I do little more than state them. For even that, I now think, is much it is at least the half of knowledge. In this particular field the evil of ignorance is magnified by our efforts to suppress that which never can be suppressed, though in the effort of suppression it may become perverted.

I have at least tried to find out what are the facts, among normal people as well as among abnormal people for, while it seems to me that the physician’s training is necessary in order to ascertain the facts, the physician for the most part only obtains the abnormal facts, which alone bring little light. I have tried to get at the facts, and, having got at the facts, to look them simply and squarely in the face. If I cannot perhaps turn the lock myself, I bring the key which can alone in the end rightly open the door: the key of sincerity. That is my one panacea: sincerity. – HAVELOCK ELLIS.

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