apart from sex crimes, however, there remains one problem of large proportions aptly described by Professor Bickel:

"It concerns the tone of the society, the mode, or to use terms that have perhaps greater currency, the style and quality of life, now and in the future. A man may be entitled to read an obscene book in his room, or expose himself indecently there.. We should protect his privacy. But if he demands a right to obtain the books and pictures he wants in the market, and to foregather in public places—discreet, if you will, but accessible to all-with others who share his tastes, then to grant him his right is to affect the world about the rest of us, and to impinge on other privacies. Even supposing that each of us can, if he wishes, effectively avert the eye and stop the ear (which, in truth, we cannot), what is commonly read and seen and heard and done intrudes upon us all, want it or not." 22 The Public Interest 25-26 (Winter 1971)." (Emphasis added.)

As Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated, there is a "right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent soci

entation of sexual behavior and attitudes, may induce antisocial conduct by the average person. A number of sociologists think that this material may have adverse effects upon individual mental health, with potentially disruptive consequences for the community.

"Congress and the legislatures of every State have enacted measures to restrict the distribution of erotic and pornographic material, justifying these controls by reference to evidence that antisocial behavior may result in part from reading obscenity." Id., at 452453 (footnotes omitted).

9

See also Berns, Pornography vs. Democracy: The Case for Cen sorship, in 22 The Public Interest 3 (Winter 1971); van len Hagg, in Censorship: For & Against 156-157 (H. Hart ed. 1971).,

ety. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184, 199 (1964) (dissenting opinion).10 See Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U. S. 413, 457 (1966) (Harlan, J., dissenting); Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, 256-257 (1952); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 86-88 (1949).

But, it is argued, there are no scientific data which conclusively demonstrate that exposure to obscene material adversely affects men and women or their society. It is urged on behalf of the petitioners that, absent such a demonstration, any kind of state regulation is “impermissible." We reject this argument. It is not for us to resolve empirical uncertainties underlying state legislation, save in the exceptional case where that legislation plainly impinges upon rights protected by the Constitution itself. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, speaking for the Court in Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 642–643 (1968), said: "We do not demand of legislatures 'scientifically certain criteria of legislation.' Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 110." Although there is no conclusive proof of a connection between antisocial behavior

10 "In this and other cases in this area of the law, which are coming to us in ever-increasing numbers, we are faced with the resolution of rights basic both to individuals and to society as a whole. Specifically, we are called upon to reconcile the right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent society and, on the other hand, the right of individuals to express themselves freely in accordance with the guarantees of the First and Fourteenth Amendments." Jacobellis v. Ohio, supra, at 199 (Warren, C. J., dissenting).

11 Mr. Justice Holmes stated in another context, that:

"[T]he proper course is to recognize that a state legislature can do whatever it sees fit to do unless it is restrained by some express prohibition in the Constitution of the United States or of the State, and that Courts should be careful not to extend such prohibitions beyond their obvious meaning by reading into them conceptions of public policy that the particular Court may happen to entertain." Tyson & Brother v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418, 446 (1927) (dissenting opinion joined by Brandeis, J.).

and obscene material, the legislature of Georgia could quite reasonably determine that such a connection does or might exist. In deciding Roth, this Court implicitly accepted that a legislature could legitimately act on such a conclusion to protect "the social interest in order and morality." Roth v. United States, 354 U. S., at 485, quoting Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942) (emphasis added in Roth).12

From the beginning of civilized societies, legislators and judges have acted on various unprovable assumptions. Such assumptions underlie much lawful state regulation of commercial and business affairs. See Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. §. 726, 730 (1963); Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S., at 632-633, 641-645; Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co., 335 U. S. 525, 536-537 (1949). The same is true of the federal securities and antitrust laws and a host of federal regulations. See SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, Inc., 375 U. S. 180, 186-195 (1963); American Power & Light Co. v. SEC, 329 U. S. 90, 99-103 (1946); North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705707 (1946), and cases cited. See also Brooks v. United States, 267 U. S. 432, 436-437 (1925), and Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308, 322 (1913). On the basis of these assumptions both Congress and state legislatures have, for example, drastically restricted associational rights by adopting antitrust laws, and have strictly regulated public expression by issuers of and dealers in securities, profit sharing "coupons," and "trading stamps,"

12 "It has been well observed that such [lewd and obscene] utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality." Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 485 (1957), quoting Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942) (emphasis added in Roth).

commanding what they must and must not publish and announce. See Sugar Institute, Inc. v. United States, 297 U. S. 553, 597-602 (1936); Merrick v. N. W. Halsey & Co., 242 U. S. 568, 584-589 (1917); Caldwell v. Sioux Falls Stock Yards Co., 242 U. S. 559, 567-568 (1917); Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U. S. 539, 548-552 (1917); Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S. 369, 383386 (1916); Rast v. Van Deman & Lewis Co., 240 U. S. 342, 363-368 (1916). Understandably those who entertain an absolutist view of the First Amendment find it uncomfortable to explain why rights of association, speech, and press should be severely restrained in the marketplace of goods and money, but not in the marketplace of pornography.

Likewise, when legislatures and administrators act to protect the physical environment from pollution and to preserve our resources of forests, streams, and parks, they must act on such imponderables as the impact of a new highway near or through an existing park or wilderness area. See Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 417-420 (1971). Thus, § 18 (a) of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, 23 U. S. C. § 138, and the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, as amended, 82 Stat. 824, 49 U. S. C. § 1653 (f), have been described by Mr. Justice Black as "a solemn determination of the highest law-making body of this Nation that the beauty and health-giving facilities of our parks are not to be taken away for public roads without hearings, factfindings, and policy determinations under the supervision of a Cabinet officer. ..." Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, supra, at 421 (separate opinion joined by BRENNAN, J.). The fact that a congressional directive reflects unprovable assumptions about what is good for the people, including imponderable aesthetic assumptions, is not a sufficient reason to find that statute unconstitutional.

49

Opinion of the Court

If we accept the unprevable assumption that a complete education requires the reading of certain books, see Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 245 (1968), and Johnson v. New York State Education Dept., 449 F. 2d 871, 882–883 (CA2 1971) (dissenting opinion), vacated and remanded to consider mootness, 409 U. S. 75 (1972), id., at 76–77 (MARSHALL, J., concurring), and the well nigh universal belief that good books, plays, and art lift the spirit, improve the mind, enrich the human personality, and develop character, can we then say that a state legislature may not act on the corollary assumption that commerce in obscene books, or public exhibitions focused on obscene conduct, have a tendency to exert a corrupting and debasing impact leading to antisocial behavior? "Many of these effects may be intangible and indistinct, but they are nonetheless real." American Power & Light Co. v. SEC, supra, at 103. Mr. Justice Cardozo said that all laws in Western civilization are "guided by a robust common sense Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548, 590 (1937). The sum of experience, including that of the past two decades, affords an ample basis for legislatures to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality, can be debased and distorted by crass commercial exploitation of sex. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits a State from reaching such a conclusion and acting on it legislatively simply because there is no conclusive evidence or empirical data.

It is argued that individual "free will" must govern, even in activities beyond the protection of the First Amendment and other constitutional guarantees of privacy, and that government cannot legitimately impede. an individual's desire to see or acquire obscene plays, movies, and books. We do indeed base our society on