From the PREFACE:
"This book is written to offer a simple and natural explanation of one of the most common and most perplexing problems of human life,ûa problem which presents itself to almost every individual for practical solution, and which demands the most serious attention of the moralist, the physician, and the sociologistû

To show how some of the worst evils under which we suffer, evils long supposed to be inherent and ineradicable in our natures, are but the result of certain arbitrary conditions of our own adoption, and how, by removing those conditions, we may remove the evil
resultantû"