DEATH OF HAVELOCK ELLIS

Evening Star, Issue 23355, 26 August 1939, Page 21

DEATH OF HAVELOCK ELLIS

ESSAYIST AND SEX-PSYGHOLOGIST Mr Henry Havelock Ellis, F.R.C.P., who died at Cherry Ground, Hintlesham, Ipswich, last month, at the age of 80, was a critic and essayist of much learning and insight, who will also be remembered for his pioneer work in the psychology of sex. “If I were ambitious,” he once wrote, “ I would desire no finer epitaph than that it should be said of me, ‘ lie has added a little to the sweetness of the world and a little to its light.’ ” His underlying faith in the unity of science and art appeared clearly in his book ‘ The Dance of Life,’ the main contention of which was that every aspect of life should, and at its best does, exhibit, like the dance, “ the rule of number and of rhythm and of measure and of order, of the controlling influence of form, of tho subordination of the parts to the whole.” His solo essay in fiction, ‘ Kauga Creek: An Australian Idyll,’ was a beautiful piece of work which, for all its autobiographical element, it has been said, might well stand as representative of Ellis the creative artist rather than the sexpsychologist. The son of a sea captain, much of Ellis’s childhood was spent at sea. From 1875 to 1879 he was engaged in teaching in various parts of New South "Wales. Before he left Australia he had achieved—through reading some of the writings of James Hinton, a mystical philosopher in the line of Blake—an assured vision of the world as at one; scientifically explicable and aesthetically beautiful—a vision which sustained him in a balanced attitude to the end of his days.

After practising medicine for a few months in London, he devoted himself to literary and scientific work. He founded, and from 1887 to 1889 he edited, with Mr Arthur Symons as his chief collaborator, the ‘ Mermaid Series ‘ of old dramatists. Subsequently he edited tho ‘ Contemporary Scientific Series,’ and ‘ The Criminal,’ and other important works followed, ffor many years ho held an international '•opiitation. thoimh some of his disciples —as disciples will—misused his teaching, Pioneer work which trespasses

upon that “ sphere of the questionable,” the illumination of which Ellis took as his special task, has almost necessarily to be carried through by individuals in the teeth of public opinion. But Ellis never faltered in courage or steadfastness, and his ‘ Impressions and Comments ’ show how completely opposition failed to embitter him or to affect his intellectual balance and fairmindedness. To Mills and his follow workers wo owe most of the modern freedom of discussion on sexual matters. which is of great importance in physical and mental hygiene.